CHAPTER FIVE

Penelope sighed as she entered her bedroom. She had attempted to sneak into the kitchen for food, but had been caught by her mother. A thirty minute lecture on everything she was doing wrong and how she was ruining herself and their family. It left her even more exhausted than she had been previously and she didn't believe that was possible.

"Pen."

She started, slapping a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming when she realized it was Colin who had called her name. "What are you doing here?"

Colin stepped towards her. "I need to talk with you."

"Haven't we said it all?" Penelope huffed, crossing the room to the window.

"Seeing as you have not stopped this ridiculous notion of calling off the wedding, no, I do not think we have said it all."

Penelope briefly closed her eyes. "There is no solution here, Colin. I will not entrap you in a marriage and I will not be accused of it either. And I am not giving up Whistledown. She is me as much as I am. The thought," she placed a hand on her chest as her breathing grew heavy, "of giving it up is destroying me."

Colin frowned. "But the thought of giving me up is not?"

"Colin, that is not fair!" she countered, fiercely. "You are the only one making me choose. You are the one that accused me of entrapping you when you are the one that chased after me in that carriage." She turned from him, her arms wrapping around her waist. "I had given you up. I have loved you for years, from a child's crush to a woman's love. I gave you up and tried to move on." She faced him once again, her anger reigniting. "You were the one who chased after me! I did not entrap you!"

"I know," he muttered, sitting down on her bed. "I should not have said that. I am sorry. I was lashing out to hurt you as I was feeling hurt. I know you would not entrap me. Clearly, you would not entrap me."

Penelope sat on the opposite side of the bed, her back facing his. "I did not begin wishing to hurt anyone. I did think that anyone would ever read my writing. But my father's solicitor found some papers that I had written and gotten mixed up with some of my father's. He enjoyed them thoroughly. He was the one whom set up the first Whistledown network. He also suggested the first few weeks be given for free to whet the ton's appetite."

Colin smiled, despite himself. "It was a smart plan."

"I wrote nothing of your family in my original papers," she continued. "But the solicitor insisted it would appear to unusual and cast suspicions in your directions if I did not add you."

"If you had someone working with you, why would you be out in the middle of the night?"

Shoulder slumping, Penelope settled further into her bed. "The solicitor passed away just a few weeks into our arrangement. I continued from there." She turned suddenly towards him. "I swear, I tried to find another solution with Eloise. She would not listen to me. I believed at the time that it was my only solution."

Colin laid his torso on the bed, his hands clasped together across her stomach. He was finding the intense anger he had had earlier was fading as they talked. "I believe you."

"I will admit that when it came to Marina, I exposed her partly out of anger. I had attempted all season to dissuade Marina from her plan when it came to you. I could not tell you, though. For if you, and only you, discovered her… condition… my mama would have known immediately that it had come from me."

"I have seen how you have been treated by your family, Pen. I cannot blame you for not coming to me directly."

Penelope pursed her lips, willing all of the memories of the things said to her by her family away. "I thought I would have more time to develop a way to discourage your wedding, but then I discovered that you and Marina planned to leave for Gretna Green. I panicked and exposed her in Whistledown. I was not and am not proud of myself."

Reaching up behind him to her shoulder, Colin urged her to mimic his position and lay down. They were now face to face. "I cannot condone your methods, but I do thank you for saving me from that marriage."

"I had gotten so cocky with that second year and I slipped up, enough for Eloise to go looking in my room for proof that I was Whistledown. I resolved that this year that I would do better, that I would be better, and I believe that I have."

"Except for the article about me."

Penelope turned her head to face him. "I will admit that the tone was off-putting."

Amusement filled his eyes and he had to hold back a laugh. "Off-putting? Pen, that was downright scathing!"

"I was angry with you," she giggled. "I wrote it after we argued at Lady Dansbury's ball. Scathing, it may have been, but it was the truth. I missed the old Colin, the sweet, generous one I had grown up with, not the Colin that return to fit into society and nothing more."

"Reluctantly, I concur." They laughed together at his acquiescence. "Pen, I love you. I cannot imagine my life without you by my side. And I do love all of you, even the part of you that is Whistledown. I was wrong to try to separate the two of you when you are one in the same. But this secret…"

Penelope nodded, her chin quivering. "I know. It is too big, too heavy. I cannot give it up, but maybe I can bring it into the light." She smiled at the confusion on his face. "It is time to talk to the Queen."

Colin sat up, suddenly. "Are you mad?"

"It is the best course. It is the only way to ensure that this no longer hangs over our heads."

"And then will you put my ring back on your finger?" he asked after pause. She was correct. Even if she gave up Whistledown, the threat that she could be discovered for her past writings would still be there.

Penelope sighed as she sat up. "And then, I will let you see if the fallout is something that you and your family can bare."