Epilogue
Bedford Square, Bloomsbury
London, 1825
“It’s here! It’s here!”
Penelope looked up from the papers spread over her desk. Colin was standing in the doorway of her small office, jumping from foot to foot like a schoolboy.
“Your book!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet as quickly as her rather ungainly body would allow. “Oh, Colin, let me see. Let me see. I can’t wait!”
He couldn’t contain his grin as he handed her his book.
“Ohhhh,” she said reverently, holding the slim, leather-bound volume in her hands. “Oh, my.” She held the book up to her face and inhaled deeply. “Don’t you just love the smell of new books?”
“Look at this, look at this,” he said impatiently, pointing to his name on the front cover.
Penelope beamed. “Look at that. And so elegant, too.” She ran her finger over the words as she read, “An Englishman in Italy, by Colin Bridgerton.”
He looked ready to burst with pride. “It looks good, doesn’t it?”
“It looks better than good, it looks perfect! When will An Englishman in Cyprus be available?”
“The publisher says every six months. They want to release An Englishman in Scotland after that.”
“Oh, Colin, I’m so proud of you.”
He drew her into his arms, letting his chin rest on top of her head. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Yes, you could,” she replied loyally.
“Just be quiet and accept the praise.”
“Very well,” she said, grinning even though he couldn’t see her face, “you couldn’t. Clearly, you could never have been published without such a talented editor.”
“You won’t hear any disagreement from me,” he said softly, kissing the top of her head before he let her go. “Sit down,” he added. “You shouldn’t be on your feet for so long.”
“I’m fine,” she assured him, but she sat down, anyway. Colin had been overly protective since the first moment she’d told him she was pregnant; now that she was only a month from her due date, he was insufferable.
“What are these papers?” he asked, glancing down at her scribblings.
“This? Oh, it’s nothing.” She started to gather them into piles. “Just a little project I was working on.”
“Really?” He sat down across from her. “What is it?”
“It’s . . . well . . . actually . . .”
“What is it, Penelope?” he asked, looking exceedingly amused by her stammers.
“I’ve been at loose ends since I finished editing your journals,” she explained, “and I found I rather missed writing.”
He was smiling as he leaned forward. “What are you working on?”
She blushed; she wasn’t sure why. “A novel.”
“A novel? Why, that’s brilliant, Penelope!”
“You think so?”
“Of course I think so. What is it called?”
“Well, I’ve only written a few dozen pages,” she said, “and there’s much work to be done, but I think, if I don’t decide to change it overmuch, that I will call it The Wallflower.”
His eyes grew warm, almost misty. “Really?”
“It’s a little bit autobiographical,” she admitted.
“Just a little bit?” he returned.
“Just a little.”
“But it has a happy ending?”
“Oh, yes,” she said fervently. “It has to.”
“It has to?”
She reached her hand across the table and rested it atop his. “Happy endings are all I can do,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t know how to write anything else.”
Romancing Mister Bridgerton: The 2nd Epilogue
“You didn’t tell her?”
Penelope Bridgerton would have said more, and in fact would have liked to say more, but words were difficult, what with her mouth hanging slack. Her husband had just returned from a mad dash across the south of England with his three brothers, in pursuit of his sister Eloise, who had, by all accounts, run off to elope with—
Oh, dear God.
“Is she married?” Penelope asked frantically.
Colin tossed his hat on a chair with a clever little twist of his wrist, one corner of his mouth lifting in a satisfied smile as it spun through the air on a perfect horizontal axis. “Not yet,” he replied.
So she hadn’t eloped. But she had run away. And she’d done it in secret. Eloise, who was Penelope’s closest friend. Eloise, who told Penelope everything. Eloise, who apparently didn’t tell Penelope everything, had run off to the home of a man none of them knew, leaving a note assuring her family that all would be well and not to worry.
Not to worry????
Good heavens, one would think Eloise Bridgerton knew her family better than that. They had been frantic, every last one of them. Penelope had stayed with her new mother-in-law while the men were searching for Eloise. Violet Bridgerton had put up a good front, but her skin was positively ashen, and Penelope could not help but notice the way her hands shook with every movement.
And now Colin was back, acting as if nothing was amiss, answering none of her questions to her satisfaction, and beyond all that—
“How could you not have told her?” she said again, dogging his heels.
He sprawled into a chair and shrugged. “There really wasn’t an appropriate time.”
“You were gone five days!”
“Yes, well, not all of them were with Eloise. A day’s travel on either end, after all.”
“But—but—”
Colin summoned just enough energy to glance about the room. “Don’t suppose you ordered tea?”
“Yes, of course,” Penelope said reflexively, since it had not taken more than a week of marriage to learn that when it came to her new husband, it was best to always have food at the ready. “But Colin—”
“I did hurry back, you know.”