And to think how unlikely it was that Phillip had even been at her brother’s house that evening. It had been quite a singular chain of events. If she hadn’t gone in to see the twins, if she hadn’t gone to tell Phillip that she didn’t like their nurse, if they hadn’t quarreled ...
Put that way, little Charles Bridgerton was quite the luckiest little boy in Britain.
“Thank you,” she said, not realizing that she’d intended to speak until the words left her lips.
“For what?” Phillip murmured sleepily, without opening his eyes.
“Charles,” she said simply.
Phillip did open his eyes at that, and he turned to her. “It might not have been my doing. We’ll never know if it was the willow bark.”
“Iknow,” she said firmly.
His lips curved into the barest of smiles. “You always do.”
And she thought to herself— Was this what she’d been waiting for her entire life? Not the passion, not the gasps of pleasure she felt when he joined her in bed, butthis.
This sense of comfort, of easy companionship, of sitting next to someone in a carriage and knowing with every fiber of your being that it was where you belonged.
She placed her hand on his. “It was so awful,” she said, surprised that she had tears in her eyes. “I don’t think I have ever been so scared in my life. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Benedict and Sophie.”
“Nor I,” Phillip said softly.
“If it had been one of our children ...” she said, and she realized it was the first time she’d said that.Ourchildren.
Phillip was silent for a long time. When he spoke, he was looking out the window. “The entire time I was watching Charles,” he said, his voice suspiciously hoarse, “all I kept thinking was, thank God it’s not Oliver or Amanda.” And then he turned back to her, his face pinched with guilt. “But it shouldn’t be anyone’s child.”
Eloise squeezed his hand. “I don’t think there is anything wrong with such feelings. You’re not a saint, you know. You’re just a father. A very good one, I think.”
He looked at her with an odd expression, and then he shook his head. “No,” he said gravely, “I’m not. But I hope to be.”
She cocked her head. “Phillip?”
“You were right,” he said, his mouth tightening into a grim line. “About their nurse. I didn’t want anything to be wrong, and so I paid no attention, but you were right. She was beating them.”
“What?”
“With a book,” he continued, his voice almost dispassionate, as if he’d already used up all of his emotions. “I walked in and she was beating Amanda with a book. She had already finished with Oliver.”
“Oh, no,” Eloise said, as tears—of sorrowandanger—filled her eyes. “I never dreamed. I didn’t like her, of course. And she’d rapped them on the knuckles, but ...I’vebeen rapped on the knuckles. Everyone has been rapped on the knuckles.” She slumped in her seat, guilt weighing her shoulders down. “I should have realized. I should have seen.”
Phillip snorted. “You’ve barely been in residence a fortnight. I’ve been living with that bloody woman for months. If I didn’t see, why should you have done?”
Eloise had nothing to say to this, nothing at least that would not make her already guilt-ridden husband feel worse. “I assume you dismissed her,” she finally said.
He nodded. “I told the children you would help to find a replacement.”
“Of course,” she said quickly.
“And I—” He stopped, cleared his throat, and looked out the window before continuing. “I—”
“What is it, Phillip?” she asked softly.
He didn’t turn back to her when he said, “I’m going to be a better father. I’ve pushed them away for too long. I was so afraid of becoming my father, of being like him, that I—”
“Phillip,” Eloise murmured, laying her hand on his, “you’re not like your father. You could never be.”
“No,” he said, his voice hollow, “but I thought I could. I got a whip once. I went to the stables and I grabbed the whip.” His head fell into his hands. “I was so angry. So bloody angry.”
