“Clearly.”
She stared at him, and he stared at her, and all the while she could see Anthony staring at them both, and then suddenly Phillip seemed to sober.
“We’ll have to marry,” he said.
“I know.”
“They really will break my legs if I don’t.”
“That’s not all they would do,” she grumbled, “but even so, a lady might like to think she’s been chosen for a reason other than osteopathic health.”
He blinked at her in surprise.
“I’m not stupid,” she muttered. “I’ve studied Latin.”
“Right,” he said slowly, in that way men do when they are trying to cover up the fact that they’re not sure what to say.
“Or at least,” she tried desperately, searching for something that might be even loosely interpreted as a compliment, “if not a reasonother,then perhaps a reasonin addition.”
“Right,” he said, nodding, but still not saying anything more.
Her eyes narrowed. “How much wine have you drunk?”
“Only three.” He stopped, considered that. “Maybe four.”
“Glasses or bottles?”
He didn’t seem to know the answer to that.
Eloise looked over at the table. There were four bottles of wine littered among the remains of supper. Three were empty.
“I wasn’t gone that long,” she said.
He shrugged. “It was either drink with them or let them break my legs. It seemed a fairly straightforward decision.”
“Anthony!” she called out. She’d had enough of Phillip. She’d had enough of them all, of everything, of men, of marriage, of broken legs and empty wine bottles. But most of all, she’d had enough of herself, of feeling so out of control, so helpless against the tides of her life.
“I want to go,” she said.
Anthony nodded and grunted, still chewing the solitary piece of chicken that Colin had missed.
“Now,Anthony.”
And he must have heard the crack in her voice, the hollow note that choked on the syllables, because he stood immediately and said, “Of course.”
Eloise had never been so glad to see the inside of a carriage in all her life.
Chapter 11
... cannot abide a man who drinks to excess. Which is why I’m sure you will understand why I could not accept Lord Wescott’s offer.
—from Eloise Bridgerton to her brother Benedict,
upon refusing her second proposal of marriage
“No!” gushed Sophie Bridgerton, Benedict’s petite and almost ethereal-looking wife. “They didn’t!”
“They did,” Eloise said grimly, as she sat back in her lawn chair and sipped a cup of lemonade. “And then they all got drunk!”
