"You're most probably right, but I can assure you I won't be able to manage it."

He smiled. She wasn't the sort of woman who would ever choose to spend her days sitting quietly in a drawing room, working on her embroidery or sewing, or whatever it was women were supposed to do with needles and thread.

He looked over at her as she fidgeted. She wasn't the sort of woman who would ever choose to sit still, period.

"Would you like to take a book with you?" he asked.

Her eyes clouded with disappointment. He knew that she'd expected him to accompany her to the garden, and heaven knew, part of him wanted to, but somehow he felt he had to get away, almost as a measure of self-preservation. He still felt off balance, desperately ill-at-ease from having had to spank the children.

It seemed that every fortnight they did something that required punishment, and he didn't know what else to do. But he drew no pleasure from the act. He hated it, absolutely hated it, felt almost as if he might retch every time, and yet what was he supposed to do when they misbehaved that badly? The little things he tried to brush aside, but when they glued their governess's hair to her bedsheets while she slept, how was he supposed to brush aside that? Or what about the time they had broken an entire shelf of terra-cotta pots in his greenhouse? They had claimed it was an accident, but Phillip knew better. And the look in their eyes as they protested their innocence told hint that even they hadn't thought he'd actually believe them.

And so he disciplined them in the only way he knew how, although thus far he'd been able to avoid using anything other than his hand. When, that is, he did anything at all. Half the timea"more than half, reallya"he was so overcome by memories of his own father's brand of discipline that he just stumbled away, shaking and sweating, horrified by the way his hand itched to swat them on their behinds.

He worried that he was too lenient. He probably was, since the children didn't seem to be getting any better. He told himself he needed to be more stern, and once he'd even strode out to the stables and grabbed the whip ...

He shuddered at the memory. It was after the glue incident, and they'd had to cut away Miss Lock-hart's hair just to free her, and he'd been so angrya" so unbelievably, overpoweringly angry. His vision had gone red, and all he'd wanted to do was punish them, and make them behave, and teach them how to be good people, and he'd snatched the whip ...

But it had burned in his hands, and he'd dropped it in horror, afraid of what he would become if he actually used it.

The children had gone unpunished for an entire day. Phillip had fled to his greenhouse, shaking with disgust, hating himself for what he'd almost done.

And for what he was unable to do.

Make his children better people.

He didn't know how to be a father to them. That much was clear. He didn't know how, and maybe he simply wasn't suited to the task. Maybe some men were born knowing what to say and how to act, and some of them simply couldn't do a good job of it no matter how hard they tried.

Maybe one needed a good father oneself to know how to be the same.

Which had left him doomed from birth.

And now here he was, trying to make up for his deficiencies with Eloise Bridgerton. Perhaps he could finally stop feeling so guilty about being such a bad father if he could only provide them with a good mother.

But nothing was ever as simple as one wanted it to be, and Eloise, in the single day she'd been in residence, had managed to turn his life upside down. He'd never expected to want her, at least not with the intensity he felt every time he stole a glance at her. And when he'd seen her on the floora"why was it that his first thought had been terror?

Terror for her well-being, and, if he was honest, terror that the twins might have convinced her to leave.

When poor Miss Lockhart had been glued to the bed, Phillip's first emotion had been rage at his children. With Eloise, he'd spared only the merest of thoughts for them until he'd assured himself that she was not seriously injured.

He hadn't wanted to care about her, hadn't wanted anything other than a good mother for his children. And now he didn't know what to do about it.

And so even though a morning in the garden with Miss Bridgerton sounded like heaven, somehow he couldn't quite allow himself the pleasure.

He needed some time alone. He needed to think. Or rather, to not think, since the thinking just left him angry and confused.

He needed to bury his hands in some dirt and prune some plants, and shut himself away until his mind was no longer screaming with all of his problems.

He needed to escape.

And if he was a coward, so be it.

CHAPTER 7.

... have never been so bored in all of my life. Colin, you must come home.

It is interminably boring without you, and I don't think I can bear such boredom another moment.

Please do return, for I have clearly begun to repeat myself, and nothing could be more of a bore.

a"-from Eloise Bridgerton to her brother Colin, during her fifth season as a debutante, sent (but never received) while Colin was traveling in Denmark Eloise spent the entire day in the garden, lounging on an exceedingly comfortable chaise that she was quite convinced had been imported from Italy, since it was her experience that neither the English nor the French had any clue as to how to fashion comfortable furniture.

Not that she normally spent a great deal of time pondering the construction of chairs and sofas, but stuck outside by herself in the Romney Hall garden, it wasn't as if she had anything else to ponder.

No, not a thing. Not a single thing to think about other than the comfortable chaise beneath her, and maybe the fact that Sir Phillip was an ill-mannered beast for leaving her alone for the entire day after his two little monstersa"whose existence, she added into her thoughts with a mental flourish, he had never seen fit to reveal in his correspondencea"had given her a blackened eye.

It was a perfect day, with a blue sky and a light breeze, and Eloise didn't have a single thing in the world to think about.

She had never been so bored in her life.

It wasn't in her nature to sit still and watch the clouds float by. She would much rather be out doing somethinga"taking a walk, inspecting a hedgerow, anything other than just sitting like a lump on the chaise, staring aimlessly at the horizon.

Or if she had to sit here, at least she could have done so in the company of another person. She supposed the clouds might have been more interesting if she weren't quite so alone, if someone were here to whom she might say, Goodness, but that one looks rather like a rabbit, don't you think?

But no, she'd been left quite on her own. Sir Phillip was off in his greenhousea"she could see it from here, even see him moving about from time to timea"and while she really wanted to get up and join him, if for no other reason than the fact that his plants had to be more interesting than the blasted clouds, she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of seeking him out.

Not after he'd rejected her so abruptly this afternoon. Good heavens, the man had practically fled from her company. It had been the oddest thing. She'd thought they were dealing with each other rather well, and then he'd grown quite abrupt, making up some sort of excuse about how he needed to work and fleeing the room as if she were plagued.

Odious man.

She picked up the book she'd selected from the library and held it resolutely in front of her face. She was going to read the blasted thing this time if it killed her.

Of course, that was what she'd told herself the last four times she'd picked it up. She never managed to get past a single sentencea"a paragraph if she was really disciplineda"before her mind wandered and the text on the page grew unfocused and, it went without saying, unread.

Served her right, she supposed, for being so irritated with Sir Phillip that she hadn't paid any attention in the library and she'd snatched up the first book she'd seen.

The Botany of Ferns? What had she been thinking?

Even worse, if he saw her with it, he'd surely think she'd chosen it because she wanted to learn more about his interests.

Eloise blinked with surprise when she realized that she had reached the end of her page. She didn't recall a single sentence, and in fact wondered if perhaps her eyes had only slid along the words without actually reading the letters.

This was ridiculous. She thrust the book aside and stood up, taking a few steps to test out the tenderness of her hip. Allowing herself a satisfied smile when she realized that the pain wasn't bad at all, and in fact couldn't even be called anything beyond mild discomfort, she walked all the way to the riotous mass of rosebushes off to the north, leaning forward to sniff the buds.

They were still tightly closeda"it was early in the season, after alla"but maybe they'd have a scent, anda"

"What the devil are you doing?"

Eloise just managed to avoid falling into the rosebush as she turned around. "Sir Phillip," she said, as if that weren't completely obvious.

He looked irate. "You're supposed to be sitting down."

"I was sitting down."

"You were supposed to stay sitting down."

She decided the truth would make an excellent explanation. "I was bored."

He glanced over at the chaise in the distance. "Didn't you get a book from the library?"

She shrugged. "I finished it."

He quirked a brow in patent disbelief.

She returned his expression with an arch look of her own.

"Well, you need to sit down," he said gruffly.

"I'm perfectly fine." She patted her hip gently. "It hardly hurts at all now."

He stared at her for some time, his expression irritable, as if he wanted to say something but didn't know what. He must have left the greenhouse in a hurry, because he was quite filthy, with dirt along his arms, under every fingernail, and streaked quite liberally on his shirt. He looked a fright, at least by the standards Eloise had grown used to in London, but there was something almost appealing about him, something rather primitive and elemental as he stood there scowling at her.

"I can't work if I have to worry about you," he grumbled.

"Then don't work," she replied, thinking the solution quite obvious.

"I'm in the middle of something," he muttered, sounding, in Eloise's opinion, at least, rather like a sullen child.

"Then I'll accompany you," she said, brushing past him on the way to the greenhouse. Really, how did he expect them to decide if they would suit if they didn't spend any time together?

He reached out to grab her, then remembered that his hand was covered with dirt. "Miss Bridgerton," he said sharply, "you can'ta""

"Couldn't you use the help?" she interrupted.

"No," he said, and in such a tone that she really couldn't continue the argument along those lines.

"Sir Phillip," she ground out, completely losing patience with him, "may I ask you a question?"

Visibly startled by her sudden turn of conversation, he just noddeda"once, curtly, the way men liked to do when they were annoyed and wanted to pretend they were in charge.

"Are you the same man you were last night?"

He looked at her as if she were a lunatic. "I beg your pardon."

"The man I spent the evening with last night," she said, just barely resisting the urge to cross her arms as she spoke, "the one with whom I shared a meal and then toured the house and greenhouse, actually spoke to me, and in fact, seemed to enjoy my company, astonishing as it might seem."

He did nothing but stare at her for several seconds, then muttered, "I enjoy your company."

"Then why," she asked, "have I been sitting alone in the garden for three hours?"

"It hasn't been three hours."

"It doesn't matter how longa""

"It's been forty-five minutes," he said.

"Be that as it maya""

"Be that as it is."

"Well," she declared, mostly because she suspected he might have been correct, which put her in something of an awkward position, and well, seemed all she could say without embarrassing herself further.

"Miss Bridgerton," he said, his clipped voice a reminder that just the night before he'd been calling her Eloise.

And kissing her. "As you might have guessed," he continued sharply, "this morning's episode with my children has left me in a foul mood. I thought merely to spare you my company, such as it is."

"I see," she said, rather impressed with the supercilious edge to her voice.

"Good."

Except that she was quite certain she did see. That he was lying, to be precise. Oh, his children had put him in a foul mood, that much was true, but there was something else at work as well.

"I will leave you to your work, then," she said, motioning to the greenhouse with a gesture that was meant to seem as if she were waving him away.

He eyed her suspiciously. "And what do you plan to do?"

"I suppose I shall write some letters and then go for a walk," she replied.

"You will not go for a walk," he growled.

Almost, Eloise thought, as if he actually cared about her.

"Sir Phillip," she replied, "I assure you that I am perfectly fine. I'm quite certain I look a great deal worse than I feel."

"You had better look worse than you feel," he muttered.

Eloise scowled at him. It was a blackened eye, after all, and thus only a temporary blight on her appearance, but truly, he didn't need to remind her that she looked a fright.

"I shall remain out of your way," she told him, "which is all that really matters, correct?"

A vein began to twitch in his temple. Eloise took great pleasure in that.

"Go," she said. And when he didn't, she turned and began to walk through a gate to another segment of the garden.