Not exactly massive praise, nor did he deny there was someone else he might have wished to keep company, but she could hardly ask if he’d had a garden tryst before he’d come upstairs to find her.
Nor could she explain to him how her tears the night before were not because Lord Lowry had taken liberties. She might as well have had her lips upon a scaled cod from the Billingsgate Fish Market near the Tower as upon a living, breathing man.
Realizing she had fallen in love with Philip had been a shock to her system the night before. Today, he’d called her “good company,” a tepid match to her own deep-felt emotion.
“Would you like to sit down?”
But he was scowling again. “I’m not here to speak about anything exceptThe Times. Knowing how you like to read the gossip columns, I’m sure you saw it. Your behavior last night has landed you squarely in the suds.”
He was correct. And it proved he cared more than he’d let on. About to thank him again, this time for his concern, he cut her off.
“If your father sees it, then my life shall be upended, and I may find my brandy business shattered unless I let myself be leg-shackled to Miss Waltham.”
That explained his foul mood. He wasn’t really concerned about her reputation, merely how it might affect his own future.
“I cannot orderThe Timesto retract their words,” she pointed out. “None of us can unread what was printed.” Miranda sat on the sofa, feeling frustrated. “What would you have me do?”
Philip clenched his fists in frustration and made no move to sit.
“I would have you be more careful. It is plain you have not learned anything about my world in the weeks I have been escorting you. Even now, where is your maid? Why are we alone?”
She longed to tell him they were alone because when she’d heard him at the door, she’d told Eliza her presence was unnecessary. For any other man, Eliza would be seated in the room with them as she should. But he was special to her.
“Indeed, I have learned,” she defended herself.
“Then last night would not have happened,” Philip said harshly. “I cannot imagine your father will have any choice but to set me free of this impossible arrangement.”
Chapter Seventeen
Miranda knew she had to leave London. Otherwise, her father would force them to finish out the Season. She could no longer bear the humiliation of an escort who thought it such an arduous task to be with her. If he wanted his freedom, she would see to it herself.
“Only think how it will be the next time we are out together,” Philip continued, not noticing her misery. “Gloved hands and fans will go up, and everyone will be whispering behind them. You are not used to being the object of rumor and innuendo, and I doubt you will enjoy being looked at askance or even cut in public.”
He was merely making excuses. Lady Harriet had told her there was no harm in a little notoriety. In fact, the earl’s daughter had specifically stated the nobility enjoyed being at the center of attention, their names upon everyone’s lips.
Rising to her feet, she walked past him to the door.
“If things are, as you believe, too spicy for me, then I shall speak with my father and tell him I no longer wish to attend any more events. Thank you.”
He looked surprised at her easy acquiescence, but then he nodded.
“Just so,” he agreed. “It would be for the best.”
The way he latched onto her suggestion with exceeding haste made her heart ache. Luckily before her distress overcame her expression, another one of her dance partners from the night before entered the foyer. Eliza took his card.
“If you’ll excuse me, Lord Mercer, I have another visitor.”
PHILIP STRODE OUT FEELING as though he had lost something even though he’d accomplished his aim — to protect Miss Bright by no longer accompanying her. Of course, that would make his own life easier, too, and return his liberty to pursue other women. That was, if he wanted to.
He had stared down the suitor, too, a fellow member of White’s, a viscount’s son. Miss Bright was drawing in the quality gentleman despiteThe Timesnastiness. Eventually, they nodded at one another, although Philip thought the man a bit over-dressed for a morning call.
Hesitating only while making sure the maid went into the parlor and stayed there, he departed the Brights’ house. Yet now the realization he was no longer going to be Miranda’s escort, even for the short time remaining in the Season, pricked his initial feeling of relief, deflating it entirely by the time he reached his club.
“There’s the man himself,” his friend Lord Jeffrey Guilden said by way of greeting.
Guilden was a good man, a fellow soldier who’d come back earlier than Philip due to getting his hand blown off. And in marital status, he enjoyed wedded bliss.
Philip whacked him on his good shoulder and sat.
