Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,7

Lord only knows where, to countries that are positively unheathen—”

“I believe they practice Christianity in Greece,” Penelope murmured, her eyes back down on her needlework.

“Don’t be impertinent, Penelope Anne Featherington, and they’re Catholics!” Portia shuddered on the word.

“They’re not Catholics at all,” Penelope replied, giving up on the needlework and setting it aside. “They’re Greek Orthodox.”

“Well, they’re not Church of England,” Portia said with a sniff.

“Seeing as how they’re Greek, I don’t think they’re terribly worried about that.”

Portia’s eyes narrowed disapprovingly. “And how do you know about this Greek religion, anyway? No, don’t tell me,” she said with a dramatic flourish. “You read it somewhere.”

Penelope just blinked as she tried to think of a suitable reply.

“I wish you wouldn’t read so much,” Portia sighed. “I probably could have married you off years ago if you had concentrated more on the social graces and less on . . . less on . . .”

Penelope had to ask. “Less on what?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it is you do that has you staring into space and daydreaming so often.”

“I’m just thinking,” Penelope said quietly. “Sometimes I just like to stop and think.”

“Stop what?” Portia wanted to know.

Penelope couldn’t help but smile. Portia’s query seemed to sum up all that was different between mother and daughter. “It’s nothing, Mother,” Penelope said. “Really.”

Portia looked as if she wanted to say more, then thought the better of it. Or maybe she was just hungry. She did pluck a biscuit off the tea tray and pop it into her mouth.

Penelope started to reach out to take the last biscuit for herself, then decided to let her mother have it. She might as well keep her mother’s mouth full. The last thing she wanted was to find herself in another conversation about Colin Bridgerton.

“Colin’s back!”

Penelope looked up from her book—A Brief History of Greece—to see Eloise Bridgerton bursting into her room. As usual, Eloise had not been announced. The Featherington butler was so used to seeing her there that he treated her like a member of the family.

“Is he?” Penelope asked, managing to feign (in her opinion) rather realistic indifference. Of course, she did set A Brief History of Greece down behind Mathilda, the novel by S. R. Fielding that had been all the rage a year earlier. Everyone had a copy of Mathilda on their bedstand. And it was thick enough to hide A Brief History of Greece.

Eloise sat down in Penelope’s desk chair. “Indeed, and he’s very tanned. All that time in the sun, I suppose.”

“He went to Greece, didn’t he?”

Eloise shook her head. “He said the war there has worsened, and it was too dangerous. So he went to Cyprus instead.”

“My, my,” Penelope said with a smile. “Lady Whistledown got something wrong.”

Eloise smiled that cheeky Bridgerton smile, and once again Penelope realized how lucky she was to have her as her closest friend. She and Eloise had been inseparable since the age of seventeen. They’d had their London seasons together, reached adulthood together, and, much to their mothers’ dismay, had become spinsters together.

Eloise claimed that she hadn’t met the right person.

Penelope, of course, hadn’t been asked.

“Did he enjoy Cyprus?” Penelope inquired.

Eloise sighed. “He said it was brilliant. How I should love to travel. It seems everyone has been somewhere but me.”

“And me,” Penelope reminded her.

“And you,” Eloise agreed. “Thank goodness for you.”

“Eloise!” Penelope exclaimed, throwing a pillow at her. But she thanked goodness for Eloise, too. Every day. Many women went through their entire lives without a close female friend, and here she had someone to whom she could tell anything. Well, almost anything. Penelope had never told her of her feelings for Colin, although she rather thought Eloise suspected the truth. Eloise was far too tactful to mention it, though, which only validated Penelope’s certainty that Colin would never love her. If Eloise had thought, for even one moment, that Penelope actually had a chance at snaring Colin as a husband, she would have been plotting her matchmaking strategies with a ruthlessness that would have impressed any army general.

When it came right down to it, Eloise was a rather managing sort of person.

“. . . and then he said that the water was so choppy that he actually cast up his accounts over the side of the boat, and—” Eloise scowled. “You’re not listening to me.”

“No,” Penelope admitted. “Well, yes, actually, parts of it. I cannot believe Colin actually told you he vomited.”

“Well, I am his sister.”

“He’d be furious with you if he knew