Served her right, she supposed, for being so irritated with Sir Phillip that she hadn’t paid any attention in the library and she’d snatched up the first book she’d seen.
The Botany of Ferns? What had she been thinking?
Even worse, if he saw her with it, he’d surely think she’d chosen it because she wanted to learn more about his interests.
Eloise blinked with surprise when she realized that she had reached the end of her page. She didn’t recall a single sentence, and in fact wondered if perhaps her eyes had only slid along the words without actually reading the letters.
This was ridiculous. She thrust the book aside and stood up, taking a few steps to test out the tenderness of her hip. Allowing herself a satisfied smile when she realized that the pain wasn’t bad at all, and in fact couldn’t even be called anything beyond mild discomfort, she walked all the way to the riotous mass of rosebushes off to the north, leaning forward to sniff the buds. They were still tightly closed—it was early in the season, after all—but maybe they’d have a scent, and—
“What the devil are you doing?”
Eloise just managed to avoid falling into the rosebush as she turned around. “Sir Phillip,” she said, as if that weren’t completely obvious.
He looked irate. “You’re supposed to be sitting down.”
“I was sitting down.”
“You were supposed to stay sitting down.”
She decided the truth would make an excellent explanation. “I was bored.”
He glanced over at the chaise in the distance. “Didn’t you get a book from the library?”
She shrugged. “I finished it.”
He quirked a brow in patent disbelief.
She returned his expression with an arch look of her own.
“Well, you need to sit down,” he said gruffly.
“I’m perfectly fine.” She patted her hip gently. “It hardly hurts at all now.”
He stared at her for some time, his expression irritable, as if he wanted to say something but didn’t know what. He must have left the greenhouse in a hurry, because he was quite filthy, with dirt along his arms, under every fingernail, and streaked quite liberally on his shirt. He looked a fright, at least by the standards Eloise had grown used to in London, but there was something almost appealing about him, something rather primitive and elemental as he stood there scowling at her.
“I can’t work if I have to worry about you,” he grumbled.
“Then don’t work,” she replied, thinking the solution quite obvious.
“I’m in the middle of something,” he muttered, sounding, in Eloise’s opinion, at least, rather like a sullen child.
“Then I’ll accompany you,” she said, brushing past him on the way to the greenhouse. Really, how did he expect them to decide if they would suit if they didn’t spend any time together?
He reached out to grab her, then remembered that his hand was covered with dirt. “Miss Bridgerton,” he said sharply, “you can’t—”
“Couldn’t you use the help?” she interrupted.
“No,” he said, and in such a tone that she really couldn’t continue the argument along those lines.
“Sir Phillip,” she ground out, completely losing patience with him, “may I ask you a question?”
Visibly startled by her sudden turn of conversation, he just nodded—once, curtly, the way men liked to do when they were annoyed and wanted to pretend they were in charge.
“Are you the same man you were last night?”
He looked at her as if she were a lunatic. “I beg your pardon.”
“The man I spent the evening with last night,” she said, just barely resisting the urge to cross her arms as she spoke, “the one with whom I shared a meal and then toured the house and greenhouse, actually spoke to me, and in fact, seemed to enjoy my company, astonishing as it might seem.”
He did nothing but stare at her for several seconds, then muttered, “I enjoy your company.”
“Then why,” she asked, “have I been sitting alone in the garden for three hours?”
“It hasn’t been three hours.”
“It doesn’t matter how long—”
“It’s been forty-five minutes,” he said.
“Be that as it may—”
“Be that as it is.”
“Well,” she declared, mostly because she suspected he might have been correct, which put her in something of an awkward position, and well, seemed all she could say without embarrassing herself further.
“Miss Bridgerton,” he said, his clipped voice a reminder that just the night before he’d been calling her Eloise.
And kissing her. “As you might have guessed,” he continued sharply, “this morning’s episode with my children has left me in a foul mood. I thought merely to spare you my company, such as it is.”
“I see,” she said, rather impressed with the supercilious edge to her voice.
“Good.”
Except that she was quite certain she did see. That he was lying, to be precise. Oh, his children had put him in a foul mood, that much was true, but there was something else at work as well.
“I will leave you to your work, then,” she said, motioning to the greenhouse with a gesture that was meant to seem as if she were waving him away.
He eyed her suspiciously. “And what do you plan to do?”
“I suppose I shall write some letters and then go for a walk,” she replied.
“You will not go for a walk,” he growled.