For some reason, her quiet words only irritated him more. He leaned forward, deliberately using his size to intimidate her. “Do you know how long it had been since I’d lain with a woman?” he hissed. “Do you have any idea?”
Her eyes grew impossibly wide, and she shook her head.
“Eight years,” he bit off. “Eight long years with nothing but my own hand for comfort. So the next time I seem to be enjoying myself while I’m driving into you, please do excuse my immaturity and my maleness—” He spoke the word as she might, with sarcasm and anger. “I’m simply having a ripping good time after a long dry spell.”
And then, unable to bear her for one moment longer—
No, that wasn’t true. He was unable to bear himself.
Either way, he left.
Chapter 16
. . . you do have the right of it, dearest Kate. Men are so easy to manage. I cannot imagine ever losing an argument with one. Of course, had I accepted Lord Lacye’s proposal, I should not have had even the opportunity. He rarely speaks, which I do find most odd.
—from Eloise Bridgerton to her
sister-in-law Viscountess Bridgerton,
upon refusing her fifth offer of marriage
Eloise remained in the greenhouse for nearly an hour, unable to do anything but stare off into space, wondering—
What had happened?
One minute they were talking—very well, they were arguing, but in a relatively reasonable and civilized manner—and the next he was out of his head, his face pinched with fury.
And then he’d left. Left. He actually walked awayfrom her in the middle of an argument and left her standing there in his greenhouse, her mouth hanging open and her pride more than pricked.
He’d walked away. That was what really bothered her. How could someone walk away in the middle of an argument?
Granted, she’d been the one to instigate the discussion—oh, very well, argument—but still, nothing had transpired that warranted such a storming off on his part.
And the worst of it was, she didn’t know what to do.
All her life, she’d known what to do. She hadn’t always turned out to be right, but at least she’d felt sure of herself when she had made her decisions. And as she sat there on Phillip’s workbench, feeling utterly confused and inept, she realized that for her, at least, it was a great deal better to act and be wrong than it was to feel helpless and impotent.
And as if all that weren’t enough, she couldn’t get her mother’s voice out of her head. Don’t push, Eloise. Don’t push.
And all she could think was— She hadn’t pushed. Good heavens, what had she done but come to him with a concern about his children? Was it so very wrong to actually want to speak rather than race off to the bedroom? She supposed it might be wrong, if the couple in question never spent any intimate time together, but they had . . . they were . . .
It had just been that morning!
No one could say that they had any problems in the bedroom. No one.
She sighed and slumped. She’d never felt so alone in all her life. Funny, that. Who’d have thought she’d have to go and get married—join her life for eternity with another person—in order to feel alone?
She wanted her mother.
No, she didn’t want her mother. She definitely didn’t want her mother. Her mother would be kind and understanding and everything a mother should be, but a talk with her mother would just leave her feeling like a small child, not like the adult she was supposed to be.
She wanted her sisters. Not Hyacinth, who was barely one and twenty and knew nothing of men, but one of her married sisters. She wanted Daphne, who always knew what to say, or Francesca, who never said what one wanted to hear but always managed to eke out a smile nonetheless.
But they were too far away, in London and Scotland respectively, and Eloise was not going to run off. She’d made her bed when she’d married, and she was quite contentedly lying in it every night with Phillip. It was just the days that were a bit off.
She wasn’t going to play the coward and leave, even if only for a few days.
But Sophie was near, just an hour away. And if they weren’t sisters by birth—well, they were sisters of the heart.
Eloise looked out the door. It was too cloudy to see the sun, but she was fairly sure it wasn’t much past noon. Even with the travel time, she could spend most of the day with Sophie and be back by supper.
Her pride didn’t want anyone to know she was miserable, but her heart wanted a shoulder to cry on.
Her heart won out.
Phillip spent the next several hours stomping across his fields, viciously yanking weeds from the ground.
Which kept him fairly busy, since he wasn’t in a cultivated area, which meant that pretty much every bit of growth could be classified as a weed, if one was so inclined.
And he was so inclined. He was more than inclined. If he had his way, he’d yank every damned plant from the earth.
And he, a botanist.
But he didn’t want to plant things right now, didn’t want to watch anything bloom or grow. He wanted to kick and maim and destroy. He was angry and frustrated and cross with himself and cross with Eloise and he was quite prepared to be upset with anyone who happened across his path.
But after an afternoon of this, of kicking and stomping, and yanking the heads off wildflowers and tearing blades of grass down the middle, he sat on a rock and let his head hang in his hands.
Hell.
What a muck.
What a bloody muck, and the really ironic bit of it was—he’d thought they were happy.
He’d thought his marriage perfect, and all this time—oh, very well, it had only been a week, but it had been a week of, in his opinion, perfection. And she’d been miserable.
Or if not miserable, then not happy.
Or maybe a little bit happy, but certainly not caught up in blissful rapture, as he had been.
And now he had to go and do something about it, which was the last thing he wanted to do. Talking with Eloise, actually asking questions and trying to deduce what was wrong, not to mention figuring out what to do to fix it—it was just the sort of thing he always bungled.
But he didn’t have much of a choice, did he? He’d married Eloise in part—well, more than in part; almost in whole, in truth—because he’d wanted her to take charge, to take over all the annoying little tasks in his life, to free him up for the things that really mattered. The fact that he was growing to care for her had been an unexpected bonus.
He suspected, however, that one’s marriage didn’t count as an annoying little task, and he couldn’t just leave it to Eloise. And as painful as a heart-to-heart discussion was, he was going to have to bite the bullet and give it a go.
He was quite certain he’d botch it up but good, but at least he could say he’d tried.
He groaned. She was probably going to ask him about his feelings. Was there no woman alive who understood that men did not talk about feelings? Hell, half of them didn’t even have feelings.
Or maybe he could take the easy way out and simply apologize. He wasn’t certain what he’d be apologizing for, but it would appease her and make her happy, and that was all that mattered.
He didn’t want Eloise to be unhappy. He didn’t want her to regret her marriage, even for one moment. He wanted his marriage back to the way he’d thought it was—easy and comfortable by day, fiery and passionate by night.
He trudged up the hill back to Romney Hall, rehearsing what he’d say in his mind and scowling over how asinine it all sounded.
But his efforts were moot, anyway, because when he arrived at the house and found Gunning, all the butler had to say was, “She’s not here.”
“What do you mean, she’s not here?” Phillip demanded.
“She’s not here, sir. She went to her brother’s house.”
Phillip’s stomach clenched. “Which brother?”
“I believe the one who lives close by.”
“You believe?”
“I’m rather certain,” Gunning corrected.
“Did she say when she planned to return?”
“No, sir.”
Phillip swore viciously under his breath. Surely Eloise hadn’t left him. She wasn’t the sort to bail out on a sinking ship, at least not without making sure every last passenger had left safely before her.
“She did not bring a bag, sir,” Gunning said.
Oh, now, that made him feel good. His butler felt the need to reassure him that he’d not been abandoned by his wife. “That will be all, Gunning,” Phillip said through gritted teeth.
“Very good, sir,” Gunning said. He inclined his head, as he always did when he excused himself, and left the room.
Phillip stood in the hall for several minutes, stock-still, his hands fisted angrily at his sides. What the devil was he supposed to do now? He wasn’t about to go running after Eloise. If she so desperately wanted to be out of his company, then by God that’s what he would give her.
He started to walk to his office, where he could stew and fume in private, but then, when he was just a few steps away from the door, he stopped, glancing at the large grandfather clock at the end of the hall. It was a bit past three, just about the time the twins usually took their afternoon snack. Before they’d married, Eloise had accused him of not taking enough interest in their welfare.
He planted his hands on his hips, his foot pivoting slightly, as if unsure which way to turn. He might as well go up to the nursery and spend a few unexpected minutes with his children. It wasn’t as if he had anything better to do with his time, stuck here waiting for his errant wife to return. And when she did get back—well, she wouldn’t have anything to complain about, not after he’d twisted himself into one of those tiny chairs and eaten milk and biscuits with the twins.
With a decisive turn, he headed up the stairs to the nursery, located on the top floor of Romney Hall, tucked neatly away under the eaves. It was the same set of rooms in which he’d grown up, with the same furniture and toys, and presumably the same crack in the ceiling over the small beds, the one that looked like a duck.
Phillip frowned as he stepped off the final stair onto the third-floor hallway. He probably ought to see if that crack was still there, and if it was, inquire what his children thought it looked like. George, his brother, had always sworn it resembled a pig, but Phillip had never understood how he’d mistaken the bill for a snout.
Phillip shook his head. Good heavens, how anyone could mistake a duck for a pig, he’d never know. Even the—
He stopped short, just two doors down from the nursery. He’d heard something, and he wasn’t quite certain what it was, except that he didn’t like it. It was . . .
He listened again.
It was a whimper.
His first inclination was to storm forward and burst through the nursery door, but he held himself back when he realized that the door was ajar by two inches, and so he crept forward instead, peeking through the crack as unobtrusively as he could.
It required only half a second to realize what was happening.
Oliver was curled up in a ball on the floor, shaking with silent sobs, and Amanda was standing in front of a wall, bracing herself with her tiny little hands, whimpering as her nurse beat her across the back with a large, heavy book.
Phillip slammed through the door with a force that nearly took it off its hinges. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he nearly roared.
Nurse Edwards turned around in surprise, but before she could open her mouth to speak, Phillip snatched the book away and hurled it behind him against the wall.
“Sir Phillip!” Nurse Edwards cried out in shock.
“How dare you strike these children,” he said, his voice shaking with fury. “And with a book.”
“I was told—”