The Defiant Wife (The Three Mrs #2) - Jess Michaels Page 0,17

would it mean for him then?

She shivered as Mrs. Barton entered the room. “It’s time for Master Kenley to take his afternoon rest. Oh, I didn’t realize Lord Leighton had left you.”

Pippa pursed her lips. “I think Lord Leighton is slightly overwhelmed.”

“Don’t know how he couldn’t be, poor man. Nor you, ma’am. We have thought of you often and I hope that you are well through all this…turmoil.”

Pippa bent her head. “All the worst news reached you, I suppose.”

Mrs. Barton shrugged as she took Kenley. “I know better than to believe gossip spun up as fact. Forgive me for saying, but you look tired, yourself, Mrs. Montgomery. Perhaps you should follow Lord Leighton’s lead and rest yourself the remainder of the day.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Pippa said with a warm smile for the kind woman.

She kissed Kenley and watched as Mrs. Barton took him away for his nap. But the moment they were gone, she took three big bites of her much-desired tart for courage, set her napkin aside and got to her feet.

She wanted to rest. She felt tired to her bones after everything that had turned her world upside down in the past few weeks…months…years. But she didn’t have that luxury, not when she had responsibilities to the child she’d just been holding. She owed him her full attention until she was certain of his future.

Which meant she forced herself to stride from the parlor and down the hallway. She wasn’t certain where Rhys had gone. His bedchamber was a logical choice, and if he had gone there, she would follow and barge into his private space. But she avoided thinking of that. Thinking about it felt very dangerous.

Luckily, she didn’t have to go upstairs and rattle his doors. When she paused to peek into Erasmus’s small study, she found Rhys there, standing beside the window, looking down onto the street. She felt the tension in him even from this distance. She felt the anguish and it touched her far more than it should have.

She stepped into the room and silently shut the door behind her. She drew a few long breaths before she turned back. He was still staring out at the street and she cleared her throat softly. “My lord?”

He jumped at the sound of her voice and pivoted to face her. She caught her breath at his expression. He looked drawn down to nothing in the sunshine coming through the window and hiding nothing from her. Like he could cry or break everything in this room. Like he could collapse into a heap under the weight of everything he had to carry thanks to his feckless, foolish brother. One she recognized he’d had no time to mourn.

Rhys looked broken, and in that charged moment she wanted so badly to fix things for him.

She crossed the room toward him. He tracked her, those blue eyes taking in everything, but he didn’t back away. That was something at any rate. She caught his hand and held it between her own.

“Oh, please,” she said. “Please talk to me.”

His body gave a great twitch, and he turned his head so he was no longer looking at her. “Perhaps that is not a good idea,” he said, his voice rough. “Considering the kiss and our mutual vow to maintain distance.”

The rejection stung, and she wanted to let him turn away. But in the end that would only protect herself, not Kenley. Not Rhys. So she drew in a breath and squeezed his hand a little tighter. The action forced him to look down at her again. Drown her in those beautiful blue eyes.

“Of course you’re right,” she began, voice trembling like her entire body was trembling. “But my lord…Rhys…we are the only two in this world in the middle of this. The only ones who can fully understand each other. You came here to help me, I want to help you.”

She leaned a little closer, even though it was too close. She could feel the warmth of his breath stir her skin, feel the shift in him that told her she wasn’t the only one haunted by that kiss. “Please let me. Please.”

Rhys felt the weight of Phillipa’s hands around his, the warmth of her body seeping through his bloodstream. He caught every hitch in her breath and tremble of her body. All of it consumed him and made it hard to think, let alone speak.

But she had made a good point. In this horrible destruction, they were two of the