Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,72

more worthy of tears?

Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe all this sadness building up inside of her was for the death of a dream. Her dream of him. She’d built up the perfect image of him in her mind, and with every word he spat in her face, it was becoming more and more obvious that her dream was quite simply wrong.

“I’m making a point,” he said, snatching the paper back from her hands. “Look at this. It might as well be an invitation for further investigation. You’re mocking society, daring them to uncover you.”

“That’s not at all what I’m doing!”

“It may not be your intention, but it is certainly the end result.”

He probably had something of a point there, but she was loath to give him credit for it. “It’s a chance I’ll have to take,” she replied, crossing her arms and looking pointedly away from him. “I’ve gone eleven years without detection. I don’t see why I’m in need of undue worry now.”

His breath left him in a short punch of exasperation. “Do you have any concept of money? Any idea how many people would like Lady Danbury’s thousand pounds?”

“I have more of a concept of money than you do,” she replied, bristling at the insult. “And besides, Lady Danbury’s reward doesn’t make my secret any more vulnerable.”

“It makes everyone else more determined, and that makes you more vulnerable. Not to mention,” he added with a wry twist to his lips, “as my youngest sister pointed out, there is the glory.”

“Hyacinth?” she asked.

He nodded grimly, setting the paper down on the bench beside him. “And if Hyacinth thinks the glory at having uncovered your identity is enviable, then you can be sure she’s not the only one. It may very well be why Cressida is pursuing her stupid ruse.”

“Cressida’s doing it for the money,” Penelope grumbled. “I’m sure of it.”

“Fine. It doesn’t matter why she’s doing it. All that matters is that she is, and once you dispose of her with your idiocy”—he slammed his hand against the paper, causing Penelope to wince as a loud crinkle filled the air—“someone else will take her place.”

“This is nothing I don’t already know,” she said, mostly because she couldn’t bear to give him the last word.

“Then for the love of God, woman,” he burst out, “let Cressida get away with her scheme. She’s the answer to your prayers.”

Her eyes snapped up to his. “You don’t know my prayers.”

Something in her tone hit Colin squarely in the chest. She hadn’t changed his mind, hadn’t even budged it, but he couldn’t seem to find the right words to fill the moment. He looked at her, then he looked out the window, his mind absently focusing on the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

“We really are taking the long way home,” he murmured.

She didn’t say anything. He didn’t blame her. It had been a stupid non sequitur, words to fill the silence and nothing else.

“If you let Cressida—” he began.

“Stop,” she implored him. “Please, don’t say any more. I can’t let her do it.”

“Have you really thought about what you’d gain?”

She looked at him sharply. “Do you think I’ve been able to think of anything else these past few days?”

He tried another tactic. “Does it truly matter that people know you were Lady Whistledown? You know that you were clever and fooled us all. Can’t that be enough?”

“You’re not listening to me!” Her mouth remained frozen open, in an odd incredulous oval, as if she couldn’t quite believe that he didn’t understand what she was saying. “I don’t need for people to know it was me. I just need for them to know it wasn’t her.”

“But clearly you don’t mind if people think someone else is Lady Whistledown,” he insisted. “After all, you’ve been accusing Lady Danbury for weeks.”

“I had to accuse someone,” she explained. “Lady Danbury asked me point-blank who I thought it was, and I couldn’t very well say myself. Besides, it wouldn’t be so very bad if people thought it was Lady Danbury. At least I like Lady Danbury.”

“Penelope—”

“How would you feel if your journals were published with Nigel Berbrooke as the author?” she demanded.

“Nigel Berbrooke can barely string two sentences together,” he said with a derisive snort. “I hardly think anyone would believe he could have written my journals.” As an afterthought, he gave her a little nod as an apology, since Berbrooke was, after all, married to her sister.

“Try to imagine it,” she ground out. “Or substitute