Part 35 (1/2)
”I can't imagine what else there is to say,” Penelope finally said.
Colin looked away. He didn't know why he did so; it wasn't as if he could see her in the dark, anyway. But there was something about the tone of her voice that made him uneasy. She sounded vulnerable, tired. Wishful and heartbroken. She made him want to understand her, or at least to try, even though he knew she had made a terrible mistake. Every little catch in her voice put a damper on his fury. He was still angry, but somehow he'd lost the will to display it.
”You are going to be found out, you know,” he said, his voice low and controlled. ”You have humiliated Cressida; she will be beyond furious, and she's not going to rest until she unearths the real Lady Whistledown.”
Penelope moved away; he could hear her skirts rustling. ”Cressida isn't bright enough to figure me out, and besides, I'm not going to write any more columns, so there will be no opportunity for me to slip up and reveal something.” There was a beat of silence, and then she added, ”You have my promise on that.”
”It's too late,” he said.
”It's not too late,” she protested. ”No one knows! No one knows but you, and you're so ashamed of me, I can't bear it.”
”Oh, for the love of G.o.d, Penelope,” he snapped, ”I'm not ashamed of you.”
”Would you please light a candle?” she wailed.
Colin crossed the room and fumbled in a drawer for a candle and the means with which to light it. ”I'm not ashamed of you,”
he reiterated, ”but I do think you're acting foolishly.”
”You may be correct,” she said, ”but I have to do what I think is right.”
”You're not thinking,” he said dismissively, turning and looking at her face as he sparked a flame. ”Forget, if you will- although I cannot-what will happen to your reputation if people find out who you really are. Forget that people will cut you, that they will talk about you behind your back.”
”Those people aren't worth worrying about,” she said, her back ramrod straight.
”Perhaps not,” he agreed, crossing his arms and staring at her. Hard. ”But it will hurt. You will not like it, Penelope. And I won't like it.”
She swallowed convulsively. Good. Maybe he was getting through to her.
”But forget all of that,” he continued. ”You have spent the last decade insulting people. Offending them.”
”I have said lots of very nice things as well,” she protested, her dark eyes glistening with unshed tears.
”Of course you have, but those aren't the people you are going to have to worry about. I'm talking about the angry ones, the insulted ones.” He strode forward and grabbed her by her upper arms. ”Penelope,” he said urgently, ”there will be people who want to hurt you.”
His words had been meant for her, but they turned around and pierced his own heart.
He tried to picture a life without Penelope. It was impossible.
Just weeks ago she'd been... He stopped, thought. What had she been? A friend? An acquaintance? Someone he saw and never really noticed?
And now she was his fiancee, soon to be his bride. And maybe ... maybe she was something more than that. Something deeper. Something even more precious.
”What I want to know,” he asked, deliberately forcing the conversation back on topic so his mind wouldn't wander down such dangerous roads, ”is why you're not jumping on the perfect alibi if the point is to remain anonymous.”
”Because remaining anonymous isn't the point!” she fairly yelled.
”You want to be found out?” he asked, gaping at her in the candlelight.
”No, of course not,” she replied. ”But this is my work. This is my life's work. This is all I have to show for my life, and if I can't take the credit for it, I'll be d.a.m.ned if someone else will.”
Colin opened his mouth to offer a retort, but to his surprise, he had nothing to say. Life's work. Penelope had a life's work.
He did not.
She might not be able to put her name on her work, but when she was alone in her room, she could look at her back issues, and point to them, and say to herself, This is it. This is what my life has been about.
”Colin?” she whispered, clearly startled by his silence.
She was amazing. He didn't know how he hadn't realized it before, when he'd already known that she was smart and lovely and witty and resourceful. But all those adjectives, and a whole host more he hadn't yet thought of, did not add up to the true measure of her.
She was amazing.
And he was ... Dear G.o.d above, he was jealous of her.
”I'll go,” she said softly, turning and walking toward the door.
For a moment he didn't react. His mind was still frozen, reeling with revelations. But when he saw her hand on the doork.n.o.b, he knew he could not let her go. Not this night, not ever.
”No,” he said hoa.r.s.ely, closing the distance between them in three long strides. ”No,” he said again, ”I want you to stay.”
She looked up at him, her eyes two pools of confusion. ”But you said-”
He cupped her face tenderly with his hands. ”Forget what I said.”
And that was when he realized that Daphne had been right. His love hadn't been a thunderbolt from the sky. It had started with a smile, a word, a teasing glance. Every second he had spent in her presence it had grown, until he'd reached this moment, and he suddenly knew.
He loved her.
He was still furious with her for publis.h.i.+ng that last column, and he was b.l.o.o.d.y ashamed of himself that he was actually jealous of her for having found a life's work and purpose, but even with all that, he loved her.
And if he let her walk out the door right now, he would never forgive himself.
Maybe this, then, was the definition of love. When you wanted someone, needed her, adored her still, even when you were utterly furious and quite ready to tie her to the bed just to keep her from going out and making more trouble.
This was the night. This was the moment. He was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with emotion, and he had to tell her. He had to show her.
”Stay,” he whispered, and he pulled her to him, roughly, hungrily, without apology or explanation.
”Stay,” he said again, leading her to his bed. And when she didn't say anything, he said it for a third time. ”Stay.” She nodded.
He took her into his arms. This was Penelope, and this was love.
CHAPTER 18.
The moment Penelope nodded-the moment before she nodded, really-she knew that she had agreed to more than a kiss. She wasn't sure what had made Colin change his mind, why he had been so angry one minute and then so loving and tender the next.