Chapter 10
“What Aunt Margaret wants, Aunt Margaret gets.”
Lifting his booted foot high to step over a fallen branch, Philip chuckled at James’s statement, knowing the truth of it.
The woman had been the least effective chaperone in the history of debutantes during his courtship with Lily but had threatened to convert him to a eunuch if he did anything to compromise her reputation.
On the elderly woman’s orders, Philip and Callum had led Ben, Timothy, and James into a copse of trees just north of the property to hunt for mistletoe and additional greenery for the house.
Apparently this constituted an emergency, because the woman had ordered Callum to take up a rifle and start the search before Timothy and James had time to unpack.
“Is it normal for me to be terrified of her?” James asked, and Timothy gave him an affectionate grin.
“Aunt Margaret? Perfectly normal,” Callum deadpanned, squinting up into the branches obscuring the gray winter sky. “She’s fucking terrifying. Is that some?”
Ben peered through the binoculars he’d borrowed from the viscount. “I think so. We don’t have much wild mistletoe in Brooklyn. I didn’t know it was a tree.”
“It’s not.” James loaded the shotgun and handed it to Callum. “The seeds are sticky, so when birds eat them and defecate, the seeds stick to the upper branches of the trees. Hence our need to shoot it down.”
Philip winced. “Does that mean we decorate with…”
“Shite berries,” Callum grumbled, then aimed and fired. The blast shattered the muted winter air, and the clump of green branches and white berries tumbled to the forest floor.
Branches snapped beneath their feet as the men ambled forward through the low brush to their quarry. James gathered the mistletoe and put it in the large canvas laundry sack Philip was using to drag around the previous four bunches they’d collected.
“Did you have a chance to speak to Lily yet?” James asked in a low voice.
Philip tied the sack shut and heaved it over his shoulder. “I have, and it’s not a secret to these gents.”
“Good.” He brushed his hands off on his trousers. “How did it go?”
Callum snorted. “Based on the look she gave ye a few minutes ago, not well.”
Timothy clapped his hand on Philip’s shoulder. “We knew this would be difficult.”
“I know.” Philip’s chest tightened as he remembered how Lily had fled from their bedroom, and he wanted to kick himself for such a foolish, thoughtless remark about earning her forgiveness.
But she wouldn’t have allowed him to take those liberties with her if she didn’t trust him on some level.
Holding her, tasting her had been a revelation, had made the entire journey to break free of his dependence on opium worthwhile.
“Is that all you’re going to say about it?” Ben asked. “I know?”
“Ben is encouraging conversation?” Timothy scoffed. “A Christmas miracle.”
Philip’s brows furrowed. “How do you two know each other?”
Timothy chuckled. “Ben ruined my engagement ball.”
“Thank you for that,” James put in, nudging Timothy with his shoulder before rounding on Philip. “But don’t change the subject. You told her why you were gone, didn’t you?”
Philip began walking blindly, searching the treetops for more mistletoe. Perhaps if he made Aunt Margaret happy, one woman in the household would tolerate him. “I did.”
“And she was…” Callum prompted.
“Surprised.” He paused, kicked the toe of his boot—still damp from the snowball fight—against a fallen log. “Angry that I never told her what I was facing.”
Ben huffed. “I don’t blame her.”
Philip wasn’t certain he liked his American brother-in-law.
“But I couldn’t let her see me in my darkest hour.
If she knew what I’d become, she wouldn’t love me.
” His insides chilled at the memory, when the thought of Lily was the thin veil keeping him from giving up the battle for sobriety.
When he’d been a sweating, stinking mess, sleeping in hovels or on the streets, shelling out endless coin to any charlatan who offered a cure.
He wasn’t worthy of anyone’s love those days, let alone Lily’s.
They paused at the next tree to shoot and bag another clump of mistletoe. “That’s enough,” Callum grumbled. “My feet are getting cold.”
“Dinnae let anyone hear ye say that.” James leaned into his normally undetectable brogue. “People will think ye’re nae a Highlander.”
Callum scowled. “We’re from Edinburgh, ye arse.”
The cousins continued to bicker as the woods parted onto the snow-covered parkland leading up to the manor house. But after only a few paces, Ben stopped, and the men followed suit.
“What’s wrong?” Timothy asked.
The normally taciturn man scrubbed a hand down his face and fastened his dark gaze on Philip. “My darkest hour was when my first wife died.”
The men went motionless. Philip’s breath caught in his chest.
Ben fixed his gaze on an indistinct point in the distance.
“I was alone and afraid I wouldn’t be able to go on.
But I did, one minute, one hour, one day at a time.
Just like you did. And every day I wished I could go back to before, wished I could have changed something, anything, to avoid that pain. ”
Philip nodded, but Ben wasn’t finished.
“And then this English beauty shows up on my doorstep.” He shook his head with a huff of amusement. “She drove me wild.”
Timothy chuckled. “Did she ever.”
A smile played on Ben’s lips at the memory.
“And I kept trying to be who I was before, someone who hadn’t nearly drowned in tragedy, because that was the type of man she deserved.
But she didn’t want that. Rose wanted me, as I was, as I am.
She was my princess, my magpie. And until I could accept my darkness, she couldn’t be my light. ”
The love pouring from the man’s words was palpable, and Philip’s chest ached with its potency. “What are you saying?”
“Stop pretending to be the man you were and let her fall in love with the man you are now.”
Philip was speechless, flattened. He had been trying to convince Lily to forget the past, or at least brush over the past eight years and pretend they hadn’t happened. But that was an impossible task, and he’d never win her back if he ignored what came between them.
Timothy’s low whistle brought him back to the present. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that many words before. Ever.”
Callum chuckled. “A new record.”
Ben’s cheeks bloomed crimson as he landed a friendly punch on Callum’s arm, then nodded his chin towards the barn. “You should hurry if you’re going to catch her.”
Philip turned to see Lily charging from the house, a long black cloak billowing behind her. With a jolt, he handed the canvas sack to Ben and took off running, his heavy boots crunching through the packed snow.
By the time he entered the barn, she already had Calpurnia out of her stall and bridled.
“Where are you going?” he asked breathlessly.
She walked past him without making eye contact to pull her saddle off a nearby post. “I need to run an errand in town.”
“I’ll come with you.”
She grunted, a low earthy sound that made his cock twitch, as she threw the saddle over Calpurnia’s back. “There’s no need. I can manage alone.”
He glanced at the groom who stood by awkwardly; the lad was clever enough not to interfere with Lily’s preparations, but he could help Philip now. “Ready a horse for me. Quickly, please.” The groom nodded, clearly pleased to have something to do, and hurried towards an adjacent stall.
When he looked back at his wife, her cheeks were flushed pink. “I said I don’t need you to come.”
He stepped closer, and her lips parted with an inaudible gasp. “If you go now, it will be nightfall before you return. It could be dangerous.”
Her brows furrowed, and he wanted to kiss the space between them, release any tension she carried. “I’ve ridden into Oxford more times than you can count. I’m perfectly capable of making the trip.”
He took a risk and captured her hand, her long fingers encased in a leather glove. “I don’t doubt your ability, but I can’t stand letting you out of my sight and not knowing if something has happened to you.”
“Imagine how I felt all those years.”
Her retort sliced through him, pierced his heart, and lodged in his spine.
Let her fall in love with the man you are now.
There was no sense in making her forget his absence or ignore about the damage he’d done.
He could only prove he would be better this time, every time for the rest of their lives.
“I can’t imagine, Lily. I want you to tell me.”
Her sharp gaze softened, her full lips parting again as she searched his face, and he would have given anything to know what she was thinking. To understand what he’d done to the woman he loved so he could fix it, fix them.
“Fine,” she finally said, turning to take Calpurnia’s reins. “If you’re going to ride with me, I won’t make it easy.”
The groom handed him the reins of a chestnut gelding. “Make what easy?” Philip asked.
She chuckled in a way that sent the hair on his neck prickling. “To the rail bridge, then?”
The Gasworks Rail Bridge marked the point where they crossed the Thames into Oxford proper, and a chuckle fell from his throat. “Are we racing?”
“A race would imply I have competition.” She swung herself into the saddle and peered down her nose at him. “Try to keep up.”