He smiled contentedly and lay back against the squabs, watching the lovely springtime scene roll by his window. It was one of those perfect sorts of days when everything simply felt right. The sun was shining, he felt remarkably energized, he'd had an excellent morning meal...
Life really didn't get better than this.
And he was going over to see Penelope.
Colin chose not to analyze why he was so eager to see her;that was the sort of thing an unmarried man of three-and-thirty didn't generally care to think about. Instead he simply enjoyed the day—the sun, the air, even the three neat town-houses he passed on Mount Street before spying Penelope's front door.
There was nothing remotely different or original about any of them, but it was such a perfect morning that they seemed unusually charming butted up next to each other, tall and thin, and stately with their gray Portland stone.
It was a wonderful day, warm and serene, sunny and tranquil...
Except that just as he started to rise from his seat, a short flurry of movement across the street caught his eye.
Penelope.
She was standing on the corner of Mount and Penter streets—the far corner, the one that would be not be visible to anyone looking out a window in the Featherington home. And she was climbing into a hired hack.
Interesting.
Colin frowned, mentally smacking himself on the forehead. It wasn't interesting. What the hell was he thinking? It wasn't interesting at all. It might have been interesting, had she been, say, a man. Or it might have been interesting if the conveyance into which she'd just entered had been one from the Featherington mews and not some scruffy hired hack.
But no, this was Penelope, who was certainly not a man, and she was entering a carriage by herself, presumably heading to some completely unsuitable location, because if she were doing anything proper and normal, she'd be in a Featherington conveyance. Or better yet, with one of her sisters or a maid, or anyone, just not, damn it, by herself.
This wasn't interesting, it was idiotic.wFool woman," he muttered, hopping down from his carriage with every intention of dashing toward the hack, wrenching the door open, and dragging her out. But justas his right foot left the confines of his carriage, he was struck by the same madness that led him to wander the world.
Curiosity.
Several choice curses were grumbled under his breath, all of them self-directed. He couldn't help it. It was so unlike Penelope to be taking off by herself in a hired hack; he had to know where she was going.
And so, instead of forcibly shaking some sense into her, he directed his driver to follow the hack, and they rolled north toward the busy thoroughfare of Oxford Street, where, Colin reflected, surely Penelope intended to do a bit of shopping. There could be any number of reasons she wasn't using the Featherington carriage. Perhaps it was damaged, or one of their horses had taken ill, or Penelope was buying someone a gift and wanted to keep it a secret.
No, that wasn't right. Penelope would never embark on a shopping expedition by herself. She would take a maid, or one of her sisters, or even one of his sisters. To stroll along Oxford Street by herself was to invite gossip. A woman alone was practically an advertisement for the next Whistledown column.
Or used to be, he supposed. It was hard to get used to a life without Whistledown. He hadn't realized how accustomed he'd been to seeing it at his breakfast table whenever he was in town.
And speaking of Lady Whistledown, he was even more certain than ever that she was none other than his sister Eloise. He'd gone over to Number Five for breakfast with the express purpose of questioning her, only to be informed that she was still feeling poorly and would not be joining the family that morning.
It had not escaped Colin's notice, however, that a rather hefty tray of food had been sent up to Eloise's room. Whatever ailed his sister, it had not affected her appetite.
He hadn't made any mention of his suspicions atthe breakfast table; truly, he saw no reason to upset his mother, who would surely be horrified at the thought. It was difficult to believe, however, that Eloise—whose love of discussing scandal was eclipsed only by her thrill at discovering it— would miss the opportunity to gossip about Cressida Twombley's revelation of the night before.
Unless Eloise was Lady Whistledown, in which case she'd be up in her room, plotting her next step.
The pieces all fit. It would have been depressing if Colin hadn't felt so oddly thrilled at having found her out.
After they rolled along for a few minutes, he poked his head outside to make sure his driver had not lost sight of Penelope's carriage. There she was, right in front of him. Or at least he thought it was her. Most hired hacks looked the same, so he was going to have to trust and hope that he was following the right one. But as he looked out, he realized that they'd traveled much farther east than he would have anticipated. In fact, they were just now passing Soho Street, which meant they were nearly to Tottenham Court Road, which meant—
Dear God, was Penelope taking the carriage to his house? Bedford Square was practically right around the corner.
A delicious thrill shot up his spine, because he couldn't imagine what she was doing in this part of town if not to see him; who else would a woman like Penelope know in Bloomsbury? He couldn't imagine that her mother allowed her to associate with people who actually worked for a living, and Colin's neighbors, though certainly well enough born, were not of the aristocracy and rarely even of the gentry. And they all plodded off to work each day, doctoring and lawyering, or—
Colin frowned. Hard. They'd just rolled past Tottenham Court Road. What the devil was she doing this far east? He supposed her driver might not know his way around town very well and thought to take Bloomsbury Street up to Bedford Square, even though it was a bit out of the way, but—