… how fortunate you are to be at school. We girls have been presented with a new governess, and she is misery personified. She drones on about sums from dawn until dusk. Poor Hyacinth now breaks into tears every time she hears the word “seven.” (Although I must confess that I don’t understand why one through six do not elicit similar reactions.) I don’t know what we shall do. Dip her hair in ink, I suppose. (Miss Haversham’s, that is, not Hyacinth’s, although I would never rule out the latter.)
—from Eloise Bridgerton to her brother Gregory, during his first term as a student at Eton
When Phillip returned from the rose garden, he was surprised to find his home quiet and empty. It was a rare day when the air wasn’t exploding with the sound of some overturned table or shriek of outrage.
The children, he thought, pausing to savor the silence. Clearly, they had been vacated from the premises. Nurse Edwards must have taken them out for a walk.
And, he supposed, Eloise would still be abed, although in truth it was already nearly ten, and she did not seem the sort to laze the day away under her covers.
Phillip stared down at the roses in his hand. He’d spent an hour choosing exactly the right ones; Romney Hall boasted three rose gardens, and he’d had to go to the far one to find the early-blooming varieties. He’d then painstakingly picked them, careful to snip at the exact right spot so as to encourage further blooming, and then meticulously sliced away each thorn.
Flowers he could do. Green plants he could do even better, but somehow he didn’t think Eloise would find much romance in a fistful of ivy.
He wandered over to the breakfast room, expecting to see food laid out, awaiting Eloise’s arrival, but the sideboard was tidy and spotless, signaling that the morning meal had come to an end. Phillip frowned and stood in the middle of the room for a moment, trying to figure out what he ought to do next. Eloise had obviously already arisen and eaten breakfast, but deuced if he knew where she was.
Just then a maid came through, holding a feather duster and a rag. She bobbed a quick curtsy when she saw him.
“I’ll need a vase for these,” he said, holding up the flowers. He’d hoped to hand them to Eloise directly, but he didn’t feel like clutching them all morning while he hunted her down.
The maid nodded and started to leave, but he stopped her with, “Oh, and do you happen to know where Miss Bridgerton might have gone off to? I noticed that breakfast has been cleared.”
“Out, Sir Phillip,” the maid said. “With the children.”
Phillip blinked in surprise. “She went out with Oliver and Amanda?
Willingly?”
The maid nodded.
“That’s interesting.” He sighed, trying not to envision the scene. “I hope they don’t kill her.”
The maid looked alarmed. “Sir Phillip?”
“It was a joke . . . ah . . . Mary?” He didn’t mean to finish his sentence on a questioning note, but the truth was, he wasn’t quite certain of her name.
She nodded in such a way that he couldn’t be sure whether he’d gotten it right or she was just being polite.
“Do you happen to know where they went?” he asked. “Down to the lake, I believe. To go swimming.”
Phillip’s skin went cold. “Swimming?” he asked, his voice sounding disembodied and hollow to his ears.
“Yes. The children were wearing their bathing costumes.” Swimming. Dear God.
For a year now, he’d avoided the lake, always taken the long route around, just to spare himself the sight of it. And he had forbidden the children from ever visiting the site.
Or had he?
He’d told Nurse Millsby not to allow them near the water, but had he remembered to do the same with Nurse Edwards?
He took off at a run, leaving the floor littered with roses.
“Last one in is a hermit crab!” Oliver shrieked, tearing into the water at top speed, only to laugh when it reached his waist and he was forced to slow down.
“I’m not a hermit crab. You’re a hermit crab!” Amanda yelled back as she splashed around in the shallower depths.
“You’re a rotten hermit crab!”
“Well, you’re a dead hermit crab!”
Eloise laughed as she waded through the water a few yards away from Amanda. She hadn’t brought a bathing costume—indeed, who would have thought she might need one?—so she had tied her skirt and petticoat up, baring her legs to just above her knees. It was an awful lot of leg to be showing, but that hardly mattered in the company of two eight-year-olds.
Besides, they were having far too much fun tormenting each other to give her legs even a passing glance.
The twins had warmed up to her during their walk down to the lake, laughing and chattering the entire way, and Eloise wondered if all they truly needed was a bit of attention. They’d lost their mother, their relationship with their father was distant at best, and then their beloved nurse had left them. Thank heavens they had each other.
And maybe, perhaps, her.
Eloise bit her lip, not sure whether she ought even to be allowing her thoughts to veer in that direction. She hadn’t yet decided whether she wanted to marry Sir Phillip, and much as these two children seemed to need her—and they did need her, she just knew they did—she couldn’t make her decision based on Oliver and Amanda.
She wasn’t going to be marrying them.
“Don’t go any deeper!” she called out, mindful that Oliver had been inching away.
He pulled the sort of face boys do when they think they are being mollycoddled, but she noticed that he took two large steps back toward the shore.
“You should come in further, Miss Bridgerton,” Amanda said, sitting down on the lake bottom and then squealing, “Oh! It’s cold!”
“Why did you sit down, then?” Oliver said. “You knew how cold it was.”
“Yes, but my feet were used to it,” she replied, hugging her arms to her body. “It didn’t feel so cold anymore.”
“Don’t worry,” he told her with a supercilious grin, “your bottom will get used to it soon, too.”
“Oliver,” Eloise said sternly, but she was fairly certain she’d ruined the effect by smiling.
“He’s right!” Amanda exclaimed, turning to Eloise with an expression of surprise. “I can’t feel my bottom at all anymore.”
“I’m not so sure that’s a good thing,” Eloise said.
“You should swim,” Oliver prodded. “Or at least go as far as Amanda.
You’ve barely got your feet wet.”
“I don’t have a bathing costume,” Eloise said, even though she’d explained this to them at least six times already.
“I think you don’t know how to swim,” he said.
“I assure you I know very well how to swim,” she returned, “and that you’re not likely to provoke a demonstration while I’m wearing my third- best morning dress.”
Amanda looked over at her and blinked a few times. “I should like to see your first- and second-best. That’s a very pretty frock.”
“Why, thank you, Amanda,” Eloise said, wondering who picked out the young girl’s clothing. The crotchety Nurse Edwards, probably. There was nothing wrong with what Amanda was wearing, but Eloise would wager that no one had ever thought to offer her the fun of choosing her own garments. She smiled at Amanda and said, “If you would like to go shopping sometime, I would be happy to take you.”
“Oh, I should adore that,” Amanda said breathlessly. “Above all else.
Thank you!”
“Girls,” Oliver said disdainfully.
“You’ll be glad for us someday,” Eloise remarked. “Eh?”
She just shook her head with a smile. It would be some time before he thought girls were good for anything other than tying their plaits together.
Oliver just shrugged and went back to hitting the surface of the water with the heel of his hand at just the right angle so as to splash the maximum amount of water on his sister.
“Stop it!” Amanda hollered.
He cackled and splashed some more.
“Oliver!” Amanda stood up and advanced menacingly toward him. Then, when walking proved too slow, she dove in and began to swim. He shrieked with laughter and swam away, coming up for air only long enough to taunt her.
“I’ll get you yet!” Amanda growled, stopping for a moment to tread water.
“Don’t go too far out!” Eloise called, but it really wasn’t very important. It was clear that both children were excellent swimmers. If they were like Eloise and her siblings, they’d probably been swimming since age four. The Bridgerton children had spent countless summer hours splashing around in the pond near their home in Kent, although, in truth, the swimming had been curtailed after the death of their father. When Edmund Bridgerton had been alive, the family had spent most of their time in the country, but once he was gone, they had found themselves in town more often than not. Eloise had never known if it was because her mother preferred town or simply that their home in the country held too many memories.
Eloise adored London and had certainly enjoyed her time there, but now that she was here in Gloucestershire, splashing in a pond with two boisterous young children, she realized how much she’d missed the country way of living.
Not that she was prepared to give up London and all the friends and amusements it offered, but still, she was beginning to think she didn’t need to spend quite so much time in the capital.
Amanda finally caught up with her brother and launched herself on top of him, causing them both to go under. Eloise watched carefully; she could see a hand or foot break the surface every few seconds until they both came
up for air, laughing and gasping and vowing to beat each other in what was clearly extremely important warfare.
“Be careful!” Eloise called out, mostly because she felt she should. It was strange to find herself in the position of authoritative adult; with her nieces and nephews she got to be the fun and permissive aunt. “Oliver! Do not pull your sister’s hair!”
He stopped but then immediately moved to the collar of her bathing costume, which could not have been comfortable for Amanda, and indeed, she began to sputter and cough.
“Oliver!” Eloise yelled. “Stop that at once!”
He did, which surprised and pleased her, but Amanda used the momentary reprieve to jump on top of him, sending him under while she sat on his back.
“Amanda!” Eloise yelled.
Amanda pretended not to hear.
Oh, blast, now she was going to have to wade out there to put an end to it herself, and she was going to be completely soaked in the process. “Amanda, stop that this instant!” she called out, making one last attempt to save her dress and her dignity.
Amanda did, and Oliver came up gasping, “Amanda Crane, I’m going to—”
“No, you’re not,” Eloise said sternly. “Neither one of you is going to kill, maim, attack, or even hug the other for at least thirty minutes.”
They were clearly appalled that Eloise had even mentioned the possibility of a hug.
“Well?” Eloise demanded.
They were completely silent, then Amanda asked, “Then what will we do?”
Good question. Most of Eloise’s own memories of swimming involved the same sort of war games. “Maybe we’ll dry off and rest for a spell,” she said.
They both looked horrified by the suggestion.
“We certainly ought to work on lessons,” Eloise added. “Perhaps a bit more arithmetic. I did promise Nurse Edwards that we would do something constructive with our time.”
That suggestion went over about as well as the first.
“Very well,” Eloise said. “What do you suggest we do?”
“I don’t know,” came Oliver’s muttered reply, punctuated by Amanda’s shoulder shrug.
“Well, there is certainly no point in standing here doing nothing,” Eloise said, planting her hands on her hips. “Aside from the fact that it’s exceedingly boring, we’re likely to fr—”
“Get out of the lake!”
Eloise whirled around, so surprised by the furious roar that she slipped and fell in the water. Drat and blast, there went her dry intentions and her dress. “Sir Phillip,” she gasped, thankful that she’d broken her fall with her hands and had not landed on her bottom. Still, the front of her dress was completely soaked.
“Get out of the water,” Phillip growled, striding into the lake with astonishing force and speed.
“Sir Phillip,” Eloise said, her voice cracking with surprise as she staggered to her feet, “what—”
But he had already grabbed both of his children, his arms wrapped around each of their rib cages, and was hauling them to shore. Eloise watched with fascinated horror as he set them none-too-gently down on the grass.
“I told you never, ever to go near the lake,” he yelled, shaking each by a shoulder. “You know you’re supposed to stay away. You—”
He stopped, clearly shaken by something, and by the need to catch his breath.
“But that was last year,” Oliver whimpered. “Did you hear me rescind the order?”
“No, but I thought—”
“You thought wrong,” Phillip snapped. “Now get back to the house.
Both of you.”
The two children recognized the deadly serious intent in their father’s eyes and quickly fled up the hill. Phillip did nothing as they left, just watched them run, and then, as soon as they were out of earshot, he turned to Eloise with an expression that caused her to take a step back and said, “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
For a moment she could say nothing; his question seemed too ludicrous for a reply. “Having a spot of fun,” she finally said, probably with a bit
more insolence than she ought.
“I do not want my children near the lake,” he bit off. “I have made those wishes clear—”
“Not to me.”
“Well, you should have—”
“How was I supposed to know you wanted them to stay away from the water?” she interjected, cutting him off before he could pin any blame on her. “I told their nurse where we were headed and what we planned to do, and she didn’t say it was off-limits.”
She could tell from his expression that he realized he had no real argument, which only seemed to fuel his frustration. Men. The day they learned to admit a mistake was the day they understood women.
“It’s a hot day,” she pressed on, her tone sharp, as it always was when she refused to back down.
For Eloise, that was pretty much any argument.
“I was just trying to mend things,” she added. “I really don’t want another black eye.”
She said it to guilt him, and it worked; his cheeks flushed, and he muttered something that might have been an apology.
Eloise waited a moment to see if he would say anything more—preferably something coherent—but when he just glared at her, she continued, “I thought a little fun might help. Heaven knows the kids could use it.”
“What are you saying?” he demanded, his voice low and tense.
“Nothing,” she replied quickly. “Just that I didn’t see any harm in going for a swim.”
“You put them in danger.”
“Danger?” she sputtered. “From swimming?” Phillip said nothing, just glared at her.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said dismissively. “It would only have been dangerous if I couldn’t swim.”
“I don’t care if you can swim,” he bit off. “I only care that my children can’t.”
She blinked. Several times. “Yes, they can,” she said. “In fact, they’re both quite proficient. I’d assumed you’d taught them.”
“What are you talking about?”
Her head tilted slightly, perhaps out of concern, perhaps out of curiosity. “Didn’t you know they could swim?”
For a moment, Phillip felt as if he couldn’t breathe. His lungs tightened and his skin prickled, and his body seemed to freeze into a hard, cold statue.
It was awful.
He was awful.
Somehow this moment seemed to crystallize all of his failings. It wasn’t that his children could swim, it was that he hadn’t known they could swim. How could a father not know such a thing about his own children?
A father ought to know if his children could ride a horse. He ought to know if they could read and count to one hundred.
And for the love of God, he ought to know if they could swim. “I—” he said, his voice giving out after a single word. “I—”
She took a step forward, whispering, “Are you all right?”
He nodded, or at least he thought he nodded. Her voice was ringing in his head—Yes they can yes they can they can they can—and it didn’t even matter what she was saying. It had been the tone. Surprise, and maybe even a hint of disdain.
And he hadn’t known.
His children were growing and changing and he didn’t know them. He saw them, he recognized them, but he didn’t know who they were.
He felt himself take a gasp of air. He didn’t know what their favorite colors were.
Pink? Blue? Green?
Did it matter, or did it only matter that he didn’t know?
He was, in his own way, every bit as awful a father as his own had been. Thomas Crane may have beaten his children to within an inch of their lives, but at least he knew what they were up to. Phillip ignored and avoided and pretended—anything to keep his distance and avoid losing his temper. Anything to stop him from becoming his father all over again.
Except maybe distance wasn’t always such a good thing.
“Phillip?” Eloise whispered, laying a hand on his arm. “Is something the matter?”
He stared at her, but he still felt blinded, and his eyes couldn’t seem to focus.
“I think you should go home,” she said, slowly and carefully. “You don’t look well.”
“I’m—” He meant to say I’m fine, but the words didn’t quite come out. Because he wasn’t fine, and he wasn’t good, and these days he wasn’t even sure what he was.
Eloise chewed on her lower lip, then hugged her arms to her chest and glanced up at the sky as a shadow passed over her.
Phillip followed her gaze, watched as a cloud slid over the sun, dropping the temperature of the air at least ten degrees. He looked at Eloise, his breath catching in his throat as she shivered.
Phillip felt colder than he ever had in his life. “You need to get inside,” he said, grabbing her arm and attempting to haul her up the hill.
“Phillip!” she yelped, stumbling along behind him. “I’m fine. Just a little chilled.”
He touched her skin. “You’re not just a little chilled, you’re bloody well freezing.” He yanked off his coat. “Put this on.”
Eloise didn’t argue, but she did say, “Truly, I’m fine. There is no need to
run.”
The last word came out halfway strangled as he yanked her forward, nearly off her feet. “Phillip, stop,” she yelped. “Please, just let me walk.”
He halted so quickly that she stumbled, whirling around and hissing, “I will not be responsible for your freezing yourself into a lung fever.”
“But it’s May.”
“I don’t care if it’s bloody July. You will not remain in those wet clothes.”
“Of course not,” Eloise replied, trying to sound reasonable, since it was quite clear that argument was simply going to make him dig his heels in even further. “But there is no reason I cannot walk. It’s only ten minutes back to the house. I’m not going to die.”
She hadn’t thought that blood could literally drain from a person’s face, but she had no idea how else to describe the sudden blanching of his skin.
“Phillip?” she asked, growing alarmed. “What is wrong?”
For a moment she didn’t think he was going to answer, and then, almost as if he weren’t aware that he was making a noise, he whispered, “I don’t
know.”
She touched his arm and gazed up at his face. He looked confused, almost dazed, as if he’d been dropped into a theatrical play and didn’t know his lines. His eyes were open, and they were on her, but she didn’t think he saw anything, just a memory of something that must have been very awful indeed.
Her heart broke for him. She knew bad memories, knew how they could squeeze a heart and haunt one’s dreams until one was afraid to blow out the candle.
Eloise had, at the age of seven, watched her father die, shrieked and sobbed as he’d gasped for air and collapsed to the ground, then beaten against his chest when he could no longer speak, begging him to wake up and say something.
It was obvious now that he’d already been dead by that point, but somehow that made the memory even worse.
But Eloise had managed to put that behind her. She didn’t know how— it was probably all due to her mother, who had come to her side every night and held her hand and told her it was all right to talk about her father. And it was all right to miss him.
Eloise still remembered, but it no longer haunted her, and she hadn’t had a nightmare in over a decade.
But Phillip . . . his was a different story. Whatever had happened to him in the past, it was still very much with him.
And unlike Eloise, he was facing it alone.
“Phillip,” she said, touching his cheek. He didn’t move, and if she hadn’t felt his breath on her fingers, she would have sworn he was a statue. She said his name again, stepping even closer.
She wanted to erase that shattered look from his eyes; she wanted to heal him.
She wanted to make him the person she knew he was, deep down in his heart.
She whispered his name one last time, offering him compassion and understanding and the promise of help, all in one single word. She hoped he heard; she hoped he listened.
And then, slowly, his hand covered hers. His skin was warm and rough, and he pressed her hand against his cheek, as if he were trying to sear her
touch into his memory. Then he moved her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm, intensely, almost reverently, before sliding it down to his chest.
Across his beating heart.
“Phillip?” she whispered, question in her voice even though she knew what he intended to do.
His free hand found the small of her back, and he pulled her to him, slowly but surely, with a firmness she could not deny. And then he touched her chin and tilted her face to his, stopping only to whisper her name before capturing her mouth in a kiss that was blinding in its intensity. He was hungry, needy, and he kissed her as if he would die without her, as if she were his very food, his air, his body and soul.
It was the type of kiss a woman could never forget, the sort Eloise had never even dreamed possible.
He pulled her even closer, until the entire length of her body was pressed up against his. One of his hands traveled down her back to her bottom, cupping her, pulling her against him until she gasped at the intimacy of it.
“I need you,” he groaned, the words sounding as if they were ripped from his throat. His lips slid off her mouth to her cheek, then down her neck, teasing and tickling as they went.
She was melting. He was melting her, until she didn’t know who she was or what she was doing.
All she wanted was him. More of him. All of him. Except . . .
Except not like this. Not when he was using her like some sort of succor to heal his wounds.
“Phillip,” she said, somehow finding the strength to pull back. “We can’t. Not like this.”
For a moment she didn’t think he would let her go, but then, abruptly, he did. “I’m sorry,” he said, breathing hard. He looked dazed, and she didn’t know if that was from the kiss or simply from the tumultuous events of the morning.
“Don’t apologize,” she said, instinctively smoothing her skirts, only to find them wet and unsmoothable. But she ran her hands along them anyway, feeling nervous and uncomfortable in her own body. If she didn’t
move, didn’t force herself into some sort of meaningless motion, she was afraid she would launch herself back into his arms.
“You should go back to the house,” he said, his voice still low and hoarse.
She felt her eyes widen with surprise. “Aren’t you coming as well?”
He shook his head and said in an oddly flat voice, “You won’t freeze.
It’s May, after all.”
“Well, yes, but . . .” She let her words trail off, since she didn’t really know what to say. She supposed she’d been hoping he’d interrupt her.
She turned to walk up the hill, then stopped when she heard his voice, quiet and intent behind her.
“I need to think,” he said.
“About what?” She shouldn’t have asked, shouldn’t have intruded, but she’d never been able to mind her own business.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged helplessly. “Everything, I suppose.” Eloise nodded and continued back to the house.
But the bleak look in his eyes haunted her all day.
