Eloise gave them a nod.

"It won't happen again," Amanda added.

"That's certainly a relief to hear," Eloise said.

Phillip cleared his throat.

"Father says we must make it up to you," Oliver said.

"Er ..." Eloise wasn't exactly certain how they meant to do that.

"Do you like sweets?" Amanda blurted out.

Eloise looked at her, blinking her good eye in confusion. "Sweets?"

Amanda's chin shook up and down.

"Well, yes, I suppose I do. Doesn't everyone?"

"I have a box of lemon drops. I've saved them for months. You can have them."

Eloise swallowed against the lump in her throat as she watched Amanda's tortured expression. There was something wrong with these children. Or if not with them, then for them. Something wasn't right in their lives. With all of her nieces and nephews, Eloise had seen enough happy children to know this. "That will be all right, Amanda," she said, her heart wrenching. "You may keep your lemon drops."

"But we have to give you something," Amanda said, casting a fearful glance at her father.

Eloise was about to tell her that that wasn't necessary, but then, as she watched Amanda's face, she realized that it was. In part, of course, because Sir Phillip had obviously insisted upon it, and Eloise wasn't about to undermine his authority by saying otherwise. But also because the twins needed to understand the concept of making amends. "Very well," Eloise said. "You may give me an afternoon."

"An afternoon?"

"Yes. Once I'm feeling better, you and your brother may give me an afternoon. There is much here at Romney Hall with which I'm unfamiliar, and I imagine you two know every last corner of the house and grounds. You may take me on a tour. Provided, of course," she added, because she did value her health and well-being, "that you promise there will be no pranks."

"None," Amanda said quickly, her chin bobbing in an earnest nod. "I promise."

"Oliver," Phillip growled, when his son did not speak quickly enough.

"There will be no pranks that afternoon," Oliver muttered.

Phillip strode across the room and grabbed his son by the collar.

"Ever!" Oliver said in a strangled voice. "I promise! We shall leave Miss Bridgerton completely alone."

"Not completely, I hope," Eloise said, glancing up at Phillip and hoping he correctly interpreted that to mean, You may now put down the child. "After all, you do owe me an afternoon."

Amanda offered her a tentative smile, but Oliver's scowl remained firmly in place.

"You may leave now," Phillip said, and the children fled through the open doorway.

The two adults remained in silence for a full minute after they left, both staring at the door with hollow, weary expressions.

Eloise felt drained, and wary, almost as if she'd been dropped into a situation she didn't quite understand.

A burst of nervous laughter almost escaped her lips. What was she thinking? Of course she had been dropped into a situation she didn't understand, and she was lying to herself if she thought she knew what to do.

Phillip walked over to the bed, but when he got there, he stood rather stiffly. "How are you?" he asked Eloise.

"If I don't remove this meat soon," she said quite frankly, "I think I might be sick."

He picked up the platter the meat had arrived upon and held it out. Eloise put the steak down, grimacing at the wet, slopping sound it made. "I believe I would like to wash my face," she said. "The smell is rather overwhelming."

He nodded. "First let me look at your eye."

"Do you have very much experience with this sort of thing?" she asked, glancing at the ceiling when he asked her to look up.

"A bit." He pressed gently against the ridge of her cheekbone with his thumb. "Look right."

She did. "A bit?"

"I boxed at university."

"Were you good?"

He turned her head to the side. "Look left. Good enough."

"What does that mean?"

"Close your eye."

"What does that mean?" she persisted.

"You're not closing your eye."

She did, shutting them both, because whenever she winked only one eye she ended up squeezing it far too tightly. "What does it mean?"

She couldn't see him, but she could feel him pause. "Has anyone ever told you you can be a bit stubborn?"

"All the time. It's my only flaw."

She heard his smile in the tenor of his breath. "The only one, eh?"

"The only one worth commenting upon."

She opened her eyes. "You didn't answer my question."

"I've quite forgotten what it was."

She opened her mouth to repeat it, then realized he was teasing her, so she scowled instead.

"Close your eye again," he said. "I'm not yet finished." When she obeyed his command, he added, "Good enough meant I never had to fight if I didn't want to."

"But you weren't the champion," she surmised.

"You can open your eye now."

She did, then blinked when she realized how close he still was.

He stepped back. "I wasn't the champion."

"Why not?"

He shrugged. "I didn't care about it enough."

"How does it look?" she asked.

"Your eye?"

She nodded.

"I don't think there is anything to be done to stop the bruising."

"I didn't think I hit my eye," she said, letting out a frustrated sigh. "When I fell. I thought I hit my cheek."

"You don't have to hit your eye to bruise there. I can see from your face that you landed right here"a" he touched her cheekbone, right where she'd hit, but he was so gentle that she felt no paina""and that's close enough for the bleeding to spread to the eye area."

She groaned. "I'm going to look a fright for weeks."

"It might not take weeks."

"I have brothers," she said, giving him a look that said she knew what she was talking about. "I've seen blackened eyes.

Benedict had one that didn't completely fade away for two months."

"What happened to him?" Phillip asked.

"My other brother," she said wryly.

"Say no more," he said. "I had a brother of my own."

"Beastly creatures," she muttered, "the lot of them." But there was love in her voice as she said it.

"Yours probably won't take that long," he said, helping her to stand so that she could make her way to the wash basin.

"But it might."

Phillip nodded, then, once she was splashing the smell of the meat off her skin, said, "We need to get you a chaperone."

She froze. "I'd quite forgotten."

He let several seconds go by before replying, "I hadn't."

She picked up a towel and patted herself dry. "I'm sorry. It's my fault, of course. You had written that you would arrange for a chaperone. In my haste to leave London, I quite forgot that you would need time to make the arrangements."

Phillip watched her closely, wondering if she realized that she had slipped and said more than she'd probably meant to. It was difficult to imagine a woman such as Eloisea"open, bright, and extremely talkativea"as having secrets, but she had been quite close-lipped about her reasons for coming to Gloucestershire.

She'd said that she was looking for a husband, but he suspected that her reasons had as much to do with what she'd left behind in London as they did with what she hoped to find here in the country.

And then she'd saida"in my haste.

Why had she left in a hurry? What had happened there?

"I have already contacted my great-aunt," he said, helping her back into her bed even though she quite clearly wanted to do it herself. "I sent her a letter the morning you arrived. But I doubt she could be here any earlier than Thursday. She only lives in Dorset, but she's not the sort to leave her home at the drop of a hat. She will want time to pack, I'm sure, and do all those things"a"he waved his hand about in a slightly dismissive mannera""that women need to do."

Eloise nodded, her expression serious. "It's only four days. And you've a great many servants. It's not as if we're alone together at some remote hunting box."

"Nonetheless, your reputation could be seriously compromised should people learn of your visit."

She let out a long exhale, then lifted her shoulders in a fatalistic gesture. "Well, there isn't much I can do about it now." She motioned to her eye. "If I returned, my current appearance would cause more comment than the fact that I left in the first place."

He nodded slowly, signaling his agreement even as his mind flew off in other directions. Was there a reason she was so unconcerned for her reputation? He'd not spent much time in society, but it was his experience that unmarried ladies, regardless of their age, were always concerned for their reputations.

Was it possible that Eloise's reputation had been ruined before she'd arrived on his doorstep?

And more to the point, did he care?

He frowned, unable to answer the latter question just yet. He knew what he wanteda"no, make that what he neededa"in a wife, and it had little to do with purity and chastity and all those other ideals that proper young ladies were meant to embody.

He needed someone who could step in and make his life easy and uncomplicated. Someone who would run his house and mother his children. He was quite frankly pleased to have found in Eloise a woman for whom he felt a great deal of desire as well, but even if she'd been ugly as a cronea"well, he'd have been happy to marry a crone as long as she was practical, efficient, and good with his children.

But if all that were true, why did he feel rather annoyed by the possibility that Eloise had had a lover?

No, not annoyed, precisely. He couldn't quite put his finger on the correct word for his feelings. Irritated, he supposed, the way one was irritated by a pebble in one's shoe or a mild sunburn.

It was that feeling that something wasn't quite right. Not dreadfully, catastrophically wrong, but just not... right.

He watched her settle herself against the pillows. "Do you want me to leave you to your rest?" he asked.

She sighed. "I suppose, although I'm not tired. Bruised, perhaps, but not tired. It's barely eight in the morning."

He glanced at a clock on a shelf. "Nine."

"Eight, nine," she said, shrugging off the difference. "Whichever, it's still morning." She looked longingly out the window.

"And it's finally not raining."

"Would you prefer to sit in the garden?" he inquired.

"I'd prefer to walk in the garden" she replied pertly, "but my hip does ache a bit. I suppose I should try to rest for a day."

"More than a day," he said gruffly.