“My lord,” Phillip said, his voice too curt. Really, he should have been more gracious—it wasn’t the viscount’s fault that his children were just one transgression short of being complete monsters—but Phillip just couldn’t manage good cheer at the moment.
“Perhaps we’re interrupting?” Anthony said mildly.
“Not at all,” Phillip replied. “As you can see, we’re merely . . . ah . . . rearranging the furniture.”
“And doing an excellent job of it,” Sophie said brightly.
Phillip shot her a grateful smile. She seemed like the type of woman who always went out of her way to make others feel more comfortable, and at the moment he could have kissed her for it.
He rose, stopping to right the overturned ottoman as he did so, then grabbed both of his children by the arms and hauled them to their feet. Oliver’s little cravat was now completely undone, and Amanda’s hair clip hung limply near her ear. “May I present my children,” he said, with all the dignity he could muster, “Oliver and Amanda Crane.”
Oliver and Amanda mumbled their greetings, both looking rather uncomfortable at being paraded before so many adults. Either that, or maybe they were actually shamefaced for their abominable behavior, unlikely as that seemed.
“Very well,” Phillip said, once the twins had done their duty. “You can run along now.”
They looked at him with woeful expressions.
“What now?”
“Can we stay?” Amanda asked in a small voice.
“No,” Phillip answered. He’d invited the Bridgertons over for lunch and a tour of his greenhouse, and he needed the children to disappear back to the nursery if either endeavor was to be successful.
“Please?” Amanda pleaded.
Phillip studiously avoided looking at his guests, aware that they were all witnessing his supreme lack of command over his children. “Nurse Edwards is waiting for you in the hall,” he said.
“We don’t like Nurse Edwards,” Oliver said. Amanda nodded beside him.
“Of course you like Nurse Edwards,” Phillip said impatiently. “She’s been your nurse for months.”
“But we don’t like her.”
Phillip looked over at the Bridgertons. “Excuse me,” he said in a clipped voice. “I apologize for the interruption.”
“It’s no bother,” Sophie said quickly, her face taking on a maternal air as she assessed the situation.
Phillip guided the twins to the far corner of the room, then crossed his arms and stared down at them. “Children,” he said sternly, “I have asked Miss Bridgerton to be my wife.”
Their eyes lit up.
“Good,” he grunted. “I see that you agree with me that this is a superior idea.”
“Will she—”
“Don’t interrupt me,” Phillip interrupted, too impatient by now to deal with any of their questions. “I want you to listen to me. I still need to gain approval from her family, and for that I need to entertain them and offer them lunch, and all this without children underfoot.” It was almost the truth, at least. The twins didn’t need to know that Anthony had practically ordered the wedding and that approval was no longer an issue.
But Amanda’s lower lip started wobbling, and even Oliver looked upset. “What now?” Phillip asked wearily.
“Are you ashamed of us?” Amanda asked.
Phillip sighed, feeling utterly sick of himself. Dear God, how had it come to this? “I’m not—”
“May I be of assistance?”
He looked over at Eloise as if she were his savior. He watched in silence as she knelt down near his children, telling them something in a voice so soft that he couldn’t understand the words, only the gentle quality of the tone.
The twins said something which was obviously in protest, but Eloise cut them off, gesticulating with her hands as she spoke. Then, to his complete and utter amazement, the twins said their farewells and walked out into the hall. They didn’t look especially happy to go, but they did it all the same.
“Thank God I’m marrying you,” Phillip said under his breath.
“Indeed,” she murmured, brushing past him with a secretive smile as she walked back to her family.
Phillip followed her and immediately apologized to Anthony, Benedict, and Sophie for his children’s behavior. “They have been difficult to manage since their mother passed,” he explained, trying to put it in the most excusable terms possible.
“There is nothing more difficult than the death of a parent,” Anthony said quietly. “Please, do not feel any need to apologize on their behalf.”
Phillip nodded his thanks, grateful for the older man’s understanding. “Come,” he said to the group, “let’s go on to lunch.”
But as he led them to the dining room, Oliver’s and Amanda’s faces loomed large in his mind. Their eyes had been sad as they’d walked away.
He’d seen his children obstinate, insufferable, even in full-fledged tantrums, but he’d not seen them sad since their mother had died.
It was very troubling.
After lunch and a tour through the greenhouse, the quintet broke into two groups. Benedict had brought along an artist’s pad, so he and Sophie remained near the house, chattering contentedly as he sketched the exterior. Anthony, Eloise, and Phillip decided to take a walk around the grounds, but Anthony very discreetly allowed Eloise and Phillip to tarry a good many yards behind, affording the affianced couple the opportunity to speak with some privacy.
“What did you say to the children?” Phillip immediately asked.
“I don’t know,” Eloise said quite honestly. “I just tried to act like my mother.” She shrugged. “It seemed to work.”
He thought about that. “It must be nice to have parents one can emulate.”
She looked at him curiously. “Didn’t you?”
He shook his head. “No.”
She hoped he would say more, gave him time, even, but he did not speak. Finally, she decided to press the matter and asked, “Was it your mother or your father?”
“What do you mean?”
“Which of your parents was so difficult?”
He looked at her for a long moment, his dark eyes inscrutable as his brows ever-so-slightly came together. Then he said, “My mother died at my birth.”
She nodded. “I see.”
“I doubt you do,” he said in a tight, hollow voice, “but I appreciate your trying.”
They walked along, keeping their pace slow, not wanting to come within earshot of Anthony, even though neither broke the silence for several minutes. Finally, as they turned along the path toward the back side of the house, Eloise uttered the question she’d been dying to ask all day—
“Why did you take me into Sophie’s study yesterday?”
He spluttered and stumbled. “I should think that would be obvious,” he mumbled, his cheeks turning pink.
“Well, yes,” Eloise said, blushing as she realized exactly what it was she had asked. “But surely you didn’t think that was going to happen.”
“A man can always hope,” he muttered.
“You don’t mean that!”
“Of course I do. But,” he added, looking rather like he couldn’t believe he was having this conversation, “as it happens, no, it never crossed my mind that matters would get quite so out of hand.” He gave her a sly, sideways sort of look. “I’m not sorry, however, that they did.”
She felt her cheeks turn hot. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“I haven’t?”
“No.” She knew she was being persistent to the point of unseemliness, but as matters went, this seemed an important one to press. “Why did you take me in there?”
He stared at her for a full ten seconds, presumably to ascertain if she was daft, then shot a quick look at Anthony to make sure he was out of earshot before answering, “Well, if you must know, yes, I did intend to kiss you. You were yapping on about the marriage and asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions.” He planted his hands on his hips and shrugged. “It seemed a good way to prove once and for all that we are well suited.”
She decided to let his description of her as a yapping female pass. “But passion is surely not enough to sustain a marriage,” she persisted.
“It’s certainly a good start,” he muttered. “May we talk of something else?”
“No. What I’m trying to say—”
He snorted and rolled his eyes. “You are always trying to say something.”
“It’s what makes me charming,” she said peevishly.
He looked at her with exaggerated patience. “Eloise. We are well suited and will enjoy a perfectly pleasant and amiable marriage. I don’t know what else to say or do to prove it.”
“But you don’t love me,” she said, her voice soft.
That seemed to knock the wind out of him, and he just stopped and stared at her for the longest moment. “Why do you say things like that?” he asked.
She shrugged helplessly. “Because it’s important.”
For a moment he did nothing but stare. “Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that every thought and feeling doesn’t need to be given voice?”
“Yes,”she said, a lifetime of regrets wrapped into that single syllable. “All the time.” She looked away, discomforted by the odd, hollow sensation rumbling in her throat. “I can’t seem to help myself, though.”
He shook his head, obviously perplexed, which didn’t surprise her. Half the time she perplexed herself. Why had she forced the issue? Why couldn’t she ever be subtle, coy? Her mother had once told her that she could catch more flies with honey than a sledgehammer, but Eloise never could learn to keep her thoughts to herself.
She had practically asked Sir Phillip if he loved her, and his silence was as much of an answer as no would have been. Her heart twisted. She hadn’t really thought he would contradict her, but her disappointment was proof that some tiny part of her had been hoping that he’d drop to his knees and cry out that he did love her, that he cherished her, and was in fact quite certain that he would die without her.
Which was all nothing but rot, and she didn’t know why she’d even wished for it, when she didn’t love him, either.
But she could. She had this feeling that if she gave it enough time, she could love this man. And maybe she’d just wanted him to say the same.
“Did you love Marina?” she asked, the words crossing her lips before she’d even had a chance to ponder the wisdom of asking. She winced. There she went again, asking questions that were far too personal.
It was a wonder he hadn’t thrown up his arms and run screaming in the opposite direction already.
He didn’t answer for the longest moment. They just stood there, watching one another, trying to ignore Anthony, who was studiously examining a tree some thirty yards away. Finally, in a low voice, Phillip said, “No.”
Eloise didn’t feel elated; she didn’t feel sorrow. She didn’t feel anything at all at his pronouncement, which surprised her. But she did let out a long breath, one she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. And she did feel rather glad that she now knew.
She hated the not knowing. About anything.
And so she really shouldn’t have been surprised when she whispered, “Why did you marry her?”
A rather blank expression washed over his eyes, and finally he just shrugged and said, “I don’t know. It seemed like the right thing to do.”
She nodded. It all made so much sense. It was exactly the sort of thing he would do. Phillip was always doing the right thing, the honorable thing, apologizing for his transgressions, shouldering everyone’s burdens . . .
Honoring his brother’s promises.
And then she had one more question. “Did you . . .” she whispered, almost losing her nerve. “Did you feel passion for her?” She knew she shouldn’t ask, but after that afternoon, she had to know. The answer didn’t matter—or at least she told herself it didn’t.
But she had to know.