purchase of a completely new wardrobe.
Unfortunately, her mother once again insisted on yellow, orange, and the occasional splash of red. And this time, Lady Whistledown wrote:
Miss Penelope Featherington (the least inane of the Featherington sisters) wore a gown of lemon yellow that left a sour taste in one’s mouth.
Which at least seemed to imply that Penelope was the most intelligent member of her family, although the compliment was backhanded, indeed.
But Penelope wasn’t the only one singled out by the acerbic gossip columnist. Dark-haired Kate Sheffield was likened to a singed daffodil in her yellow dress, and Kate went on to marry Anthony Bridgerton, Colin’s older brother and a viscount to boot!
So Penelope held out hope.
Well, not really. She knew Colin wasn’t going to marry her, but at least he danced with her at every ball, and he made her laugh, and every now and then she made him laugh, and she knew that that would have to be enough.
And so Penelope’s life continued. She had her third season, then her fourth. Her two older sisters, Prudence and Philippa, finally found husbands of their own and moved away. Mrs. Featherington held out hope that Penelope might still make a match, since it had taken both Prudence and Philippa five seasons to snare husbands, but Penelope knew that she was destined to remain a spinster. It wouldn’t be fair to marry someone when she was still so desperately in love with Colin. And maybe, in the far reaches of her mind—in the farthest-back corner, tucked away behind the French verb conjugations she’d never mastered and the arithmetic she never used—she still held out a tiny shred of hope.
Until that day.
Even now, seven years later, she still referred to it as that day.
She’d gone to the Bridgerton household, as she frequently did, to take tea with Eloise and her mother and sisters. It was right before Eloise’s brother Benedict had married Sophie, only he didn’t know who she really was, and—well, that didn’t signify, except that it may have been the one truly great secret in the last decade that Lady Whistledown had never managed to unearth.
Anyway, she was walking through the front hall, listening to her feet tap along the marble tile as she saw herself out. She was adjusting her pelisse and preparing to walk the short distance to her own home (just around the corner, really) when she heard voices. Male voices. Male Bridgerton voices.
It was the three elder Bridgerton brothers: Anthony, Benedict, and Colin. They were having one of those conversations that men have, the kind in which they grumble a lot and poke fun at each other. Penelope had always liked to watch the Bridgertons interact in this manner; they were such a family.
Penelope could see them through the open front door, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying until she’d reached the threshold. And in a testament to the bad timing that had plagued her throughout her life, the first voice she heard was Colin’s, and the words were not kind.
“. . . and I am certainly not going to marry Penelope Featherington!”
“Oh!” The word slipped over her lips before she could even think, the squeal of it piercing the air like an off-key whistle.
The three Bridgerton men turned to face her with identical horrified faces, and Penelope knew that she had just entered into what would certainly be the most awful five minutes of her life.
She said nothing for what seemed like an eternity, and then, finally, with a dignity she never dreamed she possessed, she looked straight at Colin and said, “I never asked you to marry me.”
His cheeks went from pink to red. He opened his mouth, but not a sound came out. It was, Penelope thought with wry satisfaction, probably the only time in his life he’d ever been at a loss for words.
“And I never—” She swallowed convulsively. “I never said to anyone that I wanted you to ask me.”
“Penelope,” Colin finally managed, “I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” she said.
“No,” he insisted, “I do. I hurt your feelings, and—”
“You didn’t know I was there.”
“But nevertheless—”
“You are not going to marry me,” she said, her voice sounding very strange and hollow to her ears. “There is nothing wrong with that. I am not going to marry your brother Benedict.”
Benedict had clearly been trying not to look, but he snapped to attention at that.
Penelope fisted her hands at her sides. “It doesn’t hurt his feelings when I announce that I