Her brother was a viscount.
Her father had died when she was but a child, incomprehensibly brought down by a humble bee sting.
She had a tendency to talk too much. (Good God, had she really put that into writing?)
She liked to read poetry and novels but certainly not scientific treatises or works of philosophy.
She had traveled to Scotland, but that was all.
Her favorite color was purple.
She did not like mutton and positively detested blood pudding.
Another little burst of panicked laughter passed over her lips. Put that way, she thought with no small bit of sarcasm, she seemed a fine catch indeed.
She glanced out the window, as if that might possibly give her an indication as to where they were on the road from London to Tetbury.
Rolling green hills looked like rolling green hills looked like rolling green hills, and she could be in Wales, for all she knew.
Frowning, she looked down at the paper in her lap and refolded Sir Phillip’s letter. Fitting it back into the ribbon-tied bundle she kept in her valise, she then tapped her fingers against her thighs in a nervous gesture.
She had reason to be nervous.
She had left home and all that was familiar, after all.
She was traveling halfway across England, and no one knew.
No one.
Not even Sir Phillip.
Because in her haste to leave London, she’d neglected to tell him she was coming. It wasn’t that she’dforgotten; rather, she’d sort of ... pushed the task aside until it was too late.
If she told him, then she was committed to the plan. This way, she still had the chance to back out at any moment. She told herself it was because she liked to have choices and options, but the truth was, she was quite simply terrified, and she had feared a total loss of her courage.
Besides, he was the one who had requested the meeting. He would be happy to see her.
Wouldn’t he?
Phillip rose from bed and pulled open the draperies in his bedchamber, revealing another perfect, sunny day.
Perfect.
He padded over to his dressing room to find some clothes, having long since dismissed the servants who used to perform these duties. He couldn’t explain it, but after Marina had died, he hadn’t wanted anyone bustling into his bedroom in the morning, yanking open his curtains, and selecting his garments.
He’d even dismissed Miles Carter, who had tried so hard to be a friend after Marina’s passing. But somehow the young secretary just made him feel worse, and so he’d sent him on his way, along with six months’ pay and a superb letter of reference.
He’d spent his marriage with Marina looking for someone to talk to, since she was so often absent, but now that she was gone, all he wanted was his own company.
He supposed he must have alluded to this in one of his many letters to the mysterious Eloise Bridgerton, because he had sent off his proposal of not-quite-marriage-but-maybe-something-leading-up-to-it over a month ago, and the silence on her part had been deafening, especially since she usually responded to his letters with charming alacrity.
He frowned. The mysterious Eloise Bridgerton wasn’t reallysomysterious. In her letters she seemed quite open and honest and possessed of a positivelysunnydisposition, which, when it all came down to it, was all he really insisted upon in a wife this time around.
He yanked on a work shirt; he planned to spend most of the day in the greenhouse, up to his elbows in dirt. He was rather disappointed that Miss Bridgerton had obviously decided he was some sort of deranged lunatic to be avoided at all costs. She had seemed the perfect solution to his problems. He desperately needed a mother for Amanda and Oliver, but they’d grown so unmanageable that he couldn’t imagine any woman willingly agreeing to cleave unto him in marriage and thus bind herself to those two little devils for life (or at least until they reached majority).
Miss Bridgerton was eight and twenty, however; quite obviously a spinster. And she’d been corresponding with a complete stranger for over a year; surely she was a little desperate? Wouldn’t she appreciate the chance to find a husband? He had a home, a respectable fortune, and was only thirty years of age. What more could she want?
He muttered several annoyed phrases as he thrust his legs into his rough woolen trousers. Obviously she wantedsomething more, else she would have had the courtesy to at least write back and decline.
