Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,38

mortified.”

“They’re going to be mortified anyway,” Felicity grumbled.

“No, they won’t,” Penelope said. “At least not that one, that one, or that one,” she said, pointing to the two on violins and the one at the piano. But that one”—she motioned discreetly to the girl sitting with a cello between her knees—“is already miserable. The least we can do is not to make it worse by allowing someone catty and cruel to sit here.”

“She’s only going to be eviscerated later this week by Lady Whistledown,” Felicity muttered.

Penelope opened her mouth to say more, but at that exact moment she realized that the person who had just occupied the seat on her other side was Eloise.

“Eloise,” Penelope said with obvious delight. “I thought you were planning to stay home.”

Eloise grimaced, her skin taking on a decidedly green pallor. “I can’t explain it, but I can’t seem to stay away. It’s rather like a carriage accident. You just can’t not look.”

“Or listen,” Felicity said, “as the case may be.”

Penelope smiled. She couldn’t help it.

“Did I hear you talking about Lady Whistledown when I arrived?” Eloise asked.

“I told Penelope,” Felicity said, leaning rather inelegantly across her sister to speak to Eloise, “that they’re going to be destroyed by Lady W later this week.”

“I don’t know,” Eloise said thoughtfully. “She doesn’t pick on the Smythe-Smith girls every year. I’m not sure why.”

“I know why,” cackled a voice from behind.

Eloise, Penelope, and Felicity all twisted in their seats, then lurched backward as Lady Danbury’s cane came perilously close to their faces.

“Lady Danbury,” Penelope gulped, unable to resist the urge to touch her nose—if only to reassure herself that it was still there.

“I have that Lady Whistledown figured out,” Lady Danbury said.

“You do?” Felicity asked.

“She’s soft at heart,” the old lady continued. “You see that one”—she poked her cane in the direction of the cellist, nearly piercing Eloise’s ear in the process—“right over there?”

“Yes,” Eloise said, rubbing her ear, “although I don’t think I’m going to be able to hear her.”

“Probably a blessing,” Lady Danbury said before turning back to the subject at hand. “You can thank me later.”

“You were saying something about the cellist?” Penelope said swiftly, before Eloise said something entirely inappropriate.

“Of course I was. Look at her,” Lady Danbury said. “She’s miserable. And well she should be. She’s clearly the only one who has a clue as to how dreadful they are. The other three don’t have the musical sense of a gnat.”

Penelope gave her younger sister a rather smug glance.

“You mark my words,” Lady Danbury said. “Lady Whistledown won’t have a thing to say about this musicale. She won’t want to hurt that one’s feelings. The rest of them—”

Felicity, Penelope, and Eloise all ducked as the cane came swinging by.

“Bah. She couldn’t care less for the rest of them.”

“It’s an interesting theory,” Penelope said.

Lady Danbury sat back contentedly in her chair. “Yes, it is. Isn’t it?”

Penelope nodded. “I think you’re right.”

“Hmmph. I usually am.”

Still twisted in her seat, Penelope turned first to Felicity, then to Eloise, and said, “It’s the same reason why I keep coming to these infernal musicales year after year.”

“To see Lady Danbury?” Eloise asked, blinking with confusion.

“No. Because of girls like her.” Penelope pointed at the cellist. “Because I know exactly how she feels.”

“Don’t be silly, Penelope,” Felicity said. “You’ve never played piano in public, and even if you did, you’re quite accomplished.”

Penelope turned to her sister. “It’s not about the music, Felicity.”

Then the oddest thing happened to Lady Danbury. Her face changed. Completely, utterly, astoundingly changed. Her eyes grew misty, wistful. And her lips, which were usually slightly pinched and sarcastic at the corners, softened. “I was that girl, too, Miss Featherington,” she said, so quietly that both Eloise and Felicity were forced to lean forward, Eloise with an, “I beg your pardon,” and Felicity with a considerably less polite, “What?”

But Lady Danbury only had eyes for Penelope. “It’s why I attend, year after year,” the older lady said. “Just like you.”

And for a moment Penelope felt the oddest sense of connection to the older woman. Which was mad, because they had nothing in common aside from gender—not age, not status, nothing. And yet it was almost as if the countess had somehow chosen her—for what purpose Penelope could never guess. But she seemed determined to light a fire under Penelope’s well-ordered and often boring life.

And Penelope couldn’t help but think that it was somehow working.

Isn’t it nice to discover that we’re not exactly what we thought we