Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

W hen the newlyweds reached the Richmond estate and disembarked from the carriage, it became clear to Phillip that Eleanor was a little tipsy. He wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her up the stairs into the house. She leaned against him with a sigh, letting him help her up to her rooms.

At her bedroom door, he paused. More than anything, he wanted to cling to the growing warmth in her demeanor, to the burgeoning hope that she might come to see him for who he was and love him for it after all. But he was not nearly as drunk as she seemed, and he didn't want to take advantage of her only to have her regret it in the morning. He reached around her to open the door, catching a whiff of the rose perfume she wore, the perfume he'd bought for her and placed in her room before the day she'd moved in. A tiny smile curled the edges of his lips. She hadn't rejected that gift either, even in her anger.

Eleanor took a step towards her bedroom, and Phillip sensed that if he let her walk over the threshold without any further words between them, the figurative door in her wall would slam shut just as her bedroom door would, and he would be locked out all over again. "Eleanor," he called softly. "I enjoyed the evening."

She turned to face him, a strange expression in her soft brown eyes. "I did too."

"You sound surprised."

"I am, a little." She stared at him with a frown, drawing closer. "I cannot understand you, Your Grace. You are an enigma."

"Perhaps that is only because you are trying to understand me with the wrong premises?" He stood very still, praying she wouldn't withdraw again.

"Perhaps." Her rosy lips parted, and she stared at his face as if searching for the answers she wanted so badly. "But I cannot… Did you mean what you said at the ball tonight?"

Phillip reached out on impulse and cupped her cheek in his palm. "Every word."

"Why did you not come to my bed that first night?" she whispered. "I am not so naive as to fail to notice that you wanted to kiss me then, but you did not."

"Because I will not force my wife to my bed." He ran his thumb along her lower lip. "If I thought you were ready and willing, you would find your room a mere formality, Eleanor."

She blushed and lowered her gaze, but she didn't pull away.

"Are you upset I did not kiss you then?" he asked, his amusement flaring.

"I… no."

"Do try to lie more convincingly, dearest." He dipped his head closer, tipping her chin up so that their lips brushed gently.

Eleanor shivered but remained still, her cheeks blushing a deeper red.

"Do you want me to kiss you now, Eleanor?"

She swallowed hard and caught her lower lip between her teeth.

He pulled it free. "Answer me. If you do not, I will leave you to your own devices for the rest of the evening and will pursue this no further until I am given reason to believe you wish otherwise."

Her tiny body quivered, but finally, she stepped closer into him, pressing her palms against his chest over his crisp white dress shirt. "Show me I am more than my money to you, Phillip," she whispered.

Phillip could not refuse a plea like that. His chest ached with a blend of sadness that she still didn't see that she had always been more than her money to him and longing to coax her from her shell to see him and his protection as a gift instead of a curse. "You have always been more than your money, my love." He dipped his head and captured her mouth with his, still cupping her cheek in his palm.

Eleanor met him shyly at first and then with more eagerness, her hands sliding up to tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck. Her movements pressed her body closer to his, shifting her stays and revealing a tantalizing glimpse of her curves. He longed to take it further, but he settled for only the tender caress of his lips against hers, teasing and coaxing her into kissing him back but not deepening it enough to frighten her off.

When he finally released her mouth, she was breathing in shallow gasps, her grip on him tight.

"Goodnight, Eleanor," he whispered, kissing her forehead before pulling away.

Her expression fell before she forcefully composed herself and gave him a soft smile. "Goodnight, Phillip."

The next morning, Eleanor struggled to rouse herself from her bed, a splitting headache making her every movement seem unusually difficult. She clutched her head with a low moan. She should never have had the second drink Phillip had gave her.

A knock at the door startled her, sounding like a gunshot to her overly sensitive ears. Then, the door opened, and Phillip walked into her bedroom pushing a silver tray set on a small stand. He smiled sympathetically as she forced herself to sit up with a grimace. Bringing the tray over to her, he settled the stand over her legs and picked up the glass of orange juice. "Drink this. Annie prepared it specially to help with the hangover."

Eleanor sniffed it suspiciously. On closer examination, it was thicker than normal. "What is in this?"

"An egg. Annie claims it does wonders for headaches caused by drinking too much wine. How do you feel? Besides the headache, that is." He sat beside her on the bed, plucking a piece of toast from the tray and taking a bite.

"Tired…" She eyed him, blushing when she realized she was in nothing but a thin linen nightgown with him sitting there in her bedchamber. "Perhaps… I should dress before I eat."

Phillip raised an eyebrow. "We are husband and wife, Eleanor. You are not required to adhere to such strict proprieties when it is only I who has entered your bedchamber. Besides…" He reached out to finger the lace along her neckline. "It looks fetching on you."

"Now you are merely flattering! I am nearly undressed, my hair is a disaster, and I am dealing with a dreadful headache. I cannot look fetching."

"Of course you can, and you do." He polished off his toast and brushed off the crumbs to the wooden floor below her bed. "But when I asked how you feel, I was referring to how you feel about what happened last night?"

Eleanor frowned, digging through her memories for what he was talking about. Then, the memory of their kiss last night flooded back, and her cheeks burned. "I…" She had enjoyed it, and she wouldn't mind a repeat, but it didn't seem quite appropriate to say so. "What do you want me to say?" she asked.

"I want to know the truth." Phillip lifted a grape to her lips.

At first, she kept her mouth closed, embarrassed and unsure if he really meant to feed her. When he did not remove the fruit and merely quirked an eyebrow at her, she finally opened her mouth and let him feed her the grape. His smile told her he was enjoying it, and despite the embarrassment, she found a strange thrill in letting him feed her. It felt wrong, elicit in a way, but that only made it more exciting.

"What is the truth, then, Eleanor? How are you feeling?"

"C-confused," she stammered.

"About what? How much I want you? Or about why I want you?"

After last night, she had no doubts at all about how much he wanted her or why he wanted her. It was clear that money had been only a very small fraction of his purpose in marrying her, and that both relieved her and frightened her. "About how I feel about it all," she admitted with a whisper.

He offered her a small chunk of apple next. "Why?"

She chewed on the fruit long enough to think about a response. Why was she confused? Because she should hate him, maybe? Or maybe because she had never wanted a man, and now here she was, wanting him? Because she had wanted him to take that kiss much further the previous evening and now was terrified of what that would have entailed. "I… I should not want this."

Phillip gave her a gentle smile. "Why not? We are married, regardless of how it came about, are we not?"

"Well, yes, I suppose so."

"There is nothing wrong about this, Eleanor. It does not have to be complicated."

"If it does not, then why did you stop at the kiss?" She found, to her surprise, that she really wanted to know and was not merely using it as a point of argument.

"Because I did not want to hurt you, my sweet bride. If I had gone further in the state you were in, you would have been hurt and resentful as well as confused this morning. I want your first time to be perfect for you."

Eleanor bit the inside of her cheek and lowered her gaze.

"I went through a great deal of difficulty to make you mine, Eleanor," he murmured. "I will not risk the chance to have your love to satisfy a moment of desire. My plans for you require trust and love between us, and I cannot gain your trust if I take advantage of your vulnerability to satisfy the lesser desire of having you in my bed."

A warmth bloomed in her chest and spread throughout the rest of her body. Did she really mean so much to him that he was willing to forgo his right as her husband in order to gain her heart and her trust? Perhaps he really did want her in every way, not just as his lover or as his means to pay off his debts. She wanted that so badly that it caused an ache in her chest alongside the warmth his gentle treatment had sparked.

"Is such a future possible?" she asked.

"Anything is possible when it comes to loving one another if we both work hard for it. Will you work hard with me, Eleanor? Will you fight for the chance to make more of this than an unwanted bargain?"

Eleanor picked up the glass of orange juice and drained it, grimacing at the taste. Then, she set it back down on the tray and met Phillip's gaze. "If I trust you and discover you have been lying again, it will break me, Phillip."

He heard the unspoken plea in her statement. Taking her hands in his, he nodded. "I know. Give me the chance to show you that I will not be the one to break you or clip your wings, my love."

"Very well. I will work hard with you, Phillip."

He squeezed her hands and leaned across the tray to kiss her lips gently, much more chastely than he had the previous night. "Thank you, dearest. You will not regret it."

She kissed him back just as softly. "I hope not."

Sarah burst into the sitting room with a bright smile. Eleanor jumped up and met her halfway across the room, throwing her arms around her closest friend. So many things had changed since Sarah's last visit, and Eleanor desperately needed to speak to her friend, to have some help in processing all she had been through in the past weeks.

"Sarah, I have so many things to tell you!" Eleanor dragged her friend to sit by the windows.

Sarah laughed. "You seem in a much better mood since I last saw you. Is marriage finally agreeing with you?"

"I am not yet certain." Eleanor leaned forward in her seat and lowered her voice. "So much has transpired since you last visited. Phillip is… not what I expected."

Sarah's grin widened. "Phillip, is it? Things have certainly progressed!"

Eleanor blushed and stared out the window. "It is all so strange and unexpected. I never thought I could forgive him for what he did. I am not yet certain I have forgiven him entirely, but I have begun to. We have agreed to try to find a way to make this marriage into more than a mere formality."

"I am so happy for you, Eleanor." Sarah took her by the hands with tears in her eyes. "It really is a beautiful story you have. From all I have heard and have seen, it is clear that His Grace adores you."

"To everyone else!" Eleanor shook her head. "The man blows hot and cold. At least, now I know why he does so, and I must say, I cannot help but respect his self-control. The man must have a will of iron, Sarah."

Sarah looked perplexed. "A will of iron?"

"I asked him why he did not kiss me that first night," Eleanor murmured. "He told me it was because he wanted to be certain that I want him when he would take me to his bed. He said he refuses to lose my heart just to claim his rights as my husband."

Sarah pressed a hand to her chest. "He is terribly romantic, Eleanor. No man has ever said such a thing to me!"

"I should hope not!" Eleanor laughed. "If someone has, you had best flee at once. It would be most inappropriate for a man to say such a thing to a lady he is courting."

Sarah laughed with her. "I suppose that is true. Nevertheless, you are fortunate to have a husband who adores you so greatly."

"Well, what about you? How is this man who is courting you?"

Sarah extended her left hand, showing Eleanor a diamond ring. "He has asked my father for my hand. We will be wed in three months to give us time to post banns. My father and his do not possess the influence yours does, so we must wait, I am afraid."

Eleanor wrinkled her nose. "Mine only used his influence because he knew he could not bring me to the altar if I heard about the plans he and Phillip made through the banns."

"I suppose he assessed that fairly enough," Sarah quipped.

Eleanor sighed. "Very well. I suppose he did judge that one point fairly. But it does not make it acceptable, Sarah!"

"I never said it did, only that he had good reasons."

"I am not certain you can call the desire to force me to the altar a good reason to ask the Archbishop for a special license."

It was Sarah's turn to sigh. "Shall we have this argument every time I visit, Eleanor? I do not mean to be unkind, but really, I will never be convinced that your father stopped loving you all of a sudden, and I simply cannot believe that he acted without a good reason or at least a good motive. You will not be persuaded to entertain even the notion of it, and so we are only going to aggravate one another."

Eleanor nodded. "I apologize. I should have left it be. I am delighted to hear that you and your betrothed are to be wed in a short time!"

"Yes, and I cannot wait! We have three months to prepare and plan for the wedding. The affair will not be nearly so grand as yours was, but I am only marrying a viscount, so it is hardly unexpected. Besides, His Grace really did see to every detail for your wedding. He must have wanted to make it memorable and special for you."

Eleanor offered her friend a pained smile. It had been memorable all right, but not in the way that she suspected Phillip had hoped it would be. The guests might have been satisfied, but she and Phillip knew the truth of the matter. It had not been a romantic day in any way, and Eleanor wished things had been different. Of course, had they been different, she likely wouldn't have married Phillip, and she wasn't certain how she felt about that notion anymore. Determined not to let sour memories ruin her visit with Sarah, she turned her attention to her friend and left worries about whether she and Phillip were really better off together despite the rocky beginning of their marriage for another day.