To Woo a Widow (The Heart of a Duke Book 10)(8)

Faith slipped off her chair and perched on the edge of the sofa Philippa  occupied. "Do you promise?" she asked, taking her mother's face between  her small hands.

Philippa crossed her heart. "I promise," she murmured, battling back the  ever-present maternal guilt in making a pledge she couldn't truly keep  in their uncertain existence.                       
       
           



       

Frantic footsteps sounded in the hall and they looked to the entrance as  the Dowager Marchioness of Waverly entered, with Chloe rushing at her  heels.

"Philippa," her mother cried as she stopped beside her sofa. "What is  this I heard of you falling?" She looked to the maid hovering at the  opposite end of the chair. "Has the doctor been-?"

"It hardly merits a visit from the doctor," Philippa reassured in  placating tones. Then, hadn't that always been her role in the Edgerton  family? To be soft-spoken and constantly assuring everyone that all was  well. Even when her heart was wrenching with the agony of the brutality  she'd known at a vicious father's hands and her husband's relentless  indifference. Because ultimately, everyone had their own demons to  battle and hadn't the time to take on hers, as well. "It hardly hurts  anymore." And it didn't. The ache, though present, had dimmed.

"Whatever happened?" Chloe asked, in her always-curious tones, as she propped her hip on the back of Philippa's seat.

"Mama stepped into a rabbit hole," her daughter helpfully supplied.  "Because she was looking back at Miles," she added. Unhelpfully.

Silence resounded in the large parlor and Philippa's cheeks blazed hot.  With her daughter's reduced hearing, Philippa had long believed Faith  had honed other skills. One being her ability to see everything about  her and, in this particular instance, she'd witnessed and now shared  Philippa's improper regard of the marquess. "I was not staring at him,"  she said softly. Rather, she'd been staring after him. Entirely  different things. Weren't they?

Of course, Mother broke the tense quiet blanketing the room. "Who is  Miles?" she blurted. When no one was quick to reply, she looked between  her daughters. "Who is-?"

"He is the Marquess of … " Faith wrinkled her brow. "Milford? Or was it Guilford, Mama?"

"Guilford," she said weakly. For the course of her daughter's five  years, Philippa had quite celebrated in Faith's willingness and ability  to freely speak. Having long had her voice quashed by a cruel father and  an unkind husband, she'd appreciated the joy and beauty in Faith's  garrulousness. This moment, however, was decidedly not one of those  times.

"The Marquess of Guilford?" her mother parroted back.

Warming to the curious stares trained on her by her grandmother and aunt, Faith puffed her chest proudly. "He carried Mama."

Once more, silence reigned. Only this time, it came with probing,  piercing stares. And the last thing Philippa wanted, needed, or desired  was a probing, Edgerton inquiry.

"Who carried your mama?"

She swallowed a groan as Gabriel stepped inside the room. Blast and double blast.

"The Marquess of Guilford," Chloe supplied.

Philippa leaned forward and touched her daughter's cheek. "Faith, run abovestairs to the nursery," she urged.

Her daughter opened her mouth to protest, but Philippa gave her a  lingering look that ended the request. "Very well," she said on a  beleaguered sigh and skipped around the furniture. She paused in the  doorway alongside Gabriel, the Marquess of Waverly.

"Uncle Gabriel," she said, dropping a proper curtsy.

"Hullo, Faith." He ruffled the top of her black curls, in a gesture so  at odds with the coolly removed brother he'd been through the years.  Then, the man she'd come back to live with, now married and so  blissfully happy, had been transformed. Something tugged at Philippa.  Something ugly and dark. Something that felt very much like envy. "Did  you have a nice time at the park?"

"Oh, yes," she called up. "I picked flowers with Miles."

Which only earned Philippa further probing stares; this time from the  eldest Edgerton sibling. She managed a smile. Of course, there would be  questions. There always were with the Edgertons. Ironically, those same  kin had failed to ask the most important questions about her hopes and  dreams of a future. Faith slipped from the room and Philippa collected  the until-now forgotten embroidery conveniently resting on the table  beside her. To give her fingers something to do, she proceeded to drag  the needle and thread through the white fabric.

"Well?" Gabriel drawled. Striding over, he claimed the seat directly  across from Philippa. And just one additional probing Edgerton stare  pricked her already burning skin.

"I fell," she said under her breath. At the protracted silence, she paused in her work and glanced up.

The trio of Edgertons stood, mouths agape.

"You mumbled," Chloe said with the same shock of one who'd first discovered the world was, in fact, round.                       
       
           



       

Philippa shook her head. "No." She didn't mumble or mutter. Ever. She was always proper.

"Yes," Gabriel said with a faint grin. "You did."

"He is correct," Chloe continued. "And you know, it pains me to ever  admit Gabriel is correct about anything, but in this, he is." She  paused. "You mumbled."

"I hardly think whether or not I mumbled merits a discussion," she said  between tight lips as she dragged the needle through the frame once  more. Then, what she had thought, wished, or wanted, had never truly  mattered. She jabbed the tip of the needle into her thumb. She gasped,  as the frame tumbled onto her lap … and was met, once more, with that  damning, telling silence. Philippa stuffed her wounded digit into her  mouth.

Her mother clasped her hands at her throat. "Did you … stick your finger?"

Given that she even now sucked on that same finger, Philippa opted not to respond.

"You never make a mistake," Chloe matter-of-factly observed.

How very wrong her sister was. She had made the very worst mistakes in  her life; ones that moved beyond a silly scrap of linen with flowers  embroidered upon it. She curled her toes into the arch of her feet and  winced as pain shot up her injured ankle.

"I believe we were speaking about the Marquess of Guilford?" her mother  encouraged, because, inevitably, all matters came 'round to unwed  gentlemen.

"Were we?" she asked, picking up her small wooden frame, once again. He  could be very happily married, or more, unhappily married, as she'd been  for six miserable years. After all, what did she know about the  gentleman? Except, would a gentleman who'd bothered to collect flowers  with her daughter and took time to search for said child's mother be one  of those nasty sorts that Lord Winston had been?

"He's unmarried," her mother offered.

Of course.

Every conversation invariably came back to that important detail about a gentleman:

Would you like sugar and milk in your tea? Lord So-and-So is married.

Do take care to not walk outside, lest you be caught in the rain. It  wouldn't do for an unmarried gentleman to see you without a care …

"It hardly matters whether the marquess is wed or not wed," she said in  smooth, even tones, still attending her work. She'd no intention of  marrying again. Ever. There was no need to spend the remainder of her  days as nothing more than a body to give a lord his beloved heir and a  spare while his female issue was forgotten. When her family still said  nothing, she filled the void. "Lord Guilford was gracious enough to help  me to my carriage." Carrying her as though she'd weighed nothing in his  strong, powerful arms. Her breathing quickened and she prayed the three  now studying her didn't note her body's telltale response. "That is  all," she finished weakly.

The butler, Joseph, appeared at the front of the parlor, a silver tray  in his gloved hands. He cleared his throat. "The Marquess of Guilford  has arrived … " He looked to Philippa. " … to see Lady Winston."

Her lips parted and questions tumbled around her mind. He was here? What … ? Why … ?

At the protracted silence, the butler glanced about. And though she knew  this surprising turn would only bring with it further Edgerton  questions later, the oddest fluttering danced in her belly at the  unexpected visit.

"You may show him in, Joseph" she said "Now, please excuse me," she ordered her family. "I have a visitor to attend to."





Chapter 6


As Miles was led through the Marquess of Waverly's townhouse, one thing became very apparent-he was being watched.