By afternoon, Eloise was almost convinced that she had made a terrible mistake.

And in truth, the sole reason she was only almost convinced was that the only thing she hated more than making mistakes was the admission thereof. So she was trying to maintain a proverbial stiff upper lip and forcing herself to pretend that this ghastly situation might all work itself out in the end.

She had been left stunned—openmouthed, even—when Sir Phillip had departed with barely more than an “Enjoy your food” and then stalked out the door. She had traveled halfway across England, answering his invitation to come and visit, and he left her alone in the drawing room a mere half hour after she arrived?

She hadn’t expected him to fall in love at first sight and drop to his knees, professing his undying devotion, but she’d hoped for a little bit more than a curt “Who are you?” and “Enjoy your food.”

Or maybe she had expected him to fall in love at the first sight of her. She’d built an elaborate dream around her image of this man—an image which she now knew to be untrue. She’d let herself mold him into the perfect man, and it hurt so much to learn that he wasn’t just imperfect, he was quite close to abysmal.

And the worst was—she had only herself to blame. Sir Phillip had never misrepresented himself in his letters (although she did think he ought to have mentioned that he was a father, especially before he’d proposed marriage).

Her dreams had been just that—dreams. Wishful illusions, all of her own making. If he wasn’t what she’d expected, that was her fault. She’d been expecting something that didn’t even exist.

And she should have known better.

What’s more, he didn’t seem to be a very good father, which was as black a mark as anyone could get in her book.

No, she wasn’t being fair. She shouldn’t judge him so quickly on that score. The children didn’t look ill-treated or malnourished or anything so dire, but Sir Phillip clearly had no idea how to manage them. He had handled them all wrong this morning, and it was clear from the way they behaved that his relationship with them was distant at best.

Good heavens, they had practically begged him to spend the day with them. Any child who actually received enough attention from his parents would never act in such a way. Eloise and her siblings had spent half their childhood trying to avoid their parents—lack of supervision being, of course, more conducive for mischief.

Her own father had been splendid. She had been only seven when he’d died, but she remembered him well, from the stories he wove at bedtime to the hikes they had taken across the fields of Kent, sometimes with all the Bridgertons in tow, sometimes just with one lucky child, chosen for some special alone time with Father.

It was clear to her that if she hadn’t suggested to Sir Phillip that he find out why his children were screaming and knocking over the furniture, he would have left them to their own devices. Or, more to the point, left them to be someone else’s problem. And by the end of their conversation, it was apparent that Sir Phillip’s main aim in life was to avoid his children.

Which Eloise did not approve of at all.

She pushed herself off of her bed, forcing herself upright even though she was bone-tired. But every time she laid down, something began to quicken in her lungs, and she felt herself gasping in that awful precursor to not just tears, but true, body-shaking sobs. If she didn’t get up and do something, she wasn’t going to be able to control herself.

And she didn’t think she could bear herself if she cried.

She wrenched the window open, even though it was still gray and drizzling outside. There was no wind, so the rain ought not to blow in, and what she really needed right now was a bit of fresh air. A slap of cold on her face might not make her feel better, but it certainly wasn’t going to make her feel worse.

From her window she could see Sir Phillip’s greenhouse. She assumed that was where he was, since she hadn’t heard him here in the house, stomping about and bellowing at his children. The glass was fogged up and the only thing she could see was a blurry curtain of green—his beloved plants, she supposed. What sort of man was he, that he preferred plants to people? Certainly not anyone who appreciated a fine conversation.

She felt her shoulders sag. Eloise had spent half her life in search of a fine conversation.

And if he was such a hermit, why had he bothered to write her back? He had worked just as hard as she had to perpetuate their correspondence. Not to mention his proposal. If he hadn’t wanted company, he had no business inviting her here.

She took a few deep breaths of the misty air and then forced herself to stand up straight. She wasn’t certain what she was expected to do with herself all day. She’d taken a nap already; exhaustion had quickly won out over misery. But no one had come by to inform her of lunch or of any other plans that might extend to her as a houseguest.

If she stayed here, in this slightly drab and drafty room, she was going to go mad. Or at the very least cry herself into oblivion, which was something she did not tolerate in others, so the thought of doing it herself was horrifying.

There was no reason she couldn’t explore the house a bit, was there? And maybe she could find herself some food along the way. She’d eaten all four muffins on the tea tray this morning, all with as much butter and marmalade as she could politely slather on, but she was still famished. At this point she thought she might be willing to commit violence for a ham sandwich.

She changed her clothing, donning a dress of peach muslin that was pretty and feminine without being too frilly. And most importantly, it was easy to get on and off, surely a critical factor when one had run from home without a lady’s maid.

A quick glance in the mirror told her that she looked presentable, if no picture of ravishing beauty, and so she stepped out into the hall.

Only to be immediately confronted by the eight-year-old Crane twins, looking very much as if they’d been lying in wait for hours.

“Good afternoon,” Eloise said, waiting for them to come to their feet. “How nice of you to greet me.”

“We’re not here to greet you,” Amanda blurted out, grunting when Oliver elbowed her in the ribs.

“You’re not?” Eloise asked, trying to sound surprised. “Are you here, then, to show me to the dining room? I’m quite hungry, I must say.”

“No,” Oliver said, crossing his arms.

“Not even that?” Eloise mused. “Let me guess. You’re here to take me to your room and show me your toys.”

“No,” they said, in unison.

“Then it must be to take me on a tour of the house. It’s quite large and I might lose my way.”

“No.”

“No? You wouldn’t want me to lose my way, would you?”

“No,” Amanda said. “I mean yes!”

Eloise feigned incomprehension. “You want me to lose my way?”

Amanda nodded. Oliver just tightened his arms across his chest and speared her with a sullen stare.

“Hmmm. That’s interesting, but it hardly explains your presence right here outside my door, does it? I’m not likely to get lost in the company of you two.”

Their lips parted in befuddled surprise.

“You do know your way around the house, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Oliver grunted, followed by Amanda’s, “We’re not babies.”

“No, I can see that,” Eloise said with a thoughtful nod. “Babies wouldn’t be allowed to wait by themselves outside my door, after all. They’d be quite busy with nappies and bottles and the like.”

They had nothing to add to that.

“Does your father know you’re here?”

“He’s busy.”

“Very busy.”

“He’s a very busy man.”

“Much too busy for you.”

Eloise watched and listened with interest as the twins shot off their lightning-fast statements, falling all over themselves to demonstrate how busy Sir Phillip was.

“So what you’re telling me,” Eloise said, “is that your father is busy.”

They stared at her, momentarily dumbfounded by her calm retelling of the facts, then nodded.

“But that still doesn’t explain your presence,” Eloise mused. “Because I don’t think your father sent you here in his stead....” She waited until they shook their heads in the negative, then added, “Unless... I know!” she said in an excited voice, allowing herself a mental smile over her cleverness. She had nine nephews and nieces. She knew exactly how to talk to children. “You’re here to tell me you have magical powers and can predict the weather.”

“No,” they said, but Eloise heard a giggle.

“No? That’s a shame, because this constant drizzle is miserable, don’t you think?”

“No,” Amanda said, quite forcefully. “Father likes the rain, and so do we.”

“He likes the rain?” Eloise asked in surprise. “How very odd.”

“No, it’s not,” Oliver replied, his stance defensive. “My father isn’t odd. He’s perfect. Don’t say mean things about him.”

“I didn’t,” Eloise replied, wondering what on earth was going on now. At first she’d merely thought the twins were here to frighten her away. Presumably, they had heard that their father was thinking of marrying her and wanted no part of a stepmother, especially given the stories Eloise had been told by the housemaid of the succession of poor, abused governesses who had come and gone.

But if that were the simple truth, wouldn’t they want her to think there was something wrong with Sir Phillip? If they wanted her gone, wouldn’t they be trying to convince her that he would be a terrible candidate for marriage?

“I assure you, I harbor no ill will toward any of you,” Eloise said. “In fact, I barely know your father.”

“If you make Father sad, I will... I will...”

Eloise watched the poor little boy’s face grow red with frustration as he fought for words and bravado. Carefully, gently, she crouched next to him until her face was on a level with his and said, “Oliver, I promise you, I am not here to make your father sad.” He said nothing, so she turned to his twin and asked, “Amanda?”

“You need to go,” Amanda blurted out, her arms crossed so tightly that her face was turning red. “We don’t want you here.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere for at least a week,” Eloise told them, keeping her voice firm. The children needed sympathy, and probably a great deal of love as well, but they also needed a bit of discipline and a clear idea of who was in charge.

And then, out of nowhere, Oliver hurled himself forward and pushed her hard, with both hands against her chest.

Her balance was precarious, crouching as she was on the balls of her feet. Eloise toppled over backward, landing most inelegantly on her bottom and rolling back until she was quite certain the twins had received a nice look at her petticoats.

“Well,” she declared, rising to her feet and crossing her arms as she stared sternly down at them. They had both taken several steps back and were staring at her with a mixture of glee and horror, as if they couldn’t quite believe that one of them had had the nerve to push her over. “That,” Eloise continued, “was inadvisable.”

“Are you going to hit us?” Oliver asked. His voice was defiant, but there was a hint of fright there, as if someone had hit them before.

“Of course not,” Eloise said quickly. “I don’t believe in striking children. I don’t believe in striking anyone.” Except people who strike children, she added to herself.

They looked somewhat relieved to hear it.

“I might remind you, however,” Eloise continued, “that you struck me first.”

“I pushed you,” he corrected.

She allowed herself a tiny groan. She ought to have anticipated that one. “If you do not want people striking you, you ought to practice the same philosophy.”

“The Golden Rule,” Amanda piped up.

“Exactly,” Eloise said with a wide smile. She rather doubted she’d changed the course of their lives with one little lesson, but nonetheless it was nice to hope that something she’d said provoked some consideration.

“But doesn’t that mean,” Amanda said thoughtfully, “that you should go home?”

Eloise felt her small moment of elation crumbling to dust, as she tried to imagine what leap of logic Amanda was about to embark upon to explain why Eloise should be banished to the Amazon.

“We’re home,” Amanda said, sounding exceedingly supercilious for an eight-year-old. Or maybe she was supercilious as only an eight-year-old could be. “So you should go home.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Eloise said sharply.

“Yes, it does,” Amanda replied with a smug little nod. “Do unto others as you would like done to you. We haven’t gone to your house, so you shouldn’t come to ours.”

“You’re very clever, did you know that?” Eloise asked.

Amanda looked as if she wanted to nod, but she was clearly too suspicious of Eloise’s compliment to accept it.

Eloise bent down so that they were face-to-face, all three of them. “But I,” she said to them in a very serious—and slightly defiant—voice, “am very clever, too.”

They stared at her with wide eyes, their mouths hanging slack as they regarded this person who was clearly so different from any other adult they’d ever met.

“Do we understand each other?” Eloise asked, straightening her spine and smoothing her hands along her skirts in a deceptively casual manner.

They said nothing, so she decided to answer for them. “Good,” she said. “Now, then, would you like to show me where the dining room is? I’m famished.”

“We have lessons,” Oliver said.

“You do?” Eloise asked, arching her brows. “How interesting. Then you must return to them at once. I imagine you’ve fallen behind after spending so long waiting outside my door.”

“How did you know—” Amanda’s question was cut short by Oliver’s elbow in her ribs.

“I have seven brothers and sisters,” Eloise answered, deciding that Amanda’s question deserved an answer, even if her brother hadn’t allowed her to finish her sentence. “There isn’t much about this sort of warfare that I don’t already know.”

But as the twins scurried down the hall, Eloise was left chewing her lower lip in apprehension. She had a feeling she shouldn’t have ended their encounter with such a challenge. She had practically dared Oliver and Amanda to find a way to evict her from the premises.

And while she was quite certain they wouldn’t succeed—she was a Bridgerton, after all, and made of sterner stuff than those two even knew existed—she had a feeling that they would throw every fiber of their being into the task.

Eloise shuddered. Eels in the bed, hair dipped in ink, jam on chairs. It had all been done to her at one point or another, and she didn’t particularly relish a repeat performance—and certainly not by a pair of children twenty years her junior.

She sighed, wondering what it was she had gotten herself into. She had better find Sir Phillip and get to the task of deciding whether they would suit. Because if she really was leaving in a week or two, never to see any of the Cranes again, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to put herself through the trouble of mice and spiders and salt in the sugar bowl.

Her stomach rumbled. Whether it was the thought of salt or sugar that did it, Eloise didn’t know. But it was definitely time to find something to eat. And better sooner than later, before the twins had a chance to figure out how to poison her food.

Phillip knew that he’d blundered badly. But deuce it, the bloody woman had given him no warning. If she’d only alerted him of her arrival, he could have prepared himself, thought of a few poetic things to say. Did she really think he’d scribbled all those letters without laboring over every word? He’d never sent out the first draft of any of his missives (although he always wrote it on his best paper, each time hoping that this would be the time he’d get it right on the first try).

Hell, if she’d given him warning, he might have even summoned a romantic gesture or two. Flowers would have been nice, and heaven knew, if there was one thing he was good at, it was flowers.

But instead, she’d simply appeared before him as if conjured from a dream, and he’d mucked everything up.

And it hadn’t helped that Miss Eloise Bridgerton was not what he had expected.

She was a twenty-eight-year-old spinster, for heaven’s sake. She was supposed to be unattractive. Horse-faced, even. Instead she was—

Well, he wasn’t exactly certain how one could describe her. Not beautiful, precisely, but still somehow stunning, with thick chestnut hair and eyes of the clearest, crispest gray. She was the sort of woman whose expressions made her beautiful. There was intelligence in her eyes, curiosity in the way she cocked her head to the side. Her features were unique, almost exotic, with her heart-shaped face and wide smile.

Not that he’d seen much of that smile. His less-than-legendary charm had seen to that.

He jammed his hands into a pile of moist soil and scooped some into a small clay pot, leaving it loosely packed for optimal root growth. What the devil was he going to do now? He’d pinned his hopes on his mirage of Miss Eloise Bridgerton, based upon the letters she’d sent to him over the past year. He didn’t have time (nor, in truth, the inclination) to court a prospective mother for the twins, so it had seemed perfect (not to mention almost easy) to woo her through letters.

Surely an unmarried woman rapidly approaching the age of thirty would be gratified to receive a proposal of marriage. He hadn’t expected her to accept his offer without meeting with him, of course, and he wasn’t prepared to formally commit to the idea without making her acquaintance, either. But he had expected that she would be someone who was at least a little bit desperate for a husband.

Instead, she’d arrived looking young and pretty and smart and self-confident, and good God, but why would a woman like that want to marry someone she didn’t even know? Not to mention tie herself to a decidedly rural estate in the farthest corner of Gloucestershire. Phillip might know less than nothing about fashion, but even he could tell that her garments had been well made and most probably of the latest style. She was going to expect trips to London, an active social life, friends.

None of which she was likely to find here at Romney Hall.

It seemed almost useless to even try to make her acquaintance. She wasn’t going to stay, and he’d be foolish to get his hopes up.

He groaned, then cursed for good measure. Now he was going to have to court some other woman. Curse it, now he was going to have to find some other woman to court, which was going to be nearly as difficult. No one in the district would even look at him. All of the unmarried ladies knew about the twins, and there wasn’t a one of them willing to take on the responsibility of his little devils.

He’d pinned all of his hopes on Miss Bridgerton, and now it seemed that he was going to have to give up on her as well.

He set his pot down too hard on a shelf, wincing as the clatter of it rang through the greenhouse.

With a loud sigh, he dunked his muddy hands into a bucket of already dirtied water to wash them off. He’d been rude this morning. He was still rather irritated that she’d come out here and wasted his time—or if she hadn’t wasted it yet, she was almost certainly going to waste it, since she wasn’t likely to turn around and leave this evening.

But that didn’t excuse his behavior. It wasn’t her fault he couldn’t manage his own children, and it certainly wasn’t her fault that this failing always put him in a foul mood.

Wiping his hands on a towel he kept by the door, he strode out into the drizzle and made his way to the house. It was probably time for luncheon, and it wouldn’t hurt anyone to sit down with her at the table and make polite conversation.

Plus, she was here. After all his effort with the letters, it seemed foolish not to at least see if they might get on well enough for marriage. Only an idiot would send her packing—or allow her to leave—without even ascertaining her suitability.

It was unlikely that she would stay, but not, he reckoned, impossible, and he might at least give it a try.

He made his way through the misty drizzle and into the house, wiping his feet on the mat that the housekeeper always left out for him near the side entrance. He was a mess, as he always was after working in the greenhouse, and the servants were used to him in such a state, but he supposed he ought to clean up before finding Miss Bridgerton and inviting her to eat with him. She was from London and would surely object to sitting at table with a man who was less than perfectly groomed.

He cut through the kitchen, nodding genially at a maid washing carrots in a tub of water. The servants’ stairs were just outside the other kitchen door and—

“Miss Bridgerton!” he said in surprise. She was sitting at a table in the kitchen, halfway through a very large ham sandwich and looking remarkably at home on her perch on a stool. “What are you doing here?”

“Sir Phillip,” she said, nodding at him.

“You don’t have to eat in the kitchen,” he said, scowling at her for no reason other than that she was not where he’d expected her to be.

That and the fact that he’d actually intended to change his clothes for lunch—something with which he did not ordinarily bother—for her benefit, and here she’d caught him a mess, anyway.

“I know,” she replied, cocking her head and blinking those devastating gray eyes at him. “But I was looking for food and company, and this seemed the best place to find both.”

Was that an insult? He couldn’t be certain, and her eyes looked innocent, so he decided to ignore it and said, “I was just on my way to change into cleaner attire and invite you to share my lunch with me.”

“I would be happy to remove myself to the breakfast room and finish my sandwich there, if you wish to join me,” Eloise said. “I’m sure Mrs. Smith wouldn’t mind making another sandwich for you. This one is delicious.” She looked over at the cook. “Mrs. Smith?”

“It’s no trouble at all, Miss Bridgerton,” the cook said, leaving Phillip nearly gaping at her. It was quite the friendliest tone of voice he had ever heard emerge from her lips.

Eloise edged herself off of her stool and picked up her plate. “Shall we?” she said to Phillip. “I have no objection to your attire.”

Before he even realized that he had not agreed to her plan, Phillip found himself in the breakfast room, seated across from her at the small round table he used far more often than the long, lonely one in the formal dining room. A maid had carried Miss Bridgerton’s tea service, and after inquiring if he wanted some, Miss Bridgerton herself had expertly prepared him a cup.

It was an unsettling feeling, this. She had maneuvered him quite neatly to serve her purposes, and somehow it didn’t quite matter that he’d intended to ask her to lunch with him in this very manner. He liked to think he was at least nominally in charge in his own home.

“I met your children earlier,” Miss Bridgerton said, lifting her teacup to her lips.

“Yes, I was there,” he replied, pleased that she had initiated the conversation. Now he didn’t have to.

“No,” she corrected, “after that.”

He looked up in question.

“They were waiting for me,” she explained, “outside my bedchamber door.”

An awful feeling began to churn and roll in his stomach. Waiting for her with what? A bag of live frogs? A bag of dead frogs? His children had not been kind to their governesses, and he did not imagine they’d be much more charitable to a female guest who was obviously there in the role of prospective stepmother.

He coughed. “I trust you survived the encounter?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “We have reached an understanding of sorts.”

“An understanding?” He eyed her warily. “Of sorts?”

She waved away his question as she chewed on her food. “You needn’t worry about me.”

“Need I worry about my children?”

She looked up at him with an inscrutable smile. “Of course not.”

“Very well.” He looked down at the sandwich that had been placed in front of him and took a healthy bite. Once he’d swallowed, he looked her straight in the eye and said, “I must apologize for my greeting this morning. I was less than gracious.”

She nodded regally. “And I apologize for arriving unheralded. It was quite ill-bred of me.”

He nodded back. “You, however, apologized for that this morning, while I did not.”

She offered him a smile, a genuine one, and he felt his heart lurch. Good God, when she smiled it transformed her entire face. In all the time he’d been corresponding with her, he’d never dreamed that she would take his breath away.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her cheeks flushing with the barest hint of pink. “That was very gracious of you.”

Phillip cleared his throat and shifted uneasily in his seat. What was wrong with him, that he was less comfortable with her smiles than he was with her frowns? “Right,” he said, coughing one more time to cover the gruffness in his voice. “Now that we have that out of the way, perhaps we should address your reason for being here.”

Eloise set her sandwich down and regarded him with obvious surprise. Clearly, she hadn’t expected him to be so direct. “You were interested in marriage,” she said.

“Are you?” he countered.

“I’m here,” she said simply.

He looked at her assessingly, his eyes searching hers until she squirmed in her seat. “You are not what I expected, Miss Bridgerton.”

“Under the circumstances, I would not think it inappropriate for you to use my given name,” she said, “and you are not what I expected, either.”

He sat back in his seat, looking at her with the vaguest hint of a smile. “And what did you expect?”

“What did you expect?” Eloise countered.

He gave her a look that told her he’d noticed she’d avoided his question, then said, quite bluntly, “I didn’t expect you to be so pretty.”

Eloise felt herself lurch back slightly at the unexpected compliment. She hadn’t been looking her best that morning, and even if she had—well, she’d never been considered one of the beauties of the ton. Bridgerton women were generally thought to be attractive, vivacious, and personable. She and her sisters were popular, and they’d all received more than one offer of marriage, but men seemed to like them because they liked them, not because they were struck dumb by their beauty.

“I... ah...” She felt herself flushing, which mortified her, which of course caused her cheeks to redden even more. “Thank you.”

He nodded graciously.

“I am not certain why my appearance would have come as a surprise to you,” she said, thoroughly annoyed with herself for reacting so strongly to his flattery. Heavens, one would think she had never been paid a compliment before. But he was just sitting there, looking at her. Looking, and staring, and...

She shivered.

And it wasn’t the least bit drafty. Could one shiver from feeling too... hot?

“You yourself wrote that you are a spinster,” he said. “There must be some reason you have never married.”

“It was not because I received no offers,” she felt compelled to inform him.

“Obviously not,” he said, tilting his head in her direction as a gesture of compliment. “But I cannot help but be curious as to why a woman like you would feel the need to resort to... well... me.”

She looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since she’d arrived. He was quite handsome in a rough, slightly unkempt sort of way. His dark hair looked in dire need of a good trim, and his skin showed signs of a faint tan, which was impressive considering how little sunshine they’d enjoyed lately. He was large and muscular, and sat in his chair with a careless, athletic sort of grace, legs sprawled in a manner that would not have been acceptable in a London drawing room.

And the look on his face told her that he didn’t much care that his manners were not de rigeur. It wasn’t the same sort of defiant attitude she saw so often among young men of the ton. She’d met so many men of that kind—the ones who made such a point of defying convention, and then spoiled the effect by going out of their way to make sure that everyone knew how daring and scandalous they were.

But with Sir Phillip it was different. Eloise would have bet good money that it would simply never have occurred to him to care that he wasn’t sitting in a properly formal manner, and it certainly wouldn’t have occurred to him to make sure that other people knew he didn’t care.

It made Eloise wonder if that was the mark of a truly self-confident person, and if so, why did he need to resort to her? Because from what she’d seen of him, curt manners this morning aside, he shouldn’t have had too much trouble finding himself a wife.

“I am here,” she said, finally remembering that he had asked her a question, “because after refusing several offers of marriage”—she knew that a better person would have been more modest and not taken such pains to emphasize the word “several,” but she just couldn’t help herself—“I find that I still desire a husband. Your letters seemed to indicate that you might be a good candidate. It seemed shortsighted not to meet with you and find out if that was indeed true.”

He nodded. “Very practical of you.”

“What about you?” she countered. “You were the one who initially brought up the topic of marriage. Why couldn’t you simply find yourself a wife among the women here?”

For a moment he did nothing but blink, looking at her as if he couldn’t quite believe she hadn’t figured it out for herself. Finally, he said, “You’ve met my children.”

Eloise nearly choked on the bite of sandwich she’d just started to chew. “I beg your pardon?”

“My children,” he said flatly. “You’ve met them. Twice, I think. You told me so.”

“Yes, but what...” She felt her eyes grow wide. “Oh, no, don’t tell me they’ve scared away every prospective wife in the district?”

The look he leveled at her was grim. “Most of the women in the area refuse to even enter the ranks of the prospectives.”

She scoffed. “They’re not that bad.”

“They need a mother,” he said baldly.

She raised her brows. “Surely you can find a more romantic way to convince me to be your wife.”

Phillip sighed wearily, running a hand through his already ruffled hair. “Miss Bridgerton,” he said, then corrected himself with, “Eloise. I’m going to be honest with you, because, to be frank, I have neither the energy nor the patience for fancy romantic words or cleverly constructed stories. I need a wife. My children need a mother. I invited you here to see if you would be willing to assume such a role, and indeed, if you and I would suit.”

“Which one?” she whispered.

He clenched his hands, his knuckles brushing the tablecloth. What was it about women? Did they speak in some sort of code? “Which one... what?” he asked, impatience coloring his voice.

“Which one do you want,” she clarified, her voice still soft. “A wife or a mother?”

“Both,” he said. “I should think that was obvious.”

“Which one do you want more?”

Phillip stared at her for a long while, aware that this was an important question, quite possibly one that could signal the end of his unusual courtship. Finally, he just offered her a helpless shrug and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to separate the two.”

She nodded, her eyes serious. “I see,” she murmured. “I expect you are right.”

Phillip let out a long breath he wasn’t even aware he’d been holding. Somehow—God Himself only knew how—he’d answered correctly. Or at the very least, not incorrectly.

Eloise fidgeted slightly in her seat, then motioned to the half-eaten sandwich on his plate. “Shall we continue with our meal?” she suggested. “You’ve been in your greenhouse all morning. I’m sure you must be quite famished.”

Phillip nodded and took a bite of his food, all of a sudden feeling quite pleased with life. He still wasn’t certain that Miss Bridgerton was going to consent to become Lady Crane, but if she did...

Well, he didn’t think he would have any objections.

But wooing her wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d anticipated. It was clear to him that he needed her more than the other way around. He’d been counting on her being a desperate spinster, which was clearly not the case, despite her advanced years. Miss Bridgerton, he suspected, had a number of options in her life, of which he was only one.

But still, something must have compelled her to leave her home and travel all the way out to Gloucestershire. If her life in London was so perfect, why, then, had she left?

But as he watched her across the table, watched her face transform with a mere smile, it occurred to him—he didn’t much care why she’d left.

He just needed to make sure that she stayed.