“Of course I forgive you, but there is truly nothing to forgive.” Needing desperately to know the answers, she asked, “Why didn’t you act like a gentleman with me? Why did you kiss me?”
He looked directly at her. “Because you’re a beautiful woman, Merry, and I wanted to kiss you. I couldn’t help myself.”
His answer was concise and honest. And it thrilled her.
“I felt the same way about you,” she whispered.
The smile he gave her could have lit up the room, which was growing darker as the sun set. Long shadows began to stretch across the hardwood floor. But Meredith had no care for the time or where she was. Her entire focus, her entire world, was right there in front of her.
Here they were, alone together once again.
“It makes me happy to know that,” he said, his voice low. He reached out slowly and took her small hand in his.
Her pulse quickened as their hands touched, the warmth of his skin seeping into hers. His hands were strong and masculine. How she wanted him to kiss her again!
Slowly withdrawing her hand from his, she took a sip of wine and gathered up her courage.
“What is between you and Lady Katherine, if you don’t mind my asking?” she said softly.
Sighing, Phillip looked contrite.
“I have been seeing her for the last few months. Katherine is a lovely girl, but very misunderstood. She’s much more sensitive than people give her credit for. She was quite hurt when she realized you and I had . . .” His voice trailed off.
Running into Lady Katherine Vickers after she and Phillip had been kissing was one of the most mortifying moments of Meredith’s life.
As soon as Meredith had told Lady Katherine that she hadn’t seen Phillip, he came chasing after her, calling her name. It was a bold lie, and the blond widow knew it. For a moment all three of them stood there unmoving, as if frozen. The look of shock and disbelief on Lady Katherine’s face must have matched the expression on Meredith’s own face. Finally, Meredith fled down the corridor, leaving the two of them on their own.
Phillip looked directly at her. “But it’s over now with Katherine. We ended things between us. For good this time, because we had broken off our relationship once before.”
“I see.”
Meredith’s voice remained remarkably calm, but her heart skipped a beat once more. Phillip had come to visit her, and he’d ended things with the blond widow! She could barely contain her delight.
“It’s probably for the best,” he added in a thoughtful tone. “My family wasn’t happy about my being with Katherine, and deep down I wasn’t happy with her either. To be honest, I’m actually relieved to have it over.” Phillip released a long, heavy sigh. “Sometimes, I’m not certain what it is I’m looking for.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, noticing the trace of sadness in his voice.
“I’m not sure really. I’m just not happy with myself lately, I suppose.”
“What is there not to be happy about?” Meredith asked, surprised by his words.
Phillip blinked at her in confusion.
“You’re a young, handsome, and healthy man. You have two loving parents and a brother who adores you, not to mention the rest of your family who care about you. You’re the heir to a title and a fortune and are set and secure for life, because everything will be yours one day. And you’re a man, which means you can do whatever you like. You have more than most people will ever have in their entire lives. What right do you have to not be happy, Phillip?”
The stunned expression on his face told her everything.
Incredulous, she cried, “Has no one ever said that to you before?”
“Not in so many words, no.” He had the decency to look embarrassed.
“But surely you must have considered those things, haven’t you?”
“Well, yes, of course, I have,” he muttered grudgingly. “But there’s also a great deal of pressure upon me. You have no idea what it’s like to be the eldest son. I’m the heir. I have important responsibilities to attend to and countless duties to uphold, and people expect great things of me. But you can’t possibly understand what that kind of pressure is like because you’re a woman.”
Meredith rose to her feet in indignation, thinking of the great burden she was carrying, required to marry a wealthy man.
“Pressure?” she cried. “You think I don’t understand being compelled to do things that I don’t wish to do? And you believe that society and my family don’t have expectations of me that I have no desire to fulfill? That is a woman’s entire lot in life!”
He stood up as well, looking rather agitated.
“You’ve no idea what you’re saying, Merry. Women always have men to look after them and care for them. Women never have to worry, because men do all the work. You don’t have to concern yourself about anything! You simply have to get married, and a man will provide for you and will take care of you for the rest of your life.”
They stood close to each other, their voices raised in anger, tension sparking in the air around them.
“You mean a man will control me!” Meredith cried out, her ire growing with each foolish word he uttered. “I don’t wish to get married, but I’m told that I have to. I don’t want to be married and controlled by a man!”
He looked befuddled by her remark. “What do you want then?” he demanded.
“I want to live my own life! I want to make my own decisions. I want to live where I want and write my books and earn my own living!”
As the words poured from her, she realized how desperately she wished for those things.
“Then do it!” he challenged, his eyes flashing. “Do what you want to do! You have more freedom than I do! I have a family name to carry on. I have obligations and duties and decades of gloried heritage to uphold. Who is stopping you from doing any of the things you want?”
“Everyone is stopping me,” Meredith retorted. “Society is stopping me. It’s just the way things are. Women aren’t allowed to live the lives they choose. We aren’t permitted to live on our own or do much of anything without consent from our husbands or fathers.”
“You could if you wanted. Times are changing. You have more independence than I do as the son of a marquis.”
She rolled her eyes in disgust. “That’s ridiculous. You have every advantage there is to have in this world, Phillip. Family. Wealth. Education. Power. And you’re a man. You don’t know what it’s like to struggle to survive and have to fight for every little necessity.”
“Neither do you, Miss Oil Heiress,” he pointed out, smugly folding his arms.
Meredith grew quiet.
Yes, Phillip made a valid argument. Neither of them came from desperate circumstances, and, by luck of the draw, they had both been born into well-off situations. Still, she didn’t care for his remark about her being an oil heiress. Every time someone mentioned the lie, she felt physically ill.
For a moment she was close to confessing her secret to him. She wanted him to know the truth about her. She longed for him to know.
“What is it you want to do with your life, Phillip?” she asked instead.
“That’s just it, Merry. I don’t know,” he said wearily. “I’ve never been given an opportunity to know. My future was mapped out for me at birth. I will become the Marquis of Stancliff, just like my father, and his father, and so on. No one has ever asked me what I want to do or what I like, and I never thought about it because nothing else other than following in my father’s footsteps is an option for me.”
The expression on his face gave her pause. Phillip wasn’t wrong. They were both trapped in the roles that society had laid out for them. Their choices were limited, yet they were both fortunate, given their circumstances.
“I think I see what you mean . . .” she said.
“You’re the first person who seems to understand how I feel,” he added.
“It must be just as frustrating to have your life preplanned for you as i
t is to have no plan whatsoever in place . . . no security. It’s all relative, I suppose.”
“I know I have nothing to complain about. All things considered, I’d take my own lot over most people’s. It’s just sometimes I think it’d be freeing to break out and do something completely different.”
“Like what?” she asked.
He suddenly looked embarrassed. “You’ll laugh if I tell you.”
“I promise I won’t laugh.”
Phillip hesitated. “I think it would be wonderful to go to America and ride the frontier in the west.”
“You mean be a cowboy?” Meredith somehow managed to keep a little giggle from escaping at the thought of the pompous Earl of Waverly riding a horse with a cowboy hat and a kerchief.
He gave a half grin. “It’s ridiculous I know, but those men are truly unencumbered. There’s just something about the freedom of that kind of life that calls to me.”
“Freedom is appealing in any form. And in the end, I suppose it’s what everyone wants out of life. The freedom to live as we choose. And financial freedom is a large part of that as well,” she said.
“Exactly,” Phillip said.
“But you know,” Meredith began, “just because you are following in your father’s footsteps, doesn’t mean you have to wear the same shoes.”
He gave her a quizzical look.
“You will be the next Marquis of Stancliff, but you don’t have to do everything the same way your father does. You can place your own mark on things, Phillip.”
“Yes, I suppose I could.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I wish I could trade places with my brother, Simon. As the second son, he can go out and do whatever he wants with his life. He possesses all the freedoms that I do not.”
Meredith recalled what she knew of Simon. His life was not as carefree and limitless as his brother believed. But that was a conversation for another time.
“Perhaps not,” she said. “It must also be difficult to be thought of as ‘the spare’ child, who is as hemmed in as you are with none of the benefits that you enjoy as the heir. He may not be as free as you think.”
Phillip agreed with her. “I suppose none of us have as many choices as we wish to have.”
“There’s a new century on the horizon,” Meredith said thoughtfully. “Perhaps in the future, things will change, and these sorts of problems won’t matter as much.”
He shrugged helplessly. “Who knows? But things certainly won’t change in time for either of us.”
A sobering silence grew around them.
“You should keep writing, however,” Phillip finally said. “You have a passion and a talent for something and that is a very rare thing. Cultivate that talent, Merry. Keep writing, no matter what.”
“I want to, but part of that will depend on whom I marry.”
“You’re an heiress, Merry. You have the financial security and the freedom to do whatever you wish to do with your life. You don’t have to marry anyone just yet. You’re not constrained by hundreds of years of aristocratic familial tradition as I am. If I were you, I would go back to New York, where you have the freedom to do what you like. Set yourself up in a nice house and write your books.”
Oh, if only that were true!
Meredith wished it with all her might. If only her father had left her an heiress, then she would have the freedom to do what she wanted. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Why are you crying?” he asked.
She was crying because she wanted to tell him the truth, but she couldn’t. She was stuck in this awful lie, and she didn’t know how to extricate herself from it.
“My aunt Delilah says that I must marry. She raised me. She’s been like a mother to me, and I feel obligated to obey her. She wants me to marry the Duke of Havenfield, and it seems likely that that will come to pass. And somehow, I don’t think the duke will be pleased by having a wife who writes mystery novels.”
“Then he’s a great fool.” He reached out and tenderly wiped a tear from her cheek. “Don’t marry him.”
Meredith looked deep into Phillip’s eyes, and her breath caught at the intensity she saw reflected within their green depths. They were on the verge of something monumental, something quite extraordinary.
“I would be bursting with pride to have a woman like you as my wife,” he added, his voice thick with emotion.
Her heart swelled at his words, and she leaned in toward him. She was so close to him that the very scent of him wafted around her. As if she were at the brim of a steep precipice, she teetered nervously on the edge.
“Then make me your wife.”
Meredith stilled, hardly believing she’d uttered those fateful words aloud. But the words were true. Phillip felt like home, safe and where she belonged. She loved him and she wanted desperately for him to kiss her. But even more than that, she wanted him to ask her to marry him.
He looked incredulous as her suggestion, but he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer to him.
“You would want to marry an aimless man like myself?”
Being in his arms, her heart pounded wildly. She nodded her head at his question. Yes, I’ll marry you! She wanted to shout the words. Instead, she whispered them to him.
“Yes, I would.”
“I’m not half good enough for a girl like you, Merry.”
“No, I’m not good enough for you,” she protested.
Her heart pounded. Guilt about her great lie pricked at her like dozens of sewing needles. She desperately wanted to tell him the truth, but fear kept her silent. Fear of what her aunt would say. Fear of how he would react to learn that she’d been putting on a charade. She could not bear to ruin this beautiful moment between them.
He shook his head. “That’s not true. You are someone quite special. I felt it the moment I saw you. And it’s not just your beautiful face.”
“We could do things differently, Phillip. Together. We could help each other to live the lives we want.”
“We could.”
“There is something special between us,” she whispered.
“I sense it too. And I admit that it scares me more than a little,” he confessed on a shaky breath. “I have intense feelings for you, Merry, and I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“I can’t breathe when I think about you.” Meredith reached up and ran her hand through his soft, dark hair. “I feel things for you that I have never felt before.”
“What do you feel?” His eyes were locked on hers.
“I feel that I want you to kiss me more than I can bear.”
Without another word, Phillip pulled her closer, lowered his head, and covered her mouth with a searing kiss that left Meredith without a coherent thought in her head.
Any worries or concerns or fears she had simply drifted away like a dozen feathers in a soft summer breeze. All that mattered was Phillip and his warm mouth on hers.
They kissed and she was lost once again.
Desire, white hot and rampant, surged through her body. She pressed herself against him, filled with a longing to be touched. To be loved. To be understood.
This man understood her. He knew what she wanted, and he wished for her to have what she wanted and to do what she wanted. He encouraged and supported her writing. He was proud of her. In her heart, she knew this was the man she was destined to be with.
This was the man she loved.
As she kissed him back, she marveled at the utter completeness she felt being in his arms as he held her close to his chest. And yet, she wanted more. More from him. More for her.
She wanted everything with him. She wanted a life with him.
“I want you so much,” he whispered, and just like that he lifted her up into his arms and carried her into one of the bedrooms.
17
Word of Mouth
“Something is definitely happening,” Colette Sinclair said.
Her niece, Mara Reeves Sheridan, and her sister, Paulette Hamilton Reeves, both look
ed at her with a mixture of curiosity and confusion.
“What’s happening, Aunt Colette?” asked Mara, her gray-green eyes wide.
The three of them were working together in Mara’s Book Shoppe, the newest store in the Hamilton chain that was devoted entirely to children’s books. It had just recently opened and was doing quite well.
They had hung some adorable new artwork with whimsical characters from Alice in Wonderland along the back wall, where they had miniature tables and chairs arranged for the children. The colorful paintings, which had been done by a local artist, added quite a wonderful touch of fancy to that area of the store.
It was late in the day and the bookshop was closed, empty but for the three of them. Colette had remained inside, talking over the new furniture arrangements with Mara and Paulette.
“What’s happening?” Paulette asked, echoing her daughter’s question.
“Something is happening with Phillip,” Colette announced. She had barely been able to believe it herself, but her son was changing his ways. “It’s seems his behavior is beginning to improve. Lucien and I have both noted it.”
“I told you he would come around on his own,” Paulette remarked with a relieved expression, as she moved two small pink rocking chairs to the side. “I think I like these here better.”
“I agree, but perhaps place those little chintz pillows on them,” Mara suggested from her cushioned seat. Concerned about her working too hard, her mother and her aunt had made her rest.
“That looks perfect,” Colette remarked, as she walked over and adjusted the little ruffled pillows.
Paulette asked, “So, how is Phillip doing?”
“He’s been home early every evening for the past week. He’s up at dawn each morning, and not because he’s been up all night either. He is suddenly taking an interest in managing the estate and has had some long talks with Lucien about it. He even inquired about how the bookstores were doing, businesswise. He never asks me about that.”
The Unexpected Heiress Page 17
