The Defiant Wife (The Three Mrs #2) - Jess Michaels Page 0,19

person. Mr. and Mrs. Barton had pieced it together themselves and were too polite to mention it. Too kind.

Once she arrived in London and met Abigail and Celeste, she’d thought of sharing the truth then. The two women had become her confidantes in a great many things. But up until the bitter end, she hadn’t shared Kenley’s existence with the other two Mrs. Montgomerys. They had only found out when they’d all nearly been killed by Erasmus and Rosie.

She’d told herself that was to protect the child. But in truth, this was her private pain. Her private humiliation.

Yet when Rhys asked, she’d handed it over to him, tied with an ugly ribbon. Now he held it, watching her as he digested it. She wished she could read his expression. Wished she understood the workings of his mind.

She cleared her throat and continued, “When Rosie told me she was with child and that the man responsible had vanished from her life, I felt terrible for her.”

She broke off because it felt like her throat was closing. Now Rhys’s expression softened and he shifted in his chair as if he wanted to reach for her. “Phillipa.”

She lifted a hand. If he touched her right now, she feared she’d shatter. “I can do this. I can say it.” She drew a few breaths and then carried on as best she could. “A mistake of that magnitude could destroy a woman, and I didn’t want to see Rosie damaged. How the two of them must have laughed when I insisted we allow her to stay on. Erasmus even made a show of disagreeing, of making me fight for it before he relented.”

“Manipulative prick,” Rhys muttered, and his cheeks flamed with anger.

She shrugged. “In hindsight I can see that. I can understand that it was all part of their wicked plan.”

“And was he still outwardly disagreeable to her as her confinement continued?”

She pushed to her feet and worried her hands as she paced the small room. “Oh no. On the contrary, the moment I walked into their trap, he changed his tune. He told me she ought not to do her maid duties while she was increasing.”

“He hired another maid?”

“No.” She choked on a laugh. “Nor would he allow me to. It was fine, I knew how to take care of myself. He also insisted we make Rosie comfortable. Suddenly her room was filled with fine things, only the best. I was so blind that I thought he was merely a decent man acting decently.”

“Did you ever confront him on his sudden attentiveness?” he asked.

“Once. A few months in, he began pondering names for her child. He’d do it out loud at the supper table. I asked him why he was so involved in her life, with her confinement. And he laughed. He laughed and told me I had insisted she stay. That this was my fault.”

Rhys’s nostrils flared, but he said nothing. She sighed. “After that, I ignored it when I caught them with their heads together, when I saw the little looks between them. I even pretended it away when she touched her belly and asked me if I’d ever wanted a child. She was…mocking me. I lay in my bed and stared at my ceiling and knew it, but I did nothing and I said nothing. What you must think of me.”

He did get up now and crossed to her in two long strides. Now it was he who caught her hands, just as she had done to him when she followed him here. Rhys’s gaze bore into hers, filled with fire and understanding all at once.

“I think you are a good woman who was taken advantage of by two wicked people bent on only their own desires,” he said. “You weren’t foolish, you were manipulated by my brother and his lover. And having been at the sharp end of his manipulations in the past, I can tell you there was no one better at them. He could confuse your own memory, convince you that your name wasn’t what you thought. When he wanted something, he was ruthless. He was ruthless with you, Phillipa. He was cruel and thoughtless and that isn’t your fault.”

He said that with such certainty, such conviction, that for a brief moment she believed him. After months of torturing herself, it was freeing to believe she hadn’t been at fault for her blindness. And oh, how she wanted to step closer to him. To let his arms come