Phillip whistled to himself as he walked through the main hall toward the staircase, inordinately pleased with his life. He’d spent the better part of the afternoon in the company of Miss Bridgerton—no, Eloise, he reminded himself—and he was now convinced she’d make an excellent wife. She was quite clearly intelligent, and with all those brothers and sisters (not to mention nephews and nieces) she’d told him about, surely she’d know how to manage Oliver and Amanda.

And, he thought with a wolfish smile, she was rather pretty, and more than once this afternoon he’d caught himself looking at her, wondering how she’d feel in his arms, whether she’d respond to his kiss.

His body tightened at the thought. It had been so long since he’d been with a woman. More years than he cared to count.

More years, quite honestly, than any man would care to admit to.

He’d not availed himself of any of the services offered by the barmaids at the local public inn, preferring his women more freshly washed and, in truth, not quite so anonymous.

Or maybe more anonymous. None of those barmaids were likely to leave the village during their lifetime, and Phillip enjoyed his time at the public inn too much to ruin it by constantly having to run into women with whom he’d once lain and no longer cared to.

And before Marina’s death—well, he’d never even considered being unfaithful to her, despite the fact that they’d not shared a bed since the twins were quite young.

She’d been so melancholy following their birth. Marina had always seemed fragile and overly pensive, but it was only after Oliver and Amanda had arrived that she’d sunk into her own world of sorrow and despair. It had been horrifying for Phillip, watching the life behind her eyes slip away, day by day, until all that was left was an eerie flatness, the barest shadow of the woman who had once existed.

He knew that women couldn’t have relations immediately following childbirth, but even once she was physically healed he couldn’t have even imagined forcing himself upon her. How was one supposed to lust after a woman who always looked as if she might cry?

When the twins were a bit older, and Phillip had thought—hoped, really—that Marina was getting better, he had visited her in her bedchamber.

Once.

She had not refused him, but nor had she taken part in his lovemaking. She’d just lain there, doing nothing, her head turned to the side, her eyes open, barely blinking.

It was almost as if she hadn’t been there at all.

He’d left feeling soiled, morally corrupt, as if he’d somehow violated her, even though she had never uttered the word no.

And he had never touched her again.

His needs weren’t so great that he needed to slake them upon a woman who lay beneath him like a corpse.

And he never wanted to feel again as he had that final night. Once he’d returned to his own room, he’d promptly emptied the contents of his stomach, shaking and trembling, disgusted with himself. He had behaved like an animal, desperately trying to rouse in her some sort—any sort—of response. When that had proven impossible, he’d grown angry with her, wanted to punish her.

And that had terrified him.

He’d been too rough. He didn’t think he’d hurt her, but he hadn’t been gentle. And he never wanted to see that side of himself again.

But Marina was gone.

Gone.

And Eloise was different. She wasn’t going to cry at the drop of a hat or shut herself in her room, picking at her food and crying into her pillow.

Eloise had spirit. Backbone.

Eloise was happy.

And if that wasn’t a good criterion for a wife, he didn’t know what was.

He paused at the base of the stairs to check his pocket watch. He had told Eloise that supper would be at seven and that he would meet her outside her door to take her down to the dining room. He didn’t want to be early and appear too eager.

On the other hand, it wouldn’t do to be late. There was little to be gained in making her think he was disinterested.

He snapped his watch shut and rolled his eyes. He was behaving no better than a green boy. This was ridiculous. He was master of his own house and an accomplished scientist. He ought not to be counting minutes just so he could best win a woman’s favor.

But even as he thought that, he opened his watch for one more check. Three minutes prior to seven. Excellent. That would give him just enough time to ascend the stairs and meet her outside her door with precisely one minute to spare.

He grinned, enjoying his warm flush of desire at the thought of her in an evening gown. He hoped it was blue. She would look lovely in blue.

His smile deepened. She would look lovely in nothing at all.

Except when he found her, upstairs in the hall outside her bedchamber, her hair had gone white.

As, it seemed, had the rest of her.

Bloody hell. “Oliver!” he bellowed. “Amanda!”

“Oh, they’re long gone,” Eloise bit off. She looked up at him with fuming eyes. Fuming eyes which, he couldn’t help but note, were the only part of her not covered with a remarkably thick coating of flour.

Well, good for her for closing them in time. He’d always admired quick reflexes in a woman.

“Miss Bridgerton,” he said, his hand moving forward to help her, then retracting as he realized there was no helping her. “I cannot begin to express—”

“Don’t apologize for them,” she snapped.

“Right,” he said. “Of course. But I promise you... I will...”

His words trailed off. Truly, the look in her eyes would have been enough to silence Napoleon himself.

“Sir Phillip,” she said... slowly, tightly, looking very much as if she might launch herself at him in a furious frenzy. “As you can see, I’m not quite ready for supper.”

He took a self-preservational step back. “I gather the twins paid you a visit,” he said.

“Oh, yes,” she replied, with no small measure of sarcasm. “And then scampered away. The little cowards themselves are nowhere to be found.”

“Well, they wouldn’t be far,” he mused, allowing her the well-deserved insult to his children while he tried to carry on a conversation as if she didn’t look like some sort of hideous ghostly apparition.

Somehow it seemed the best course of action. Or at the very least, the one least likely to result in her wrapping her fingers around his throat.

“They’d want to see the results, of course,” he said, taking another discreet step back as she coughed, sending up a swirling cloud of flour. “I don’t suppose you heard any laughter when the flour came down? Cackling, perhaps?”

She glared at him.

“Right.” He winced. “Sorry for that. Stupid joke.”

“It was difficult,” she said, so tightly he wondered if her jaw might snap, “to hear anything but the sound of the bucket hitting my head.”

“Damn,” he muttered, following her line of sight until his eyes fell on a large metal bucket lying on its side on the carpet, with a small amount of flour still inside. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head.

He reached out and took her head in his hands, trying to inspect her skin for bumps or bruises.

“Sir Phillip!” she yelped, attempting to squirm out of his grasp. “I must ask you to—”

“Be still,” he ordered, smoothing his thumbs over her temples, feeling for welts. It was an intimate gesture, and one he found oddly satisfying. She seemed just the right height next to him, and had she been clean, he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to stop himself from leaning down and dropping a soft kiss on her brow.

“I’m fine,” she practically grunted, wrenching herself free. “The flour weighed more than the bucket.”

Phillip leaned down and righted the bucket, testing its weight in his hand. It was fairly light and shouldn’t have caused too much damage, but still, it wasn’t the sort of thing with which one wanted to be struck on the head.

“I shall survive, I assure you,” she bit out.

He cleared his throat. “I imagine you will want a bath?”

He thought she said, “I imagine I will want those two little wretches on the end of a rope,” but the words came out under her breath, and just because that was what he would have said—well, it didn’t mean she was as uncharitably inclined.

“I’ll have one drawn for you,” he said quickly.

“Don’t bother. The water from my last bath is still in the tub.”

He winced. His children’s timing couldn’t have been more on the spot. “Nonetheless,” he said hastily, “I shall see that it is warmed with a few fresh buckets.”

He winced again at her glare. Bad choice of words.

“I’ll just see to that now,” he said.

“Yes,” she replied tautly. “Do that.”

He strode down the hall to give the order to a maid, except that the minute he turned the corner, he saw that a half dozen servants were already gaping at them, and had in fact set up a betting pool on how long the twins would last before Phillip tanned their hides.

After sending them on their way with instructions to draw a new bath immediately, he returned to Eloise’s side. He was already dusted with flour, so he saw no harm in taking her hand. “I’m terribly sorry,” he murmured, now trying not to laugh. His immediate reaction had been fury, but now... well, she did look rather ridiculous.

She glared at him, clearly sensing his change of mood.

He quickly assumed a sober mien. “Perhaps you should return to your room?” he suggested.

“And sit where?” she snapped.

She had a point. She was likely to ruin anything she touched, or at the very least necessitate a thorough cleaning.

“I’ll just keep you company, then,” he said, trying to sound jovial.

She gave him a look that was decidedly unamused.

“Right,” he said, in an attempt to fill the silence with something other than flour. He glanced up over the door, impressed with the twins’ handiwork, despite the unfortunate results. “I wonder how they did it,” he mused.

Her mouth fell open. “Does it matter?”

“Well,” he said, seeing from her face that this was not the most advisable avenue of conversation, but continuing nonetheless with, “I certainly can’t condone their actions, but it was obviously quite cleverly done. I don’t see where they attached the bucket, and—”

“They rested it on the top of the door.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I have seven brothers and sisters,” she said dismissively. “Do you think I’ve never seen this prank before? They opened the door—just a crack—and then carefully placed the bucket.”

“And you didn’t hear them?”

She glared at him.

“Right,” he said hastily. “You were in the bath.”

“I don’t suppose,” she said in a haughty voice, “that you intend to imply that this was my fault for not having heard them.”

“Of course not,” he said—very quickly. Judging from the murderous look in Miss Bridgerton’s eyes, he was fairly certain that his health and welfare were directly dependent upon the speed with which he agreed with her. “Why don’t I leave you to your...”

Was there really a good way to describe the process of cleaning several pounds of flour off one’s person?

“Will I see you at supper?” he asked, deciding that a change of subject was most definitely in order.

She nodded, once, briefly. There wasn’t a great deal of warmth in that nod, but Phillip reckoned he should be happy that she wasn’t planning to leave the county that night.

“I will instruct the cook to keep supper warm,” he said. “And I will see to punishing the twins.”

“No,” she said, halting him in his tracks. “Leave them to me.”

He turned around slowly, a bit unnerved by the tone of her voice. “What, precisely, do you plan to do with them?”

“With them, or to them?”

Phillip had never thought the day would come when he’d be frightened by a woman, but as God was his witness, Eloise Bridgerton scared the living wits out of him.

The look in her eyes was positively diabolical.

“Miss Bridgerton,” he said, crossing his arms, “I must ask. What do you intend to do to my children?”

“I’m pondering my options.”

He considered that. “May I depend upon their still being alive tomorrow morning?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied. “Alive, and with every limb intact, I assure you.”

Phillip stared at her for several moments, then let his lips spread into a slow, satisfied smile. He had a feeling that Eloise Bridgerton’s vengeance—whatever it might be—would be exactly what his children needed. Surely anyone with seven brothers and sisters would know how to wreak havoc in the most cunning, underhanded, and ingenious manner.

“Very well, Miss Bridgerton,” he said, almost glad they’d dumped a bucket of flour on her. “They are all yours.”

An hour later, just after he and Eloise sat down for supper, the screaming began.

Phillip actually dropped his spoon; Amanda’s shrieks had a more terrified tenor than usual.

Eloise didn’t even pause as she placed a spoonful of turtle soup between her lips. “She’s fine,” she murmured, delicately wiping her mouth with her serviette.

The rapid patter of little feet thundered overhead, signaling that Amanda was racing toward the steps.

Phillip half rose in his seat. “Perhaps I should—”

“I put a fish in her bed,” Miss Bridgerton said, not quite smiling, but nonetheless looking rather pleased with herself.

“A fish?” he echoed.

“Very well, it was a rather big fish.”

The tadpole in his mind quickly grew into a toothy shark, and he found himself choking on air. “Er,” he couldn’t help but ask, “where did you find a fish?”

“Mrs. Smith,” she said, as if his cook handed out large trout every day of the week.

He forced himself to sit back down. He wasn’t going to run to save Amanda. He wanted to; he did possess the odd paternal instinct, after all, and she was shrieking as if the fires of hell were licking at her toes.

But his daughter had made her bed; now it was time to lie in the one Miss Bridgerton had stunk up for her. He dipped his spoon in his soup, lifted it a few inches, then paused. “And what did you place in Oliver’s bed?”

“Nothing.”

He quirked a brow in question.

“It will keep him in suspense,” she explained coolly.

Phillip cocked his head toward her in salute. She was good. “They’ll retaliate, of course,” he felt honor-bound to warn her.

“I’ll be ready.” She sounded unconcerned. Then she looked up at him, straight in the eye, momentarily startling him with her direct gaze. “I suppose they know that you invited me here for the purpose of asking me to be your wife.”

“I never said anything to them.”

“No,” she murmured, “you wouldn’t.”

He looked over at her sharply, unable to discern if she meant that as an insult. “I don’t feel the need to keep my children apprised of my personal matters.”

She shrugged, a delicate little motion that he found infuriating.

“Miss Bridgerton,” he said, “I don’t need your advice on how to raise my children.”

“I didn’t say a word on the subject,” she returned, “although I might point out that you do appear rather desperate to find them a mother, which would seem to indicate that you do want help.”

“Until you agree to take on that role,” he bit off, “you may keep your opinions to yourself.”

She speared him with a frosty stare, then turned her attention back to her soup. After only two spoonfuls, however, she looked back up at him defiantly, and said, “They need discipline.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

“They also need love.”

“They get love,” he muttered.

“And attention.”

“They get that, too.”

“From you.”

Phillip might have been aware that he was far from being a perfect father, but he was damned if he would allow someone else to say so. “And I suppose you have deduced their state of shameful neglect during the twelve hours since your arrival.”

She snorted her disdain. “It hardly required twelve hours to listen to them this morning, begging you to spend a paltry few minutes in their company.”

“They did nothing of the sort,” he retorted, but he could feel the tips of his ears growing hot, as they always did when he was lying. He didn’t spend enough time with them, and he was mortified that she’d managed to figure that out in such a short amount of time.

“They practically begged you not to be busy all day,” she shot back. “If you spent a bit more time with them—”

“You don’t know anything about my children,” he hissed. “And you don’t know anything about me.”

She stood abruptly. “Clearly,” she said, heading for the door.

“Wait!” he called, jumping to his feet. Damn. How had this happened? Barely an hour ago he’d been convinced that she would become his wife, and now she was practically on her way back to London.

He let out a frustrated breath. Nothing had the ability to turn his temper like his children, or the discussion thereof. Or, to be more precise, the discussion of his failings as their father.

“I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it, too. Or at least meaning it enough not to want her to leave. “Please.” He held out his hand. “Don’t go.”

“I’ll not be treated like an imbecile.”

“If there is one thing I’ve learned in the twelve hours since your arrival,” he said, purposefully repeating his earlier words, “it’s that you’re no imbecile.”

She regarded him for a few more seconds, then placed her hand in his.

“At the very least,” he said, not even caring that he sounded as if he were pleading with her, “you must stay until Amanda arrives.”

Her brows rose in question.

“Surely you’ll want to savor your victory,” he murmured, then added under his breath, “I know I would.”

She allowed him to reseat her, but they had only one more minute together before Amanda came shrieking into the room, her nursemaid hot on her heels.

“Father!” Amanda wailed, throwing herself onto his lap.

Phillip embraced her awkwardly. It was some time since he’d done so, and he’d forgotten how it felt. “Whatever can be the problem?” he asked, giving her a pat on the back for good measure.

Amanda pulled her face out of its burrowed position in his neck and pointed one furious, shaking finger at Eloise. “It’s her,” she said, as if referring to the devil himself.

“Miss Bridgerton?” Phillip asked.

“She put a fish in my bed!”

“And you dumped flour on her head,” he said sternly, “so I’d say you’re even.”

Amanda’s little mouth fell open. “But you’re my father!”

“Indeed.”

“You’re supposed to take my side!”

“When you’re in the right.”

“It was a fish,” she sobbed.

“So I smell. You’ll want a bath, I imagine.”

“I don’t want a bath!” she wailed. “I want you to punish her!”

Phillip smiled at that. “She’s rather big for punishing, wouldn’t you agree?”

Amanda stared at him with horrified disbelief, and then finally, her lower lip shaking, she gasped, “You need to tell her to leave. Right now!”

Phillip set Amanda down, rather pleased with how the entire encounter was progressing. Maybe it was Miss Bridgerton’s calm presence, but he seemed to have more patience than usual. He felt no urge to snap at Amanda, or to avoid the issue altogether by banishing her to her room. “I beg your pardon, Amanda,” he said, “but Miss Bridgerton is my guest, not yours, and she will remain here as long as I wish.”

Eloise cleared her throat. Loudly.

“Or,” Phillip amended, “as long as she wishes to remain.”

Amanda’s entire face scrunched in thought.

“Which doesn’t mean,” he said quickly, “that you may torture her in an attempt to force her away.”

“But—”

“No buts.”

“But—”

“What did I just say?”

“But she’s mean!”

“I think she’s very clever,” Phillip said, “and I wish I’d put a fish in your bed months ago.”

Amanda stepped back in horror.

“Go to your room, Amanda.”

“But it smells bad.”

“You have only yourself to blame.”

“But my bed—”

“You’ll have to sleep on the floor,” he replied.

Face quivering—entire body quivering, truth be told—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, bossy—they weren’t the sort of things men usually looked for in a wife, but Phillip so desperately needed 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.