“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.”