“Is this a bad time?” Penelope asked.
“No,” Daphne replied with a small, vaguely amused smile, “just an odd one.”
“Oh. Well, I could come back later, I suppose.”
“Of course not,” Lady Bridgerton said. “Please sit down and have some tea.”
Sophie watched as the young woman took a seat on the sofa next to Francesca. Penelope was no sophisticated beauty, but she was rather fetching in her own, uncomplicated way. Her hair was a brownish red, and her cheeks were lightly dusted with freckles. Her complexion was a touch sallow, although Sophie had a suspicion that that had more to do with her unattractive yellow frock than anything else.
Come to think of it, she rather thought that she’d read something in Lady Whistledown’s column about Penelope’s awful clothes. Pity the poor girl couldn’t talk her mother into letting her wear blue.
But as Sophie surreptitiously studied Penelope, she became aware that Penelope was not-so-surreptitiously studying her.
“Have we met?” Penelope suddenly asked.
Sophie was suddenly gripped by an awful, premonition-like feeling. Or maybe it was deja vu. “I don’t think so,” she said quickly.
Penelope’s gaze didn’t waver from her face. “Are you certain?”
“I—I don’t see how we could have done.”
Penelope let out a little breath and shook her head, as if clearing cobwebs from her mind. “I’m sure you’re correct. But there is something terribly familiar about you.”
“Sophie is our new lady’s maid,” Hyacinth said, as if that would explain anything. “She usually joins us for tea when we’re only family.”
Sophie watched Penelope as she murmured something in response, and then suddenly it hit her. She had seen Penelope before! It had been at the masquerade, probably no more than ten seconds before she’d met Benedict.
She’d just made her entrance, and the young men who had quickly surrounded her had still been making their way to her side. Penelope had been standing right there, dressed in some rather strange green costume with a funny hat. For some reason she hadn’t been wearing a mask. Sophie had stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out what her costume was meant to be, when a young gentleman had bumped into Penelope, nearly knocking her to the floor.
Sophie had reached out and helped her up, and had just managed to say something like, “There you are,” when several more gentlemen had rushed in, separating the two women.
Then Benedict had arrived, and Sophie had had eyes for no one but him. Penelope—and the abominable way she had been treated by the young gentlemen at the masquerade— had been forgotten until this very moment.
And clearly the event had remained buried at the back of Penelope’s mind as well.
“I’m sure I must be mistaken,” Penelope said as she accepted a cup of tea from Francesca. “It’s not your looks, precisely, but rather the way you hold yourself, if that makes any sense.”
Sophie decided that a smooth intervention was necessary and so she pasted on her best conversational smile, and said, “I shall take that as a compliment, since I am sure that the ladies of your acquaintance are gracious and kind indeed.”
The minute she shut her mouth, however, she realized that that had been overkill. Francesca was looking at her as if she’d sprouted horns, and the corners of Lady Bridgerton’s mouth were twitching as she said, “Why, Sophie, I vow that is the longest sentence you have uttered in a fortnight.”
Sophie lifted her teacup to her face and mumbled, “I haven’t been feeling well.”
“Oh!” Hyacinth suddenly blurted out. “I hope you are not feeling too sickly, because I was hoping you could help me this evening.”
“Of course,” Sophie said, eager for an excuse to turn away from Penelope, who was still studying her as if she were a human puzzle. “What is it you need?”
“I have promised to entertain my cousins this eve.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Lady Bridgerton said, setting her saucer down on the table. “I’d nearly forgotten.”
Hyacinth nodded. “Could you help? There are four of them, and I’m sure to be overrun.”
“Of course,” Sophie said. “How old are they?”
Hyacinth shrugged.
“Between the ages of six and ten,” Lady Bridgerton said with a disapproving expression. “You should know that, Hyacinth.” She turned to Sophie and added, “They are the children of my youngest sister.”
Sophie said to Hyacinth, “Fetch me when they arrive. I love children and would be happy to help.”
“Excellent,” Hyacinth said, clasping her hands together. “They are so young and active. They would have worn me out.”
“Hyacinth,” Francesca said, “you’re hardly old and decrepit.”
“When was the last time you spent two hours with four children under the age of ten?”
“Stop,” Sophie said, laughing for the first time in two weeks. “I’ll help. No one will be worn-out. And you should come, too, Francesca. We’ll have a lovely time, I’m sure.”
“Are you—” Penelope started to say something, then cut herself off. “Never mind.”
But when Sophie looked over at her, she was still staring at her face with a most perplexed expression. Penelope opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again, saying, “I know. I know you.”
“I’m sure she’s right,” Eloise said with a jaunty grin. “Penelope never forgets a face.”