She wanted her sisters. Not Hyacinth, who was barely one and twenty and knew nothing of men, but one of her married sisters. She wanted Daphne, who always knew what to say, or Francesca, who never said what one wanted to hear but always managed to eke out a smile nonetheless.
But they were too far away, in London and Scotland respectively, and Eloise wasnotgoing to run off. She’d made her bed when she’d married, and she was quite contentedly lying in it every night with Phillip. It was just the days that were a bit off.
She wasn’t going to play the coward and leave, even if only for a few days.
But Sophie was near, just an hour away. And if they weren’t sisters by birth—well, they were sisters of the heart.
Eloise looked out the door. It was too cloudy to see the sun, but she was fairly sure it wasn’t much past noon. Even with the travel time, she could spend most of the day with Sophie and be back by supper.
Her pride didn’t want anyone to know she was miserable, but her heart wanted a shoulder to cry on.
Her heart won out.
***
Phillip spent the next several hours stomping across his fields, viciously yanking weeds from the ground.
Which kept him fairly busy, since he wasn’t in a cultivated area, which meant that pretty much every bit of growth could be classified as a weed, if one was so inclined.
And hewasso inclined. He was more than inclined. If he had his way, he’d yank every damned plant from the earth.
And he, a botanist.
But he didn’t want to plant things right now, didn’t want to watch anything bloom or grow. He wanted to kick and maim and destroy. He was angry and frustrated and cross with himself and cross with Eloise and he was quite prepared to be upset with anyone who happened across his path.
But after an afternoon of this, of kicking and stomping, and yanking the heads off wildflowers and tearing blades of grass down the middle, he sat on a rock and let his head hang in his hands.
Hell.
What a muck.
What a bloody muck, and the really ironic bit of it was—he’d thought they were happy.
He’d thought his marriage perfect, and all this time—oh, very well, it had only been a week, but it had been a week of, in his opinion, perfection. And she’d been miserable.
Or if not miserable, then not happy.
Or maybe a little bit happy, but certainly not caught up in blissful rapture, as he had been.
And now he had to go anddosomething about it, which was the last thing he wanted to do. Talking with Eloise, actually asking questions and trying to deduce what was wrong, not to mention figuring out what to do to fix it—it was just the sort of thing he always bungled.
But he didn’t have much of a choice, did he? He’d married Eloise in part—well, more than in part; almost in whole, in truth—because he’d wanted her to take charge, to take over all the annoying little tasks in his life, to free him up for the things that really mattered. The fact that he was growing to care for her had been an unexpected bonus.
He suspected, however, that one’s marriage didn’t count as an annoying little task, and he couldn’t just leave it to Eloise. And as painful as a heart-to-heart discussion was, he was going to have to bite the bullet and give it a go.
He was quite certain he’d botch it up but good, but at least he could say he’d tried.
He groaned. She was probably going to ask him about hisfeelings.Was there no woman alive who understood that men did not talk about feelings? Hell, half of them didn’t even have feelings.
Or maybe he could take the easy way out and simply apologize. He wasn’t certain what he’d be apologizing for, but it would appease her and make her happy, and that was all that mattered.
He didn’t want Eloise to be unhappy. He didn’t want her to regret her marriage, even for one moment. He wanted his marriage back to the way he’d thought it was—easy and comfortable by day, fiery and passionate by night.
He trudged up the hill back to Romney Hall, rehearsing what he’d say in his mind and scowling over how asinine it all sounded.
But his efforts were moot, anyway, because when he arrived at the house and found Gunning, all the butler had to say was, “She’s not here.”
“What do you mean, she’s not here?” Phillip demanded.
