To Woo a Widow (The Heart of a Duke #10)(37)

“May I offer you a word of advice?”

What advice could a man with his hard eyes have for her? She eyed him warily.

“If you’re prepared to sneak away for your pleasures, then do not make apologies for it. Take your pleasures where you would and be damned with anyone for their opinions.”

Surprise filled her. From her first sighting of him in the park, she’d believed him capable of nothing but malice.

His wicked grin deepened. “If you are, however… amiable?” he whispered lowering his head closer.

Philippa leaned back and offered a wry smile. “I assure you, I am n—”

Footsteps sounded down the hall and they looked as one. “You bastard,” Miles hissed, rushing forward. Philippa gasped as, in one quick movement, he hefted the earl away and leveled him with a single blow.

“Miles, no,” she cried, reaching for his arm. For the earl’s wicked offer, nothing untoward otherwise had happened.

With a grunt, the other man went down hard on his knees. “By God, Guilford, I didn’t—” Coming over the earl’s form, Miles punched him again.

“Oh, my goodness!”

That shocked exclamation filled the corridor and froze Miles mid-blow.

And then, with a sinking wave of horror, Philippa turned to the small audience that had gathered—Lady Jersey, Philippa’s mother, Gabriel and his wife. Her brother narrowed a lethal stare on the two battling men.

She clenched her toes so hard, her arches ached.

“Lord Guilford,” Gabriel drawled, his tone dripping ice.

His chest heaving from his exertions, Miles stood, mouth agape, staring at their audience.

Taking advantage of that distraction, the Earl of Montfort punched him in the face and Philippa cried out. “Only fair to return the favor,” he said with the same humor of one discussing a Drury Lane comedy.

Several additional guests converged on the hallway and Philippa covered her face with her hands.

This was bad, indeed.





Chapter 15


It had happened.

For the first time in his nearly thirty years, Miles had found himself on the front page of the scandal sheets. All of them, to be precise. The stack at the corner of his desk glared mockingly back. With a growl, he shifted his attention from the papers in front of him to those useless scraps. He swiped the top copy and skimmed.

The Wanton Widow of Winston finds herself fought over by the Marquess of G and the Earl of M…

The muscles of his stomach clenched into tight, painful knots and his fingers curled about the pages of the hated sheet. They would print her name for all to see, while providing him and that bastard Montfort at least the slight anonymity of a given initial. He crumpled the page into a ball and hurled it into the rubbish bin beside his desk. By God, he’d done this. With his carelessness yesterday and in Hyde Park, he’d subjected her to the whispers and stares and the advances of cads like Montfort.

Miles picked up his pen and tapped it distractedly on his papers. If she would trust in him, he would marry her, not just to do right by her…which he did want that, too, but because he loved her. He loved her spirit and strength. He loved her devotion to her daughters. And he wanted to be a family with her and Faith and Violet. A pressure weighted his chest. Yet, with the life she’d lived, the misery of her own marriage, and the details she’d only alluded to of her childhood, she had no grounds to want to marry him. Never more had he wished to be one of those charming lords with all the right words.

The door flew open and he looked up. His mother stormed into his office and slammed the door behind him. “I’ve allowed you to shut yourself away in your office. Did you think I’d not expect you to speak on it?”

He swallowed a curse. “Mother,” he drawled and tossed down his pen. No, he rather thought a woman who so wholly survived and thrived on gossip would not allow him to escape talk. “Actually I did,” he said, rolling his shoulders. The last thing he cared to discuss was the scandal of being discovered alone with Philippa and bloodying Montfort for daring to put his hands on her. Another primal surge of bloodlust went through him at the memory of that bastard’s mouth on hers.

“Are you listening to me, Miles?” she snapped.

“No, I am not,” he said, eliciting another gasp. For the whole of his life, he’d been a dutiful son; seeing to the obligations and responsibilities that went with the Guilford title. He’d done so unflinchingly since his father had died ten years earlier. Where other lords had reveled in the freedom that came with being a bachelor in possession of great wealth, he’d dedicated himself to growing that wealth and never becoming one of those indolent lords. He’d not make apologies for any of his actions. And most especially, not for the feelings he had for Philippa.

“Do you know the scandal you’ve caused?” she implored. “What you’ve done to Sybil?”

“I have already spoken with Sybil. She understands my heart is otherwise engaged.”

Silence fell over the room. A very short-lived silence. “What?” she barked, a seal-like quality to that one word.

He tamped down a sigh, taking some mercy on his mother. There had been the expectation and lifelong hope on her part that he would marry her goddaughter and cement their families. In time, she’d come to appreciate the manner of honorable, strong, woman Philippa was. “I am in love, Mother,” he said quietly as silence resounded in the room. His body went still. I love her. He loved Philippa with everything he was. He loved her as a woman of strength. He loved her for being a devoted mother. And he’d spend every day filling her days with joy if she’d but have him.