Chapter 2
All things considered, their reunion could have gone much worse than a slammed door to the face.
For the weeks leading up to the holiday, and every moment of the interminable train-boat-train-carriage-horseback ride from Paris to Oxfordshire, he’d imagined what would happen when he saw his wife again.
She’d scream—in delight or horror, he wasn’t sure. She’d punch him in the nose. She’d kick him in the bollocks.
Occasionally, when he was feeling somewhat optimistic, he’d imagine she would smile and embrace him.
That the work he’d been preparing for, the words he’d practiced again and again, the endless nights and interminable days spent fixing all the parts of himself that were broken, would be unnecessary.
But Philip Marshall, the long-absent Earl of Whitby, had a lot of explaining to do.
He knocked on the door again. “May I please come in?”
“No!”
A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. She hadn’t run into the house to escape, which was something.
Unless she was arming herself.
“I know this is a surprise, and you probably don’t want to see me—”
“Probably?” The door swung open again, just far enough for her to poke her head out into the cold. “I absolutely, without a doubt, do not want to see you.” She slammed the door again.
“I deserve that.” He stomped his feet; he’d lost sensation in his toes sometime in the past hour, and expected his fingertips to be next. “And I have no right to your time, but I’m still asking for it. Please, Lily. I’m your hus—”
She opened the door once more, this time letting it smack against the interior wall with a shuddering thud. “If you say husband, I cannot be held responsible for what I do to you.”
Christ, but she was lovelier than he’d remembered, even when threatening his life. Her wide-set hazel eyes blazed, and strands of her chestnut hair had escaped their confinement, swirling around her head and catching the snow as it fell. She was enchanting, strong and furious, fiery and passionate.
And about to kick him in the bollocks.
He held up his hands, palms out. “Can you spare me a few moments of your time—”
“I owe you nothing,” she spat.
He chanced a step forward, and she snarled. “I know, but—”
“Gracious, Lily, what are you doing with the door open? You’ll freeze to death!”
Philip froze as his mother-in-law appeared in the doorway, her lips parting in a gasp.
“Whit?” she breathed. “Is that you?”
“It is I, my lady. But I’d prefer it if you called me Philip.”
Whit belonged to the Earl of Whitby, and while he possessed the title, the name didn’t fit him, like a suit custom-cut for someone else that he shoved himself into.
Whit belonged to the man he’d left behind when he abandoned his wife in England.
He would be Philip now, his given name, the name he’d used during the last eight years as he’d battled his demons into submission, all with Lily’s name on his lips.
Before Lady Redbourne could respond, a streak of curly ginger fur dashed out the door and began circling him, alternating between yapping at his ankle and rolling about on his toes.
He bent and scooped up the puppy, who, after deciding Philip was not there to murder the family, licked his chin in earnest. “Who is this?”
“Cricket. He belongs to Marigold’s boys.” Lady Redbourne gave the spaniel an exasperated look. “Lily said you’d be with your mother this Christmas. Have you changed your mind?”
His mother? The Dowager Countess of Whitby was spending the holiday with her lover on the coast of Spain.
“Yes,” he hedged as he released the pup to the floor. “She would rather I spent my time with my wife’s family.”
Lily crowded her mother’s back and glared over the woman’s shoulder, but Lady Redbourne’s smile widened. “Come in, you must get off your feet.” She caught his hands and pulled him forward, into the glow of the foyer. “You’ll catch your death if you stay out here in those wet clothes.”
She motioned him past a gaping Lily, but as soon as she shut the door behind him, his wife seemed to come to her senses.
“Mama, this is a misunderstanding. He’s leaving—”
His body hummed with her proximity, like every nerve in his person, dormant for years, came alive and simultaneously attuned to her.
He clocked the dark hair curling around her ear, how she chewed her lower lip, the petulant lift of her chin.
If someone had asked him why he was so desperate to return to his wife, he wouldn’t have listed any of these things.
But now that he saw them, saw her, he would add them to the list.
Leave her now? Like hell he would. “No, I’m not leaving.”
Lily’s nostrils flared before the snarling sound emerged again. “We weren’t expecting him. There aren’t any rooms left.”
“Pish posh.” She didn’t look at her daughter as she waved for Philip to remove his sodden hat and greatcoat, then handed them over to the waiting butler. “I haven’t seen your husband in years, what with all his travel. We have more than enough space for family.”
Family.
How his chest ached for that, like his heart was prying apart his ribs to reach for such a thing, something he’d worked tirelessly to deserve in these past months. Something that had felt impossible, like flying.
But now that he was back in Lily’s presence, hostile as it was, he wanted it even more.
Family. A home. A life with the woman he loved.
The woman who was currently staring daggers at his profile.
“You poor dear,” Lady Redbourne tsked. “You’re soaked to the skin. I’ll go see if one of the boys has something you can wear.”
“That would be wonderful,” he said. “My trunks won’t arrive until tomorrow.”
Lily’s eyes flashed. “You should go into town and wait for them.”
“Nonsense, Lily,” her mother chided. “We can find something that will fit. It’s a shame Timothy hasn’t arrived yet. He’s about your height.”
He tensed. “Not here yet? I thought they would have arrived by now.”
“Alas, they haven’t. They stopped to leave their traveling companions in London.”
Philip’s confidence, already shaken by the slammed door to the face, faltered further.
Their companions were Lavinia and Dominic Bailey, Lavinia being the physician who had helped him through the worst of his recovery, had provided the support he needed to turn his life around.
Only when he was certain he was ready to return did he reach out to Timothy to enact the next phase of his plan.
It was because of Timothy that Philip had come to Oxfordshire at all.
“The Baileys…" He swallowed hard. "They're not coming?”
She shook her head. “Some business with their club, apparently. Make yourself at home, and I’ll go ask about the clothing.
His mother-in-law gave his upper arm a maternal pat before she turned her attention to her eldest daughter.
“I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to have you all here. It’s a Christmas miracle.”
Lily’s nostrils flared as her mother departed, and when she pivoted to face him, her hands were in fists at her sides and pink splotches stained her cheeks and neck.
“She doesn’t know we’re…” He trailed off, unsure how to categorize the sorry state of their marriage.
“I make excuses when she asks for you,” she hissed.
“I lied to my mother for you and told her you were doing business on the continent. She thinks everything is fine between us, despite ample evidence to the contrary, and I have no intention of disabusing her of the notion. After everything our family has been through, knowing my husband had abandoned me would break her.”
Pain burst behind his solar plexus, and he lifted his hand to press it against his chest. “Lily—”
“Whatever you have to say, make it quick.”
He dug his hands through his hair, then shook the damp from his fingers. “I don’t want to do this now. It’s complicated.”
Her jaw ticked. “Un-complicate it, then.”
As often as he’d rehearsed what he’d say, facing her now, with years of work and pain behind him as he prepared for this moment, his words failed him, his mind wiping clean.
So he spoke from his heart. “I know how much it hurt you when I left, but I don’t regret what I did, only the way I did it. I know it’s unforgivable—”
“You’re right.”
His stomach flipped. How could she understand when he’d barely started?
“You’re right,” she repeated, stalking forward. “What you did was unforgivable. I woke up the morning after our wedding to an empty bed, to a note from my husband saying he was leaving to protect me.” She pressed her palm to his sternum and pushed hard.
He thought his lungs might collapse. “The decision was in your best interest—”
“My best interest?” She recoiled and flung her arms out to the side. “How was leaving me, a new bride, in my best interest? I had to explain to everyone,” she gestured towards where he presumed her family was gathered, “that my husband had disappeared because of me!”
His fingers twitched with the need to hold her, to offer the comfort he’d denied her all these years. “It wasn’t because of you. It was me—”
“Is everything all right, Lily?”
A giant of a man marched into the foyer with—was that Marigold?
—trailing behind. He angled himself between Lily and Philip and crossed his arms over his broad chest. Marigold’s brows were furrowed and her hands tangled in her skirts.
This must be the barrister who’d helped her divorce her horrid husband.
Lily’s mouth worked for a moment before she nodded stiffly. “Thank you, Archie,” she said softly, cutting her gaze to her sister. “I’m fine. I’ll be in to dinner shortly.”
Archie glared for one moment longer before taking Marigold’s hand and guiding her towards the dining room, glancing over his shoulder more than once.
When Philip looked back at Lily, her expression had softened the slightest bit as she watched her sister depart.
“You don’t know this,” she said, as though each word pained her, “but my sister’s husband abused her and her boys.
She’s only just divorced, and her children have never had a proper Christmas. ”
He knew all of this, as he’d followed the case through the newspapers and used his contacts to ensure her former husband would never be welcome in a decent home in England again.
“We were nearly destitute until recently,” she continued, “and my mother and father were wrecks.”
He knew this as well; Timothy had told him every detail, and he’d utilized funds from the earldom, via Timothy’s investments, to shore up the Redbourne Viscountcy. “I’m aware—”
“And I will not let your arrival destroy the happiness my family deserves. Is that clear?”
As though he had any intention of causing the Waverlys—Lily in particular—any more harm than he already had.
“I swear I’ll cause no trouble for your family.” He infused his words with an earnestness he felt in his bones, but she scoffed and shook her head. “And I’ll promise you one more thing.”
He took a step closer until she had to lift her chin to meet his gaze. Her pulse thrummed beneath the delicate skin of her throat.
“By Christmas day, you’ll be my wife again.”
The intensity in her expression faltered, and he glimpsed the woman he’d fallen in love with. But she shuttered so quickly, he wondered if he’d imagined seeing it.
“I believe nothing you promise.”