To Woo a Widow by Christi Caldwell

Author:Christi Caldwell
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Regency
Publisher: Christi Caldwell
Published: 2016-06-08T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Miles sat at his private table at the back corner of White’s, the same bottle of brandy he’d requested two hours earlier remained beside the untouched snifter.

After he’d taken his leave of Philippa, her haunted eyes and insistent words echoed around his mind; consuming his thoughts. …I can never, ever marry again. Even if you wish to do right by me… He stared blankly out, unseeing the gentlemen seated about him.

She’d endured a cold, emotionless marriage. Which was not vastly different than so many of the unions between lords and ladies.

He’d never given proper thought to the expectations his mother put to him years earlier regarding Sybil Cunning. If they married, they would have a polite, companionable union. But was that enough?

Just days prior, he would have answered with a definitive yes. Now, after seeing Philippa again for a fourth time, he’d been forced to reconsider the promise he’d made regarding Sybil. If it hadn’t been for Philippa, he would have not considered all the perils that came in wedding where one’s heart was not engaged. The haunted glimmer in Philippa’s eyes, the pain he saw there, ushered in questions and doubts. Could there ever truly be happiness in that staid, proper affair?

Tamping down an agonized groan, Miles grabbed the bottle and poured himself several fingerfuls of liquor. He thought better of it and then filled his glass to the brim.

He took a long, slow swallow, welcoming the sting as it burned a trail down his throat. But it did little to ease the pain weighting his chest. Her words hadn’t been restricted to the hell she’d lived as a wife, but she’d also spoken of suffering…at the hands of her father. And had her daughter not entered, he would have asked every last bloody question. Fury lanced through him; an unholy desire to drag her dead father and husband from the grave and kill them dead all over again. Was it a wonder the lady would be suspect of any gentleman’s motives? Himself included?

“I believe this is the first time I can recall a scowl from the always affable Marquess of Guilford.”

At that familiar, dry drawl, Miles shot his head up. He set his glass aside. “Bainbridge.” Surprise crept into his tone. The other man, devoted to his two children and hopelessly in love with his wife, was rarely one for their clubs.

Bainbridge dragged out a chair and claimed the opposite seat with all the austere command of a man born and bred to be a duke. A servant rushed over with a glass, but the young duke waved the man off. All the while, he kept his attention trained on Miles. “I’ve read of your own impressive rescue of a lady in Hyde Park earlier this week,” he drawled, folding his arms at his broad chest. He quirked a very ducal eyebrow.

Years earlier, Bainbridge had set the Town abuzz when he’d rescued his now wife from the frozen Thames. “Hardly the manner of heroics evinced by some,” he said dryly.

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