Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,21

first meeting. “Never mind that. I meant just for this afternoon, you ninny.”

She smiled, clearly in spite of herself, and he knew that calling her a ninny had been the exact right thing to do, although in all truth he had no idea why.

“Here we go,” he said slowly, drawing his words out with a long flourish of his arm. “You are walking across Berkeley Square, and you spy me in the distance. I call out your name, and you reply by saying . . .”

Penelope caught her lower lip between her teeth, trying, for some unknown reason, to contain her smile. What magical star had Colin been born under, that he always knew what to say? He was the pied piper, leaving nothing but happy hearts and smiling faces in his wake. Penelope would have bet money—far more than the thousand pounds Lady Danbury had offered up—that she was not the only woman in London desperately in love with the third Bridgerton.

He dipped his head to the side and then righted it in a prompting sort of motion.

“I would reply . . .” Penelope said slowly. “I would reply . . .”

Colin waited two seconds, then said, “Really, any words will do.”

Penelope had planned to fix a bright grin on her face, but she discovered that the smile on her lips was quite genuine. “Colin!” she said, trying to sound as if she’d just been surprised by his arrival. “What are you doing about?”

“Excellent reply,” he said.

She shook her finger at him. “You’re breaking out of character.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Apologies.” He paused, blinked twice, then said, “Here we are. How about this: Much the same as you, I imagine. Heading to Number Five for tea.”

Penelope found herself falling into the rhythm of the conversation. “You sound as if you’re just going for a visit. Don’t you live there?”

He grimaced. “Hopefully just for the next week. A fortnight at most. I’m trying to find a new place to live. I had to give up the lease on my old set of rooms when I left for Cyprus, and I haven’t found a suitable replacement yet. I had a bit of business down on Piccadilly and thought I’d walk back.”

“In the rain?”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t raining when I left earlier this morning. And even now it’s just drizzle.”

Just drizzle, Penelope thought. Drizzle that clung to his obscenely long eyelashes, framing eyes of such perfect green that more than one young lady had been moved to write (extremely bad) poetry about them. Even Penelope, levelheaded as she liked to think herself, had spent many a night in bed, staring at the ceiling and seeing nothing but those eyes.

Just drizzle, indeed.

“Penelope?”

She snapped to attention. “Right. Yes. I’m going to your mother’s for tea as well. I do so every Monday. And often on other days, too,” she admitted. “When there’s, er, nothing interesting occurring at my house.”

“No need to sound so guilty about it. My mother’s a lovely woman. If she wants you over for tea, you should go.”

Penelope had a bad habit of trying to hear between the lines of people’s conversations, and she had a suspicion that Colin was really saying that he didn’t blame her if she wanted to escape her own mother from time to time.

Which somehow, unaccountably, made her feel a little sad.

He rocked on his heels for a moment, then said, “Well, I shouldn’t keep you out here in the rain.”

She smiled, since they’d been standing outside for at least fifteen minutes. Still, if he wanted to continue with the ruse, she would do so as well. “I’m the one with the parasol,” she pointed out.

His lips curved slightly. “So you are. But still, I wouldn’t be much of a gentleman if I didn’t steer you toward a more hospitable environment. Speaking of which . . .” He frowned, looking around.

“Speaking of what?”

“Of being a gentleman. I believe we’re supposed to see to the welfare of ladies.”

“And?”

He crossed his arms. “Shouldn’t you have a maid with you?”

“I live just around the corner,” she said, a little bit deflated that he didn’t remember that. She and her sister were best friends with two of his sisters, after all. He’d even walked her home once or twice. “On Mount Street,” she added, when his frown did not dissipate.

He squinted slightly, looking in the direction of Mount Street, although she had no idea what he hoped to accomplish by doing so.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Colin. It’s just near the