Eloise doesn't want to be courted — she wants to unmask Lady Whistledown. While on her mission to find answers, she strikes up a friendship with a worker at the print shop that prints Whistledown's pamphlets, Theo (Calam Lynch). She continues to visit him at the shop and the two bond over reading and their shared politics.
It's these jaunts to visit Theo, though, that lead the Queen to think Eloise is Lady Whistledown. The real Lady Whistledown, aka Penelope, publishes another page exposing Eloise's "indecent" relationship with Theo in order to convince the Queen that Eloise is innocent, but the move ultimately leads Eloise to discover her best friend has been Lady Whistledown all along and they have a blowout fight in the finale that ends with Eloise telling Penelope she never wants to see her again.