Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,60

intending to say that he’d hoped to have a private word with Penelope. Lady Danbury would be ferociously curious, but there was really no other course of action, and it would probably do her good to be left in the dark for once.

But just as his lips were forming his query, he realized that something strange was afoot in the Macclesfield ballroom. People were whispering and pointing toward the small orchestra, whose members had recently laid their instruments down. Furthermore, neither Penelope nor Lady Danbury were paying him the least attention.

“What is everyone looking at?” Colin asked.

Lady Danbury didn’t even bother looking back at him as she replied, “Cressida Twombley has some sort of announcement.”

How annoying. He’d never liked Cressida. She’d been mean and petty when she was Cressida Cowper, and she was meaner and pettier as Cressida Twombley. But she was beautiful, and she was intelligent, in a rather cruel sort of way, and so she was still considered a leader in certain society circles.

“Can’t imagine what she has to say that I’d want to listen to,” Colin muttered.

He spied Penelope trying to stifle a smile and flashed her an I-caught-you sort of look. But it was the sort of I-caught-you look that also said And-I-agree-completely.

“Good evening!” came the loud voice of the Earl of Macclesfield.

“Good evening to you!” replied some drunken fool in the back. Colin twisted to see who it was, but the crowd had grown too thick.

The earl spoke some more, then Cressida opened her mouth, at which point Colin ceased paying attention. Whatever Cressida had to say, it wasn’t going to help him solve his main problem: figuring out exactly how he was going to apologize to Penelope. He’d tried rehearsing the words in his mind, but they never sounded quite right, and so he was hoping his famously glib tongue would lead him in the right direction when the time came. Surely she’d understand—

“Whistledown!”

Colin only caught the last word of Cressida’s monologue, but there was no way he could have missed the massive collective indrawn breath that swept the ballroom.

Followed by the flurry of harsh, urgent whispers one generally only hears after someone is caught in a very embarrassing, very public compromising position.

“What?” he blurted out, turning to Penelope, who’d gone white as a sheet. “What did she say?”

But Penelope was speechless.

He looked to Lady Danbury, but the old lady had her hand over her mouth and looked as if she might possibly swoon.

Which was somewhat alarming, as Colin would have bet large sums of money that Lady Danbury had never once swooned in all of her seventy-odd years.

“What?” he demanded again, hoping one of them would break free of her stupor.

“It can’t be true,” Lady Danbury finally whispered, her mouth slack even as she spoke the words. “I don’t believe it.”

“What?”

She pointed toward Cressida, her extended index finger quivering in the flickering candlelight. “That lady is not Lady Whistledown.”

Colin’s head snapped back and forth. To Cressida. To Lady Danbury. To Cressida. To Penelope. “She’s Lady Whistledown?” he finally blurted out.

“So she says,” Lady Danbury replied, doubt written all over her face.

Colin tended to agree with her. Cressida Twombley was the last person he’d have pegged as Lady Whistledown. She was smart; there was no denying that. But she wasn’t clever, and she wasn’t terribly witty unless she was poking fun at others. Lady Whistledown had a rather cutting sense of humor, but with the exception of her infamous comments on fashion, she never seemed to pick on the less popular members of society.

When all was said and done, Colin had to say that Lady Whistledown had rather good taste in people.

“I can’t believe this,” Lady Danbury said with a loud snort of disgust. “If I’d dreamed this would happen, I would never have made that beastly challenge.”

“This is horrible,” Penelope whispered.

Her voice was quavering, and it made Colin uneasy. “Are you all right?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think I am. I feel rather ill, actually.”

“Do you want to leave?”

Penelope shook her head again. “But I’ll sit right here, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” he said, keeping a concerned eye on her. She was still terribly pale.

“Oh, for the love of . . .” Lady Danbury blasphemed, which took Colin by surprise, but then she actually swore, which he thought might very well have tilted the planet on its axis.

“Lady Danbury?” he asked, gaping.

“She’s coming this way,” she muttered, jerking her head to the right. “I should have known I’d