Eloise grimaced. She was growing fanciful. That was a bad sign. She needed to approach this adventure with all the practicality and pragmatism with which she always tried to make her decisions. There was still time to turn around. What did she know about this man, really? He’d said quite a lot over the course of a year’s correspondence—
He was thirty years of age, two years her elder.
He had attended Cambridge and studied botany.
He had been married to her fourth cousin Marina for eight years, which meant that he’d been twenty-one at his wedding.
He had brown hair.
He had all of his teeth.
He was a baronet.
He lived at Romney Hall, a stone structure built in the eighteenth century near Tetbury, Gloucestershire.
He liked to read scientific treatises and poetry but not novels and definitely not works of philosophy.
He liked the rain.
His favorite color was green.
He had never traveled outside of England.
He did not like fish.
Eloise fought a bubble of nervous laughter. He didn’t like fish? That was what she knew about him?
“Surely a sound basis for marriage,” she muttered to herself, trying to ignore the panic in her voice.
And what did he know about her? What could have possibly led him to propose marriage to a total stranger?
She tried to recall what she had included in her many letters—
She was twenty-eight.
She had brown hair (chestnut, really) and all of her teeth.
She had gray eyes.
She came from a large and loving family.
Her brother was a viscount.
Her father had died when she was but a child, incomprehensibly brought down by a humble bee sting.
She had a tendency to talk too much. (Good God, had she really put that into writing?)
She liked to read poetry and novels but certainly not scientific treatises or works of philosophy.
She had traveled to Scotland, but that was all.
Her favorite color was purple.
She did not like mutton and positively detested blood pudding.
Another little burst of panicked laughter passed over her lips. Put that way, she thought with no small bit of sarcasm, she seemed a fine catch indeed.
She glanced out the window, as if that might possibly give her an indication as to where they were on the road from London to Tetbury.
Rolling green hills looked like rolling green hills looked like rolling green hills, and she could be in Wales, for all she knew.
Frowning, she looked down at the paper in her lap and refolded Sir Phillip’s letter. Fitting it back into the ribbon-tied bundle she kept in her valise, she then tapped her fingers against her thighs in a nervous gesture.
She had reason to be nervous.
She had left home and all that was familiar, after all.
She was traveling halfway across England, and no one knew.
No one.
Not even Sir Phillip.
Because in her haste to leave London, she’d neglected to tell him she was coming. It wasn’t that she’d forgotten; rather, she’d sort of . . . pushed the task aside until it was too late.
If she told him, then she was committed to the plan. This way, she still had the chance to back out at any moment. She told herself it was because she liked to have choices and options, but the truth was, she was quite simply terrified, and she had feared a total loss of her courage.
Besides, he was the one who had requested the meeting. He would be happy to see her.
Wouldn’t he?
Phillip rose from bed and pulled open the draperies in his bedchamber, revealing another perfect, sunny day.
Perfect.
He padded over to his dressing room to find some clothes, having long since dismissed the servants who used to perform these duties. He couldn’t explain it, but after Marina had died, he hadn’t wanted anyone bustling into his bedroom in the morning, yanking open his curtains, and selecting his garments.
He’d even dismissed Miles Carter, who had tried so hard to be a friend after Marina’s passing. But somehow the young secretary just made him feel worse, and so he’d sent him on his way, along with six months’ pay and a superb letter of reference.
He’d spent his marriage with Marina looking for someone to talk to, since she was so often absent, but now that she was gone, all he wanted was his own company.
He supposed he must have alluded to this in one of his many letters to the mysterious Eloise Bridgerton, because he had sent off his proposal of not-quite-marriage-but-maybe-something-leading-up-to-it over a month ago, and the silence on her part had been deafening, especially since she usually responded to his letters with charming alacrity.
He frowned. The mysterious Eloise Bridgerton wasn’t really so mysterious. In her letters she seemed quite open and honest and possessed of a positively sunny disposition, which, when it all came down to it, was all he really insisted upon in a wife this time around.
He yanked on a work shirt; he planned to spend most of the day in the greenhouse, up to his elbows in dirt. He was rather disappointed that Miss Bridgerton had obviously decided he was some sort of deranged lunatic to be avoided at all costs. She had seemed the perfect solution to his problems. He desperately needed a mother for Amanda and Oliver, but they’d grown so unmanageable that he couldn’t imagine any woman willingly agreeing to cleave unto him in marriage and thus bind herself to those two little devils for life (or at least until they reached majority).
Miss Bridgerton was eight and twenty, however; quite obviously a spinster. And she’d been corresponding with a complete stranger for over a year; surely she was a little desperate? Wouldn’t she appreciate the chance to find a husband? He had a home, a respectable fortune, and was only thirty years of age. What more could she want?
He muttered several annoyed phrases as he thrust his legs into his rough woolen trousers. Obviously she wanted something more, else she would have had the courtesy to at least write back and decline.
THUMP!
Phillip glanced up at the ceiling and grimaced. Romney Hall was old and solid and very well built, and if his ceiling was thumping, then his children had dropped (pushed? hurled?) something very large indeed.
THUMP!
He winced. That one sounded even worse. Still, their nurse was up there with them, and she always managed them better than he did. If he could just get his boots on in under a minute, he could be out of the house before they inflicted too much more damage, and thus he could pretend none of it was happening.
He reached for his boots. Yes, excellent idea. Out of earshot, out of mind.
He donned the rest of his ensemble with impressive speed and dashed out into the hall, making quick strides toward the stairs.
“Sir Phillip! Sir Phillip!”
Damn. His butler was after him now.
Phillip pretended he didn’t hear.
“Sir Phillip!”
“Curse it,” he muttered. There was no way he could ignore that bellow unless he was willing to suffer the torture of his servants hovering over him, concerned about his apparent hearing loss.
“Yes,” he said, turning around slowly, “Gunning?”
“Sir Phillip,” Gunning said, clearing his throat. “We have a caller.”
“A caller?” Phillip echoed. “Was that the source of the, ah . . .”
“Noise?” Gunning supplied helpfully.
“Yes.”
“No.” The butler cleared his throat. “That would have been your children.”
“I see,” Phillip murmured. “How silly of me to have hoped otherwise.”
“I don’t believe they broke anything, sir.”
“That’s a relief and a change.”
“Indeed, sir, but there is the caller to consider.”
Phillip groaned. Who on earth was visiting at this time of the morning? It wasn’t like they were used to receiving callers even during reasonable hours.
Gunning attempted a smile, but one could see that he was out of practice. “We used to have callers, do you recall?”
That was the problem with butlers who’d worked for the family since before one was born. They tended to think highly of sarcasm.
“Who is this caller?”
“I’m not entirely certain, sir.”
“You’re not certain?” Phillip asked disbelievingly.
“I didn’t inquire.”
“Isn’t that what butlers are meant to do?”
“Inquire, sir?”
“Yes,” Phillip ground out, wondering if Gunning was trying to see how red in the face his employer could get without actually collapsing to the floor in an apoplectic fit.
“I thought I’d let you inquire, sir.”
“You thought you’d let me inquire.” This one came out as a statement, Phillip having realized the futility of asking questions.
“Yes, sir. She’s here to see you, after all.”
“So are all of our callers, and that has never stopped you from ascertaining their identities before.”
“Well, actually, sir—”
“I’m quite certain—” Phillip tried to interrupt.
“We don’t have callers, sir,” Gunning finished, quite clearly winning the conversational battle.
Phillip opened his mouth to point out that they did have callers, there was one downstairs that very moment; but really, what was the point? “Fine,” he said, thoroughly irritated. “I’ll go downstairs.”
Gunning beamed. “Excellent, sir.”
Phillip stared at his butler in shock. “Are you unwell, Gunning?”
“No, sir. Why do you ask, sir?”
It didn’t seem quite polite to point out that the broad smile made Gunning look a bit like a horse, so Phillip just muttered, “It’s nothing,” and headed down the stairs.
A caller? Who would be calling? No one had come to visit in nearly a year, since the neighbors had finished making their obligatory condolence calls. He supposed he couldn’t really blame them for staying away; the last time one of them had come to visit, Oliver and Amanda had smeared strawberry jam on the chairs.
Lady Winslet had left in a fit of temper quite beyond anything Phillip would have thought healthy for a woman of her years.
Phillip frowned as he reached the bottom of the stairs and turned into the entry hall. It was a she, wasn’t it? Hadn’t Gunning said his visitor was a she?
Who the devil—
He stopped short; stumbled, even.
Because the woman standing in his entry hall was young, and quite pretty, and when she looked up to meet his gaze, he saw that she had the largest, most achingly beautiful gray eyes he’d ever seen.
He could drown in those eyes.
And Phillip did not, as one might imagine, even think the word drown lightly.
Chapter 2
. . . and then, I’m sure you will not be surprised to hear, I talked far too much. I simply couldn’t stop talking, but I suppose that is what I do when I am nervous. One can only hope I have less cause for nerves as the rest of my life unfolds.
—from Eloise Bridgerton
to her brother Colin,
upon the occasion of
Eloise’s debut into London society
Then she opened her mouth.