"Every morning when I am in London," he said at last.
Philippa filed that particular piece about the gentleman in her mind.
"And what of you?" He arched an eyebrow.
"Me?" She touched a hand to her chest. "I have never been proficient at riding," she admitted. Or conversing. Or being anything other than proper. Dull, proper, always-pious Philippa. She curled her hands into tight balls, never hating that truth of her character more than she did in this moment. She sighed. "I'm proficient at this," she said, lifting the embroidery frame once more. In a show her mother would have lamented, Philippa tossed her frame to the marquess who easily caught it in his large, gloved hand. "And so everyone, of course, assumes I must enjoy it. Why shouldn't I? I know how to draw the thread just so and how to craft an image upon it. Where is the pleasure in it, though?" she asked, the words just spilling out when they never, ever did.
"What, then?" At his quietly spoken question, she tipped her head. "What do you find pleasure in?"
"My daughters," she said with an automaticity borne of truth. In their world, ladies didn't speak about affection or emotion they carried for their children. And yet … "My daughters make me happy." She coughed into her hand.
He searched his piercing gaze over her face. "I expect they would," he said with a matter-of-factness that caused her heart to pull. There was a sincerity to those words, at odds with everything her own father and late husband had proven in terms of affection for children. "What else?"
She started. "What else?" What else made her happy? No one in the course of her life, not even her sister whom she adored, had ever put that query to her. As such, it was a question she'd not really given any thought to. Her existence was a purposeful one where she'd been a countess, in charge of a household staff, and her daughters' tutors and nursemaids. But she'd not always been that way. "I used to read fairytales," she said wistfully. Not unlike the books she read to her daughters. She'd forgotten until he'd forced her to think back to how those fanciful tales had once brought her happiness, as well. "My mother abhorred my reading selection. Called it drivel," she said with a remembered laugh. Philippa hadn't cared. She'd been so enthralled by the possibility of forever happiness promised on those pages that she'd braved her mother's displeasure. It was why she even now read to her girls from those same books.
"Is that why you stopped reading them?"
She blinked as Miles' quietly spoken question jerked her back to the present-and the impropriety of speaking so familiarly with a man she'd only just met. She firmed her lips into a line, willing herself to say nothing. Still, there was this inexplicable ease being around him, when she'd never even been comfortable around her own family. Philippa lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. "One day," she'd been married just a fortnight, "I remember finishing a book and just realizing … " She let her words trail off.
"Realizing?" he urged, a sea of questions in his fathomless eyes.
"How very silly it was to believe in a land of happily-ever-afters." Such dreams didn't exist. Life in the Edgerton household had proven as much. Marriage to Lord Winston had only confirmed it. No, dreams of fairytales were reserved for innocent children unscathed by life. Or that is what she'd come to believe. Now, this man before her swooped into her life and stirred all those oldest yearnings she'd once carried. Feeling Miles' gaze on her, Philippa's face heated. She'd said entirely too much. Words she'd never even acknowledged to herself and suddenly it was too much. "If you'll excuse me," she said softly. "I must go see my daughters."
"Of course," he said politely and climbed to his feet.
And as he took his leave, the tension drained from her body, down to her feet. She'd long believed there was nothing more perilous than Lord Winston and his dogged attempt to get a male babe on her.
Now she feared she'd been wrong.
The gentle, tender Miles Brookfield's ability to stir her long buried dream of a happily-ever-after was far more dangerous.
Chapter 7
Philippa had never been someone who listened at keyholes. Where Chloe had slunk about the townhouse with her ear pressed to oaken panels, she had wisely continued on. Not because she'd not been remotely curious about what was discussed behind those thick doors, but rather, the terror at what would become of her if she was discovered at those keyholes. It had been an attempt at self-preservation.
Now, years later, she saw it as a testament to her weakness and failings. That self-awareness, however, was not what brought her to a stop outside her elder brother's office, the following morning. Philippa slowed her steps.
" … She is far too young to remain a widow, Gabriel … " At the insistence in her mother's tone, Philippa's stomach knotted.
" … She is in possession of her dowry, Mother … She does not need … " Whatever she did or did not need and their mother's response to it was lost to the thick wood. Philippa gave her head a befuddled shake. This was Gabriel? This man who spoke of her remaining unmarried, was so at odds with the practical, determined, matchmaking brother who'd introduced her to her late husband. "You cannot expect her to make a match with just any gentleman … " Gabriel continued, " … She loved him … "
Her lips pulled in a sad smile. This was, of course, what everyone saw. After all, it was easier to see the lie that your sister had loved her miserable excuse for a husband than to accept the role you'd played in the union …
" … She has two daughters … Lord Matthew would make her a splendid match … "
Oh, God. How could her mother, who'd subjected her own children to the abuses of a brutal husband, be so steadfast in her resolve to make matches for her children? She pressed her eyes closed. Her mother was no less determined to marry her off than when she'd been a debutante just on the market. Dread spiraled through her; it found purchase in her feet and those digits twitched with the need to take flight.
"Philippa," the gentle voice of her sister-in-law, Jane, sounded over her shoulder, ringing a gasp from her.
Philippa spun around. The blonde woman with a gentle and all-knowing smile stood with a book in her hands. Wetting her lips, she looked from the sister-in-law, who'd so graciously accepted her inside her home for these six months now, to the door where her brother and mother still carried on, discussing her fate and future.
The other woman gave her a gentle smile. She tucked the book in her hands under her arm and held out her spare hand.
Philippa hesitated. Jane tipped her head in the direction of the opposite hall. And when faced with being discovered any moment by her mother and brother, she far preferred the company of her sister-in-law with curious eyes.
She allowed the other woman to dictate the path they took through the house. Their slippered footfalls were silent in the halls as they wound their way through the house, to the …
Her stomach lurched as Jane stopped outside the library. A dull buzzing filled her ears, like so many swarming bees. How many times had she stood outside this very room, seeking refuge from her father's beatings? Of all the places he'd thought to look for his children-the gardens, the parlors, the kitchens-never had he, with his disdain of books and literature, come here. Now she sought a different refuge; the danger no less real.
"Philippa?" her sister-in-law gently prodded and she jolted into movement. Eyes averted, she walked at the sedate pace drilled into her by too-stern governesses. Jane closed the door and motioned to the nearby leather button sofa. "Please," she said softly. "Will you sit?"
Philippa hesitated and then slid onto the folds of the sofa. The leather groaned in protest. She folded her hands primly on her lap to still the tremble. In the months since Philippa had moved into the new marchioness' home, Jane had proven herself to be kind and patient. She didn't probe where every other Edgerton did. But neither did Philippa truly know her. Did Jane also want her married off? As her sister-in-law settled onto the seat beside her, dread knotted Philippa's insides.
"I wanted to be sure that you are happy here," the other woman began.