“What did you say to the children?” Phillip immediately asked.
“I don’t know,” Eloise said quite honestly. “I just tried to act like my mother.” She shrugged. “It seemed to work.”
He thought about that. “It must be nice to have parents one can emulate.”
She looked at him curiously. “Didn’t you?”
He shook his head. “No.”
She hoped he would say more, gave him time, even, but he did not speak. Finally, she decided to press the matter and asked, “Was it your mother or your father?”
“What do you mean?”
“Which of your parents was so difficult?”
He looked at her for a long moment, his dark eyes inscrutable as his brows ever-so-slightly came together. Then he said, “My mother died at my birth.”
She nodded. “I see.”
“I doubt you do,” he said in a tight, hollow voice, “but I appreciate your trying.”
They walked along, keeping their pace slow, not wanting to come within earshot of Anthony, even though neither broke the silence for several minutes. Finally, as they turned along the path toward the back side of the house, Eloise uttered the question she’d been dying to ask all day—
“Why did you take me into Sophie’s study yesterday?”
He spluttered and stumbled. “I should think that would be obvious,” he mumbled, his cheeks turning pink.
“Well, yes,” Eloise said, blushing as she realized exactly what it was she had asked. “But surely you didn’t thinkthatwas going to happen.”
“A man can always hope,” he muttered.
“You don’t mean that!”
“Of course I do. But,” he added, looking rather like he couldn’t believe he was having this conversation, “as it happens, no, it never crossed my mind that matters would get quite so out of hand.” He gave her a sly, sideways sort of look. “I’m not sorry, however, that they did.”
She felt her cheeks turn hot. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“I haven’t?”
“No.” She knew she was being persistent to the point of unseemliness, but as matters went, this seemed an important one to press. “Why did you take me in there?”
He stared at her for a full ten seconds, presumably to ascertain if she was daft, then shot a quick look at Anthony to make sure he was out of earshot before answering, “Well, if you must know, yes, I did intend to kiss you. You were yapping on about the marriage and asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions.” He planted his hands on his hips and shrugged. “It seemed a good way to prove once and for all that we are well suited.”
She decided to let his description of her as a yapping female pass. “But passion is surely not enough to sustain a marriage,” she persisted.
“It’s certainly a good start,” he muttered. “May we talk of something else?”
“No. What I’m trying to say—”
He snorted and rolled his eyes. “You are always trying to say something.”
“It’s what makes me charming,” she said peevishly.
He looked at her with exaggerated patience. “Eloise. We are well suited and will enjoy a perfectly pleasant and amiable marriage. I don’t know what else to say or do to prove it.”
“But you don’t love me,” she said, her voice soft.
That seemed to knock the wind out of him, and he just stopped and stared at her for the longest moment. “Why do you say things like that?” he asked.
