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 certainlygoingto 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 washere. 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’dintendedto 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 ofdeadfrogs? 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.”
