To Woo a Widow (The Heart of a Duke Book 10) (5 page)

“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.

P
hilippa 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.

Philippa blinked. Happy here? A peculiar question that no one had ever put to her. The expectation had always been that, as a lady, she belonged wherever her husband, or father, or now elder brother was. “I am,” she said at last. Because she was. At least happier than she’d been when she’d been a girl living in this very house. Unable to meet the searching expression in Jane’s eyes, she looked about. Her stare landed on the book set aside by her sister-in-law. She peered absently at the title.
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters—

“Are you familiar with Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s work?”

Philippa shot her head up; her attention diverted away from the gold lettering on the small leather tome. She looked questioningly at the other woman.

“Mrs. Wollstonecraft,” Jane elucidated, holding up the volume.

“I am not,” she said softly.

“She was a writer and an advocate for women’s rights,” her sister-in-law explained, as she held the book out. Philippa hesitated. This was the type of scandalous work her mother would have forbidden and her husband would have burned. With steady fingers, she accepted the book. “I quite enjoy her work.”

Philippa studied the title.
Thoughts on the education of daughters: with reflections on female conduct, in the more important duties of life.
How singularly…peculiar that her brother, who’d lamented Chloe’s shows of spirit and praised Philippa’s obedience to propriety and decorum, should have married a woman who read philosophical works, and whom he’d also given leave to establish a finishing school to educate women who dwelled on the fringes of Society. At the extended silence, she cleared her throat and made to hand the book back over.

“I’ve always admired her,” Jane said, ignoring the book so that Philippa laid it on her lap. “Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s father squandered the family’s money. He was a violent man.” Philippa stiffened. How much did Jane know of the abuse she and her siblings had suffered at the vile monster’s hands? “She cared for her sisters,” the woman went on. “And then she cared for herself.”

Self-loathing filled her. In a world where she’d readily turned over her fate and future to a man simply because he was respectable and
kind
, there had been Mrs. Wollstonecraft who’d laid claim to her life. “Did she?” For what did that even entail? Even now, living with her brother and his family, she’d demonstrated a return to a life not wholly different than the one she’d lived.

“Yes,” Jane said simply. Something gentle and, yet, at the same time commanding, in the woman’s tone brought Philippa’s gaze to hers once more. “Mrs. Wollstonecraft was not always that way, Philippa. She was compelled by her father to turn over all the money she would have inherited at her maturity to him. A miserable, mean cruel man.”

Not unlike the way Philippa had turned her body over to a husband to use as a vehicle to beget heirs and boy babes. Her throat worked. “Some women come to believe the rules and expectations set forth by Society so strongly that they can’t escape from those ingrained truths.” Ever.

Jane scooted closer. “Ah,” she said. “But that isn’t altogether true.” She pointed to the book in Philippa’s tight grip. “One might have said as much about Mrs. Wollstonecraft and, yet, she went on to lay claim to her fate and her future. She found work.” She paused and gave Philippa a meaningful look. “But more, she found joy in her work and in the control she had of her future.”

Those words echoed around the room, penetrating Philippa’s mind. Jane spoke to her. Encouraged her to see that she could be something different than the silent, obedient creature who, no doubt, would crumple under her mother’s determination to see her wed.
Why does it have to be that way? Why must I marry where my heart is not engaged?
Her heart, mind, and body belonged to no one. Not anymore. Not in the ways Society saw it. “My mother wishes me to marry,” she said, unable to keep bitterness from tingeing her words.

“And you do not wish that.” Jane spoke as a statement of fact.

Philippa cast a look at the door and then absently fanned the pages. “They expect that I should find a proper,” her lip peeled back in an involuntary sneer, “husband who will be a father to my girls and who will properly manage my finances.”

“What do you expect for yourself, Philippa?”

She’d spent the whole of her five and twenty years working to be an obedient daughter, a proper debutante, a flawless wife. So much so that she’d never, not even once, thought about herself as anything beyond an extension of another—until now. Philippa stopped her distracted movements and her gaze collided with the center of the page.

…Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman’s scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison…

“My mother’s friend and her widower son came to visit.” She smiled wryly.

“And do you wish to see this widower son?” Jane asked hesitantly.

“No, I do not.” Her loudly spoken words bounced off the walls. She blinked.
I do not.
Her smile widened and with it went the bitterness, leaving in its stead a freeing purity. “Nor do I want my mother or brother’s interference in my life.” Well-meaning though it may be. She’d been the recipient of those well-meaning intentions and what had that attained her other than a miserable marriage? She slashed the air with her hand warming to the freedom of her thoughts. “And I certainly don’t wish to guard my words and laughter. Or to be dull and bored by life.” No, she didn’t wish to ever be the lifeless creature she’d been. Lightness filled her chest.

Jane gave a pleased nod. “Then live for yourself and show your daughters how life can be, and should be, lived,” she said.

Were the two mutually exclusive? How could a woman exist for herself while also putting her children before all? Another wave of awe struck her at the woman’s fierce independence. She was a marchioness. An expecting mother. And she saw the running of a finishing school for ladies.
And I am here, listening at keyholes, worrying about gentlemen my mother wishes to pair me off with.

Jane held her gaze squarely. “It is possible to be a mother and to still have control and power of your life. You do not lose yourself when you became a mother,” she said with a gentle look. “You find new parts of yourself that teach you about your own strength and capabilities. You are not just your children, Philippa.”

Yet for six years, she’d existed as nothing more than a woman whose sole purpose had been to birth babes. To her husband, she’d ceased to matter. She stared absently at the floor-length window. Mayhap, she never had. And now with Lord Winston gone, she was free to begin again. To speak and laugh and move without fear of recrimination. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

Leaning forward, Jane rested her hand on Philippa’s. “There is no need to thank me. You are my sister,” she said simply. “If you’ll excuse me?” She climbed to her feet. “I’ve a meeting shortly regarding the hiring of a new headmistress.”

“Wait!” Philippa called out as her sister-in-law turned to go. She jumped to her feet and held out the book.

Jane held her palms up. “It is yours. Judicious books enlarge the mind and improve the heart.”

Philippa started. “That is beautiful.”

Gabriel’s wife waggled her blonde eyebrows. “
That
is Mrs. Wollstonecraft.”

As the lady turned and took her leave, Philippa returned her attention to the book in her hands. Her mother would, of course, expect her to be present while she received her guests and any other time in her life she would have remained an obedient daughter with her hands primly folded, speaking on the weather and every other dull topic expected of a lady.

Pulling the gift given her by Jane close to her chest, Philippa started for the door.

She was going out.

A
short while later, with her recently asserted literary independence, Philippa stood alongside the lake in Hyde Park, that same book lying on the blanket behind her.

There was not a soul present in Hyde Park. At least, not any nearby. She closed her eyes briefly and drew deep of the late spring air, filling her lungs with it. There was something so very thrilling in being away from the scrutiny of her family. And the questions of the gossips. And to just simply…
be
.

Stepping closer to the shore, she took in the smooth glass-like quality of the water. Even. Smooth. Placid. Not unlike herself.

Which only stirred that slow-building annoyance with the life she’d lived these past five and twenty years.

Desperate to break that perfect calm, Philippa bent, grabbed the nearest stone, and skipped it onto the surface.

Or tried to.

The rock hit the water with a loud
thunk
and promptly sank. If the Dowager Marchioness of Waverly was scandalized by Philippa’s recently discovered appreciation of Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s work, seeing Philippa now at Hyde Park, hurling stones into the water would send the woman into apoplexy.

Philippa glared at that smooth lake; that mocking reminder of her being the vapid creature she’d allowed herself to be molded into. She couldn’t even manage to skip a proper stone.

With a growl she plucked another stone from the ground and drew her arm back—

A deep,
familiar
baritone called from beyond her shoulder. “Have you ever skipped a stone before?”

Spinning, she shrieked and reflexively launched the stone. A horrified gasp exploded from her lips as it hit Miles squarely on his chest. “Miles,” she cried, slamming her palm over her mouth.
He is here. Why is he here?
She swallowed a groan. Then… “I hit you with a rock.”

Dismounting from his horse, he looped the reins around a nearby tree. “I daresay this is the first time I’ve ever been greeted by someone hurling rocks.” Miles tugged off his gloves and gave a wry smile.

Horror filled her breast, threatening to choke her on embarrassment. “I am so sorry,” she sputtered. “I was just…skipping stones.” She gesticulated wildly and she, who was so guarded with words, found them flowing freely. “Or trying to. And…” What a blithering fool. She clamped her lips closed.

“I trust your ankle is well?” he asked, coming forward. A twinkle lit his eyes.

“Quite.” Heat stole up her neck and stained her cheeks. “But do not tell my mother, as it will prove helpful for me to avoid certain activities.”

“Then it wouldn’t do for you to be discovered standing on the same ankle, lest it be reported back.” He followed that conspiratorial whisper with a wink.

Just like that, all embarrassment at being caught skipping stones at the lake and failing miserably at the endeavor left her. An unadulterated laugh spilled past Philippa’s lips. And how very wonderful it felt to laugh.

“Have you ever skipped them before?” he puzzled aloud.

She cocked her head and he motioned to the lake.

“It was deemed improper,” she explained with another wry twist of her lips. How many years had she spent shaping herself into the dutiful daughter? And what happiness had that brought her?

“Ah, you are long overdue for a lesson then, my lady.” Miles sifted through the pebbles littering the earth and tested one in his hand. “The secret is to find a flat, smooth stone.” He pressed it into her gloveless palm and delicious shivers radiated from the point of contact. His touch was hotter than the late spring sun beating down on them. Her mouth dry, she curled her hand tight around the stone. Never in all her husband’s quick, painful couplings had she known the thrill of heat as she did with this man’s touch.

“Not too tight,” he schooled, his grip firm but gentle upon her. How could he be so calm and unaffected while her heart raced at his nearness? “Like this,” he explained, coaxing her fingers open. He drew her before him so they faced the lake, her back pressed to his chest.
Oh, goodness.
She closed her eyes a moment drawing in a deep, steadying breath. “Hold the stone between your thumb and forefinger with your thumb on top,” he murmured against her ear. “Draw your arm like this,” he coaxed, guiding her arm back, his mellifluous baritone washing over her like warmed chocolate. “As you fling it, cock your wrist back and give a flick.” His breath fanned her ear. Coffee and mint. She breathed in the intoxicating scents. “And throw out and down at the same time,” he whispered.

Philippa gave a flick of her wrist. The stone hopped three times before sinking under the surface. She gasped, touching her fingers to her lips. A giddy lightness filled her chest and she swiveled her gaze from that small triumph now below the lake to a grinning Miles. “I did it,” she said with a breathless laugh. It was a small accomplishment. Surely an insignificant victory over the staid lifestyle she’d lived, but it felt real and magnificent and so wholly wonderful.

The smile on his lips faded and he passed solemn eyes over her face, lingering his gaze on her mouth. What was he thinking now?

Miles doffed his hat and beat it against his leg. “I should leave.” Did she merely wish for the heavy regret coating that acknowledgement?

“Must you?” That question emerged frantic as he turned to go. He paused and her mind raced. Yes, the world would be shocked at her boldness in all but pleading with this gentleman to remain. Philippa claimed a spot on the blanket and motioned to the spot beside her. “That is, you are welcome to stay. If you wish.”

I should leave.

There were countless reasons to leave Philippa and resume his morning ride. But one, more important, reason to stay—he wished to be with her. Where his younger brother, Rhys, had acquired a reputation as a rogue with an ability to effortlessly woo a lady with lies and flattery, Miles had always been direct. Not that he required any skill to woo Philippa. He wasn’t here for that purpose.
You are a bloody liar. You searched for her the moment you entered the park…

Philippa stretched her legs out so that her heels nearly brushed the still water and turned her face up to the morning sun.

Possible notice from a passerby be damned, Miles claimed a spot beside her on the white blanket.

“It is beautiful, is it not?” There was a wistful quality to her question as she stared at the sun’s rays shining from the glass-like surface of the lake.

He caressed her heart-shaped face with his gaze. “Most beautiful,” he said quietly.

“I hate London,” she said, not taking her eyes from the water. “When I am here, I can almost believe for a moment that I’m in the country.”

How alike they were in that regard. “It is stifling,” he said softly. “All the rigid expectations.”

She shot her gaze to his. Surprise flared in their depths. “And the constant stares and absence of laughter,” she added. Philippa picked up the leather book beside her and absently fanned the pages. “How odd,” she whispered, more to herself.

He edged closer and the fragrant scent of lavender that clung to her skin wafted about his senses, heady and intoxicating. “What?” he urged, his tone hoarsened with a desire to know her secrets and the taste of her lips.

Philippa angled her head up. With their lips a mere handbreadth apart, their breaths mingled. “I never suspected a gentleman would know those same constraints.”

Miles concentrated on his even breathing and her words to keep from claiming her lips under his. “There are expectations for all members of the peerage, then, isn’t there?” he asked. A light breeze tugged at her chignon and a midnight strand tumbled over her brow. He captured that strand between his fingers luxuriating in the satiny softness of that tress. “Noblemen marry ladies handpicked by their families.”

She closed her eyes a moment. “Those proper, emotionless marriages meant to secure greater wealth and even greater prestige.”

Miles froze, her lock still between his thumb and forefinger. Is that what her marriage had been?

Color rushed the lady’s cheeks and she hastily pulled back. He let his hand fall to his side and cast a glance about. Alas, with the benefit of the small copse, they remained sheltered from possible observers. She cleared her throat and attended the book in her lap, drawing his gaze downward.

“Mrs. Wollstonecraft,” he said with some surprise.

Suspicion darkened the lady’s gaze. “Do you know of her?”

He offered a half-grin. “I am not unfamiliar with the Enlightened thinkers, my lady.” Questions raged all the more about the young widow who, in their handful of exchanges and her readings of the controversial philosopher, had revealed so much. From her disdain of embroidering to her precise read on noble marriages.

The lady followed his stare, and then drew that volume almost protectively to her chest. “I only just…discovered her.”

Miles stretched out his legs before him and that slight shift brought their thighs touching. The heat of Philippa’s skin penetrated the fabric of her skirts and his breeches and scorched him. He swallowed a groan of desire. “And what are your thoughts, madam?”

She startled, her lips parting on a small moue. Did her surprise come in his knowing of the distinguished, yet controversial, philosopher? Or the question he put to her?

Not for the first time, he wondered at the man she’d been married to. One who spoke so coldly to a child about her lessons, what manner of husband would he have been?

“I quite like her,” the lady said softly. She flipped through the pages of the book, landing on the front end of the tome. “Here,” she insisted and spun the book around.

Miles accepted it and followed her finger to the passage. He quickly skimmed the writing. With each word read, a greater window inside the mysterious Lady Winston opened.

“…Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man…”

“It was the needlepoint,” she whispered, bringing his focus from the page to her. “After you left, after you asked me about it, I thought of it. Truly.” She gave her head a shake. “I thought of it when I’ve never truly considered it before. I followed in my mother’s example—proper, obedient—and what did that gain m—?” Philippa bit her lip and looked out on the smooth surface of the lake, once more. A pink pelican glided to a stop on the water and dipped his head, searching under the depths.

What did that gain me?

Those unspoken words twisted his insides into knots. He forced himself to set the book aside. In Lady Philippa, the world saw a sad widow. But in listening to her, in hearing the words she did not say, Philippa spoke more than Mrs. Wollstonecraft. Miles and Philippa traveled down an intimate path of discourse that defied all those expectations they’d earlier spoken of. “What did that gain you, Philippa?” he asked quietly. And he didn’t give a jot about those expectations.

Philippa again brought her knees close. She wrapped her arms loosely about them. A small, humorless smile formed on her full lips. “Not happiness,” she said with a wryness that knotted his belly. He despised a world in which she should have known a hint of a misery. Preferred it when he’d taken her for a broken-hearted widow and not this wounded by life woman. “You asked what makes me happy and do you know what that is?” She posed an inquiry to him.

“What?” The question rumbled up from his chest. Whatever it was, in this moment, he would give it to her to drive back that bitter cynicism.

“Speaking to you,” she said with an honesty that, given the expectations his mother had of him, should have terrified the hell out of him. Instead, her admission caused a lightness in his chest. She leaned forward and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “My mother would be shocked if she knew I spoke to you, a stranger, so.” He started. This woman who’d consumed his thoughts since their chance meeting, whom he’d wondered after and speculated on, was, in fact—a stranger. How singularly odd that he should feel he knew her so very well, still. She cast another look up. “Have I scandalized you?”

He winked. “I’m nearly thirty, with a rogue of a brother and three incorrigible sisters. I assure you, I do not shock easily.”