But she couldn’t finish her question, because Amanda had launched herself at her, throwing her arms around her midsection with enough force to knock her back against the wall. And Oliver soon followed.
“There, there,” Eloise said, patting their hair in confusion. “Whatever could be wrong?”
“Nothing,” came Amanda’s muffled reply.
Oliver pulled back and stood straight like the little man people were always telling him to be. Then he ruined the effect by wiping his nose with the back of his hand.
Eloise handed him a handkerchief.
He used it, nodded his thanks, and said, “We like you better than Nurse Edwards.”
Eloise couldn’t imagine liking anyone worse than Nurse Edwards, and she privately vowed to look into finding a replacement as soon as possible. But she wasn’t going to say anything to the children about this; they would almost certainly relate the information to the nurse, who would either give her notice immediately, leaving them all in a terrible bind, or take her frustration and ire out on the children, which wouldn’t do at all.
“Let’s sit down,” she said, steering them toward the table. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t want to have to face her if we haven’t practiced our Ms, Ns, and Os.”
And she thought to herself—I really must speak with Phillip about this.
She looked down at Oliver’s hands. They didn’t look abused, but one of the knuckles looked a little bit red. It might have been her imagination, but still . . .
She needed to talk to Phillip. As soon as she was able.
Phillip hummed to himself as he carefully transplanted a seedling, well aware that prior to his marriage, he had always labored in complete and utter silence.
He had never felt like whistling before, he realized, never once wanted to sing softly to himself or hum. But now . . . well, now it seemed as if music were simply in the air, all around him. He felt more relaxed, too, and the constant knots of tension in his shoulders had started to dissolve.
Marrying Eloise was, quite simply, the best thing he could have done. Hell, he’d even go so far as to say it was the best thing he’d ever done.
He was, for the first time in recent memory, happy.
It seemed such a simple thing now, to be happy. And he wasn’t even sure that he’d realized he wasn’t happy before. He had certainly laughed on occasion, and enjoyed himself from time to time—it wasn’t, as it had been for Marina, that he’d been completely and constantly unhappy.
But he hadn’t been happy. Not in the way he was now, waking up each day with the feeling that the world was indeed a wonderful place and that it would still be a wonderful place when he went to bed that night and still yet again when he got up the following morning.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like that. Probably not since his university days, when he’d had his first taste of the thrill of intellectual discovery—and he was far enough away from his father that he didn’t have to worry about the constant threat of the rod.
It was difficult to count the ways that Eloise had improved his life. There was, of course, their time in the bedroom, which was quite beyond anything he might have imagined. If he’d even dreamed that sexual intercourse could be so splendid, there was no way he would have remained celibate for so long. No way he could have, quite frankly, if his current appetite was any indication.
But he simply hadn’t known. Lovemaking certainly hadn’t been like that with Marina. Or with any of the women he’d fumbled with as a university lad, before his marriage.
But if he were honest with himself—and that was a difficult task, considering how completely besotted his body was with Eloise’s—the intercourse wasn’t the main reason for his current sense of contentment.
It was this feeling—this knowledge, really—that he had finally, and truly, for the first time since he’d become a father, done the absolute right thing for the twins.
He’d never be a perfect father. He knew that, and even if he hated it, he accepted it. But he had finally done the next best thing, and gotten them the perfect mother.
It was as if a thousand pounds of guilt had been lifted from his shoulders.
No wonder his muscles finally felt unknotted and relaxed.
He could go into his greenhouse in the morning and not worry. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that, simply gone in and worked without cringing every time he heard a loud noise or shriek. Or been able to concentrate on his work without his mind wandering into guilt, unable to focus on anything other than his lacks as a father.
But now he walked in and forgot all his cares. Hell, he had no cares.
It was splendid. Magical.
A relief.
And if sometimes his wife looked at him as if she wanted him to say something different or do something different—well, he chalked that up to the simple fact that he was a man and she was a woman, and his sort would never understand her sort, and truly, he ought just to be grateful that Eloise almost always said exactly what she meant, which was a very good thing, since he wasn’t constantly left guessing what was expected of him.
What was that thing his brother had always said— Beware a woman asking questions. You will never answer correctly.
Phillip smiled to himself, enjoying the memory. Put that way, there was no reason to worry if occasionally their conversations dwindled off into nothingness. Most of the time they dwindled right into bed, which was perfectly fine by him.
He looked down at the bulge forming in his breeches. Damn. He was going to have to stop thinking about his wife in the middle of the day. Or at the very least, find a way to get discreetly back to the house in his condition and find her quickly.