The Defiant Wife (The Three Mrs #2) - Jess Michaels Page 0,31
to touch a man who caused Phillipa so much grief. He only did so to reduce that anguish as much as he could.
He could see Windridge’s wheels turning. The man was trying to shift from anger to deference, and it was clearly a chore for him.
“Leighton, eh,” Windridge grunted as he shook Rhys’s hand briefly. “So you’re the brother of the charlatan who took us all in.”
Rhys arched a brow. “A fact I knew nothing about, I assure you, Mr. Windridge.”
“Rh—” Phillipa began, and then stopped herself with a blush. “Lord Leighton found out about Erasmus’s betrayal at the same time I did, Father.”
Windridge snorted. “And just when was that?”
Her jaw tightened a fraction. “In London. I told you that in my letter when you demanded an explanation for the rumors coming to Bath. The one you never answered except to tell me that I was no longer welcome in your home.”
Windridge shook his head. “What else was there to say?”
Rhys stepped between them slightly, angling himself as if he could protect Phillipa physically from the scars that were being created with words and cruel expressions. “Why don’t we sit?” he suggested. “You’ve come to see your daughter, after all—there is no need to make it unpleasant.”
Windridge snorted, but he flopped into a chair as Phillipa took a place on the settee across from him. Rhys hesitated only for a moment before he settled in next to her. He didn’t touch her, of course, but he wanted to be near enough that she felt his support.
The action, though, sparked a reaction. Windridge arched a brow. “And just what is your relationship to my daughter, my lord?”
Phillipa stiffened at Rhys’s side. “Father,” she said softly.
Rhys locked his gaze with Windridge’s. “I am the brother of the man who deceived her, sir. Despite that, I have the very good fortune of being her friend.”
“Friend,” Windridge breathed. “Is that what you call it?”
Rhys wanted so desperately to rise to the bait this horrible man was dangling before him, but he fought to control that desire. “If you are asking why I came to Bath with her, it is to resolve some of the issues still outstanding when it comes to the evil my brother did.”
“The whelp, you mean,” Windridge said with a roll of his eyes. “His bastard.”
Rhys’s jaw clenched and he exchanged a brief glance with Phillipa. Her brow was wrinkled, and she looked as confused as he did. “I beg your pardon?”
Windridge’s look was dripping with incredulity. “Come now. You aren’t going to pretend you don’t know that child that lives in this house is your brother’s.”
“What do you know about it?” Phillipa asked. “He is my former maid’s son.”
Her father shrugged. “I saw them together once.”
Phillipa’s jaw dropped open. “What? When?”
“I don’t know.” Windridge waved his hand around, almost with annoyance. “Last year some time. When she was still swollen with the child. I had come to call and they were kissing behind the stable. Montgomery was touching her stomach, whispering in her ear. It was obvious.”
Phillipa’s breath came short and she stared at her father in what could only be described as pure horror. Tears had filled her eyes and she blinked furiously, as if willing them not to fall and make her even more vulnerable than she already was. “You—you knew that my husband was being untrue with my maid and you said nothing to me?”
“A man deserves his privacy in such matters,” Windridge said. “Why should I interfere?”
“Because I’m your daughter and you are meant to protect me,” Phillipa gasped out. Her breath came short and labored for a moment, and it took every ounce of willpower in Rhys’s body not to take her hand.
He should not have been a witness to this display. It was private, after all, and he had not earned a place in Phillipa’s life that should allow him this. But he was glad he was here. Glad he understood, better than ever now, what this woman had endured her entire life. How it might have led her to see Erasmus as an escape route.
It put that ill-fated marriage into a very different light now.
Phillipa had calmed herself now. Her face was entirely serene even if her eyes were still lost and filled with broken-hearted betrayal. He rushed to speak so she wouldn’t have to. “Although I will not comment to you, sir, about the state of that child’s parentage, I admit he is part of why I’ve come. But I would think