"You have only yourself to blame."

"But my beda""

"You'll have to sleep on the floor," he replied.

Face quiveringa"entire body quivering, truth be tolda"she dragged herself toward the door. "But... but..."

"Yes, Amanda?" he asked, in what he thought to be an impressively patient voice.

"But she didn't punish Oliver," the little girl whispered. "That wasn't very fair of her. The flour was his idea."

Phillip raised his brows.

"Well, it wasn't only my idea," Amanda insisted. "We thought it up together."

Phillip actually chuckled. "I wouldn't worry about Oliver if I were you, Amanda. Or rather," he said, giving his chin a thoughtful stroke with his fingers, "I would worry. I suspect Miss Bridgerton has plans for him yet."

That seemed to satisfy Amanda, and she mumbled a barely articulate "Good night, Father," before allowing her nursemaid to lead her from the room.

Phillip turned back to his soup, feeling very pleased with himself. He couldn't remember the last time he'd emerged from a run-in with one of the twins in which he'd felt he'd handled everything just right. He took a sip, then, still holding his spoon, looked over at Eloise and said, "Poor Oliver will be quaking in his boots."

She appeared to be trying hard not to grin. "He won't be able to sleep."

Phillip shook his head. "Not a wink, I should think. And you should watch your step. I'd wager he'll set some sort of trap at his door."

"Oh, I have no plans to torture Oliver this evening," she said with a blithe wave of her hand. "That would be far too easy to predict. I prefer the element of surprise."

"Yes," he said with a chuckle. "I can see that you would."

Eloise answered him with a smug expression. "I would almost consider leaving him in perpetual agony, except that it really wouldn't be fair to Amanda."

Phillip shuddered. "I hate fish."

"I know. You wrote me as much."

"I did?"

She nodded. "Odd that Mrs. Smith even had any in the house, but I suppose the servants like it."

They descended into silence, but it was a comfortable, companionable sort of quietude. And as they ate, moving through the courses of the supper as they chatted about nothing in particular, it occurred to Phillip that perhaps marriage wasn't supposed to be so hard.

With Marina he'd always felt like he was tiptoeing around the house, always fearful that she was going to descend into one of her bouts with melancholia, always disappointed when she seemed to withdraw from life, and indeed, almost disappear.

But maybe marriage was supposed to be easier than that. Maybe it was supposed to be like this. Companionable. Comfortable.

He couldn't remember the last time he had spoken with anyone about his children, or the raising thereof. His burdens had always been his alone, even when Marina had been alive. Marina herself had been a burden, and he was still wrestling with the guilt he felt at his relief that she was gone.

But Eloise ...

He looked across the table at the woman who had so unexpectedly fallen into his life. Her hair glowed almost red in the flickering candlelight, and her eyes, when she caught him staring at her, sparkled with vitality and just a hint of mischief.

She was, he was coming to realize, exactly what he needed. Smart, opinionated, bossya"they weren't the sort of things men usually looked for in a wife, but Phillip so desperately need someone to come to Romney Hall and fix things. Nothing was quite right, from the house to his children to the slightly hushed pall that had hung over the place when Marina had been alive, and sadly had not lifted even after her death.

Phillip would gladly cede some of his husbandly power to a wife if she would only make everything right again. He'd be more than happy to disappear into his greenhouse and let her be in charge of everything else.

Would Eloise Bridgerton be willing to take on such a role?

Dear God, he hoped so.

CHAPTER 5.

... implore you, Mother, you MUST punish Daphne.

It is NOT FAIR that I am the only one sent to bed without pudding.

And for a week A week is far too long.

Especially since it was all mostly Daphnes idea.

a"-from Eloise Bridgerton to her mother, left upon Violet Bridgerton's night table during Eloise's tenth year It was strange, Eloise thought, how much could change in a single day.

Because now, as Sir Phillip was escorting her through his home, ostensibly viewing the portrait gallery but really just prolonging their time together, she was thinkinga"

He might make a perfectly fine husband after all.

Not the most poetic way to phrase a concept that ought to have been full of romance and passion, but theirs wasn't a typical courtship, and with only two years remaining until her thirtieth birthday, Eloise couldn't really afford to be fanciful.

But still, there was something ...

In the candlelight, Sir Phillip was somehow more handsome, perhaps even a little dangerous-looking. The rugged planes of his face seemed to angle and shadow in the flickering light, lending him a more sculptured look, almost like the statues she'd visited at the British Museum. And as he stood next to her, his large hand possessively at her elbow, his entire presence seemed to envelop her.

It was odd, and thrilling, and just a little bit terrifying.

But gratifying, too. She'd done a crazy thing, running off in the middle of the night, hoping to find happiness with a man she'd never met. It was a relief to think that maybe it hadn't all been a complete mistake, that maybe she'd gambled with her future and won.

Nothing would have been worse than slinking back to London, admitting failure and having to explain to her entire family what she'd done.

She didn't want to have to admit that she'd been wrong, to herself or anyone else.

But mostly to herself.

Sir Phillip had proven to be an enjoyable supper companion, even if he wasn't quite so glib or conversational as she was used to.

But he obviously possessed a sense of fair play, which Eloise deemed essential in any spouse. He had accepteda"even admireda"her fish-in-the-bed technique with Amanda. Many of the men Eloise had met in London would have been horrified that a gently bred lady would even think of resorting to such underhanded tactics.

And maybe, just maybe, this would work. Marriage to Sir Phillip did seem a harebrained scheme when she allowed herself to think about it in a logical manner, but it wasn't as if he were a complete strangera"they had been corresponding for over a year, after all.

"My grandfather," Phillip said mildly, gesturing to a large portrait.

"He was quite handsome," Eloise said, even though she could barely see him in the dim light. She motioned to the picture to the right. "Is that your father?"

Phillip nodded once, curtly, the corners of his lips tightening.

"And where are you?" she asked, sensing that he didn't wish to talk about his father.

"Over here, I'm afraid."

Eloise followed his direction to a portrait of Phillip as a young boy of perhaps twelve years, posing with someone who could only have been his brother.

His older brother.

"What happened to him?'' she asked, since he had to be dead. If he lived, Phillip could not have inherited his house or baronetcy.

"Waterloo," he answered succinctly.

Impulsively, she placed her hand over his. "I'm sorry."

For a moment she didn't think he was going to say anything, but eventually he let out a quiet, "No one was sorrier than I."

"What was his name?"

"George."

"You must have been quite young," she said, counting back to 1815 and doing the math in her head.

"Twenty-one. My father died two weeks following."

She thought about that. At twenty-one, she was supposed to have been married. All young ladies of her station were expected to have been married by then. One would think that would confer a measure of adulthood, but now twenty-one seemed impossibly young and green, and far too innocent to have inherited a burden one had never thought to receive.

"Marina was his fiancee," he said.

Her breath rushed over her lips, and she turned to him, her hand falling away from his. "I didn't know," she said.

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter. Here, would you like to see her portrait?"

"Yes," Eloise replied, discovering that she did indeed wish to see Marina. They had been cousins, but distant ones, and it had been years since they'd visited with one another. Eloise remembered dark hair and light eyesa"blue, maybea"but that was all.

She and Marina had been of an age, and so they had been thrust together at family gatherings, but Eloise didn't recall their ever having very much in common. Even when they were barely older than Amanda and Oliver, their differences had been clear. Eloise had been a boisterous child, climbing trees and sliding down banisters, always following her older siblings, begging them to allow her to take part in whatever they were doing.

Marina had been quieter, almost contemplative. Eloise remembered tugging on her hand, trying to get her to come outside and play. But Marina had just wanted to sit with a book.

Eloise had taken note of the pages, however, and she was quite convinced that Marina never moved beyond page thirty-two.

It was a strange thing to remember, she supposed, except that her nine-year-old self had found it so astoundinga"why would someone choose to stay inside with a book when the sun was shining, and then not even read it? She'd spent the rest of the visit whispering with her sister Francesca, trying to figure out just what it was that Marina was doing with that book.

"Do you remember her?" Phillip asked.

"Just a little," Eloise replied, not sure why she didn't wish to share her memory with him. And anyway, it was the truth. That was the sum of her recollections of Marinaa"that one week in April over twenty years earlier, whispering with Francesca as Marina stared at a book.

Eloise allowed Phillip to lead her over to Marina's portrait. She had been painted seated, on some sort of ottoman, with her dark red skirts artfully arranged about her. A younger version of Amanda was on her lap, and Oliver stood at her side, in one of those poses young boys were always forced to assumea"serious and stern, as if they were miniature adults.

"She was lovely," Eloise said.

Phillip just stared at the image of his dead wife, then, almost as if it required a force of will, turned his head and walked away.

Had he loved her? Did he love her still?

Marina should have been his brother's bride; everything seemed to suggest that Phillip had been given her by default.

But that didn't mean he didn't love her. Maybe he had been secretly in love with her while she had been engaged to his brother.

Or maybe he had fallen in love after the wedding.

Eloise stole a look at his profile as he stared sightlessly at a painting on the wall. There had been emotion on his face when he had looked at Marina's portrait. She wasn't sure what he had felt for her, but it was definitely still something. It had only been a year, she reminded herself. A year might make up the official period of mourning, but it wasn't very long to get past the death of a loved one.

Then he turned. His eyes hit hers, and she realized she'd been staring at him, mesmerized by the planes of his face. Her lips parted with surprise, and she wanted to look away, felt as if she ought to blush and stammer at having been caught, but somehow she could not. She just stood there, transfixed, breathless, as a strange heat spread across her skin.

He was ten feet away, at the very least, and it felt as if they were touching.

"Eloise?" he whispered, or at least she thought he did. She saw his lips form the word more than she actually heard his voice.

And then somehow the moment was broken. Maybe it was his whisper, maybe the creak of a windblown tree outside. But Eloise was finally able to movea"to thinka"and she quickly turned back to Marina's portrait, firmly affixing her gaze on her late cousin's serene face. "The children must miss her," Eloise said, needing to say something, anything that would restart the conversationa"and restore her composure.

For a moment Phillip said nothing. And then, finally: "Yes, they've missed her for a long time."

It seemed to Eloise a rather odd way to phrase it. "I know how they feel," she said. "I was quite young when my father died."

He looked over at her. "I didn't realize."

She shrugged. "It's not something I talk about a great deal. It was a long time ago."

He crossed back to her side, his steps slow and methodical. "Did it take you very long to get over it?"

"I'm not certain it's something you ever do get over," she said. "Completely, that is. But no, I don't think about him every day, if that's what you want to know."

She turned away from Marina's portrait; she'd been focusing on it for too long and was beginning to feel oddly intrusive.

"I think it was more difficult for my older brothers," she said. "Anthonya"he is the eldest and was already a young man when it happeneda"had a particularly difficult time with it. They were very close. And my mother, of course." She looked over at him. "My parents loved each other very much."

"How did she react to his passing?"

"Well, she cried a great deal at first," Eloise said. "I'm sure we weren't meant to know. She always did it in her room at night, after she thought we were all asleep. But she missed him dreadfully, and it couldn't have been easy with seven children."