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“Don’t you dare try that tonight,” Penelope warned “If you leave me up here by myself…”

“Don’t worry,” Hyacinth said with a sigh “I aer in what her mother would surely have termed a most unlady-like manner, “I want my devotion to you to be duly noted”

“Why is it,” Penelope asked, “that I a score of so, and when I least expect it, you will ju a favor?”

Hyacinth looked at her and blinked “Why would I need to jump?”

“Ah, look,” Penelope said, after staring at her sister-inlaw as if she were a lunatic, “here comes Lady Danbury”

“Mrs Bridgerton,” Lady Danbury said, or rather barked “Miss Bridgerton”

“Good evening, Lady Danbury,” Penelope said to the elderly countess “We saved you a seat right in front”

Lady D narrowed her eyes and poked Penelope lightly in the ankle with her cane “Always thinking of others, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Penelope demurred “I wouldn’t dream of—”

“Ha,” Lady Danbury said

It was, Hyacinth reflected, the countess’s favorite syllable That and hmmmph

“Move over, Hyacinth,” Lady D ordered “I?

??ll sit between you”

Hyacinth obedientlyour reasons for attending,” she said as Lady Danbury settled into her seat “I for one have come up blank”

“I can’t speak for you,” Lady D said to Hyacinth, “but she”—at this she jerked her head toward Penelope—“is here for the same reason I am”