Page 8 of Scandalous Nights With the Earl

He loved his wife. Gretel. He had whispered her name as he’d held her and she understood from his tone how much he missed her.

Swallowing, she shook her head. She would survive this because she had survived everything else and for years and years and years. She had independence now and the ability to live well. This would not beat her and she would not relegate their kisses to a mistake either. She had wanted him and he had wanted her and they had hurt nobody at all. It was their secret to do with as they wished and one day she would look back and think that this was one of her most remarkable moments.

He had whispered Gretel’s name as he’d held her. Hell, he hoped Wilhelmina St Claire had not heard that. He had whispered his wife’s name to stop himself dissolving into a person he didn’t recognise and it had not worked. He had been caught in thepleasure and thrill of a kiss that was unlike any other he had known. She had been selfless and daring and giving. She had kissed him with the honesty of a woman who held nothing back.

He would have kept going too, but the clock had stopped him, its hands turning to the hour of three and the possibility of those who saw to the running of the Elmsworth kitchens not far from awakening.

He sat back against the hardness of the table-top, and was glad for the reminder of discomfort.

Mrs St Claire would be gone tomorrow, gone to London and away from Hampshire. Phillip resolved to be far from the house when she went, out on one of the horses stabled here, riding on the hills above the estate so that he might watch her leave, at a safe distance.

He was not looking for another wife and besides, she had told him she had no want at all for a husband. She was undeniably pleased to be a free woman and one who was financially independent to boot, and if she waded occasionally into the sensual with others from time to time then that was her choice.

But not his. He felt as if Gretel watched him closely from her realm in the afterlife, not in some malevolent form but in the way of one who was sorry. Sorry for the weaknesses and the mistakes and for the sad times, too, when the dreams of a child conceived together had begun to slip further and further away until the illness had staked its claim.

A flirtation was not for him, no matter how tempting or sweet. He was too old for it, for one thing, and too exhausted by all that had happened for another. A simple, quiet life with easily defined boundaries and no risk at all was preferable after the years in chaos. No surprises, no broken dreams or hearts, no feelings of failure or loss that sent him to the place his mother had always said he would linger in.

He needed peace to heal and to make him stronger. His fingers shook in his lap and he cursed the inherited affliction.

Chapter Two

Eight days later Phillip journeyed across to Nettleford Park to see his brother. The house Oliver had bought was large and rambling, the gardens full of flowers and shrubs and all carefully tended.

A family home. It felt strange coming to see his younger brother, who now had a wife and three children. His own life had stopped whilst Oliver’s had carried on at a faster and faster rate, until Oliver’s world looked like a full and complete one.

A part of him had not wanted to come today, given the history between them, but the Elmsworth land and titles would need heirs that he had no want to provide and Oliver’s progeny would take the family name and properties down through this century and on into the next one.

A red rosebush at the side of the driveway caught his attention, reminding him for some reason of Wilhelmina St Claire with its bold honesty and beauty. He wondered how she fared in London? He had weighed up the notion of sending her a letter after she had left but had decided against it. He’d watched her go from the hills to one side of the house, a line of oaks keeping him and his horse hidden. She’d been wearing a dark green cloak, the hood rimmed in white fur, and she had stoppedat the top step of the carriage and carefully looked back across the façade of Elmsworth.

A shout caught his attention and Oliver was there coming down the front steps of Nettleford Park, questions on his face.

‘My God. Phillip? It is you?’

The brother he had left more than four years prior was much changed. He looked younger and freer. Phillip wondered what Oliver must be thinking of him, this tight, sad man who had returned without his wife and who was now marooned at the practically empty and isolated family estate.

‘I have been wondering when you would return, Phillip. We have not had a letter in years, and to see you here now, right in front of me… Well, it is a surprise, I can tell you that.’

‘I should have sent word.’

Oliver cut him off.

‘No, you did not have to. Will you stay?’ He looked around for luggage even as Phillip shook his head.

‘I have things to do at Elmsworth that cannot be left.’

Inside he tried to think of even one task that he had to do but couldn’t, the manager Oliver had employed leaving him largely redundant on his own land.

He wished he had not returned to England at all. He wished he were still in the Americas, on the road, travelling, close to no one, lost in the many miles of a new and seemingly endless continent.

A woman was walking quickly towards them now, holding a very small baby, a beautiful blonde woman with deep dimples in each cheek and eyes of a colour he had never seen before on anyone: emerald, like the sea in some tropical cove with white sands running beneath it to amplify the hue.

‘We have been waiting for you to come, my lord, for Oliver was certain at Christmas that it would be this year, and here you are, like magic and conjured up before us.’

‘Phillip, meet my wife, Esther, and our youngest child. James was born only a month ago and we have two other little ones who you will no doubt meet the moment we step inside the house.’

‘You are one of the Barrington-Halls, are you not? I can see the family likeness.’

‘I am. My aunt and uncle are Lord and Lady Duggan.’