Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,143

sound of her laughter, and in truth, he wasn’t sure that he’d ever known it.

It had been a sunny day, and—

He squeezed his eyes shut, not certain whether the motion was meant to urge the memory or dispel it.

It had been a sunny day, and . . .

“Never thought you’d feel the likes of that on your skin again, eh, Sir Phillip?”

Phillip Crane turned his face to the sun, closing his eyes as he let the warmth spread over his skin. “It’s perfect,” he murmured. “Or it would be, if it weren’t so bloody cold.”

Miles Carter, his secretary, chuckled. “It’s not as cold as that. The lake hasn’t frozen this year. Just a few patchy spots.”

Reluctantly, Phillip turned away from the sun and opened his eyes. “It isn’t spring, though.”

“If you were wishing for spring, sir, perhaps you should have consulted a calendar.”

Phillip regarded him with a sideways glance. “Do I pay you for such impertinence?”

“Indeed. And rather handsomely, too.”

Phillip smiled to himself as both men paused to enjoy the sun for a few moments longer.

“I thought you didn’t mind the gray,” Miles said conversationally, once they’d resumed their trek to Phillip’s greenhouse.

“I don’t,” Phillip said, striding along with the confidence of a natural athlete. “But just because I don’t mind an overcast sky doesn’t mean I don’t prefer the sun.” He paused, thought for a moment. “Be sure to tell Nurse Millsby to take the children outside today. They’ll need warm coats, of course, and hats and mittens and the like, but they ought to get a little sun on their faces. They’ve been cooped up far too long.”

“As have we all,” Miles murmured.

Phillip chuckled. “Indeed.” He glanced over his shoulder at his greenhouse. He probably ought to take care of his correspondence now, but he had some seeds he needed to sort through, and truly, there was no reason he couldn’t conduct his business with Miles in an hour or so. “Go on,” he said to Miles. “Find Nurse Millsby. You and I can deal later. You know you hate the greenhouse, anyway.”

“Not this time of year,” Miles said. “The heat is rather welcome.”

Phillip arched a brow as he inclined his head toward Romney Hall. “Are you calling my ancestral home drafty?”

“All ancestral homes are drafty.”

“True enough,” Phillip said with a grin. He rather liked Miles. He’d hired him six months earlier to help with the mountains of paperwork and details that seemed to accumulate from the running of his small property. Miles was quite good. Young, but good. And his dry sense of humor was certainly welcome in a house where laughter was never in abundance. The servants would never dare joke with Phillip, and Marina . . . well, it went without saying that Marina did not laugh or tease.

The children sometimes made Phillip laugh, but that was a different sort of humor, and besides, most of the time he did not know what to say to them. He tried, but then he felt too awkward, too big, too strong, if such a thing were possible. And then he just found himself shooing them off, telling them to go back to their nurse.

It was easier that way.

“Go on, then,” Phillip said, sending Miles off on a task he probably should have done himself. He hadn’t seen his children yet today, and he supposed he ought to, but he didn’t want to spoil the day by saying something stern, which he inevitably seemed to do.

He’d find them while they were off on their nature walk with Nurse Millsby. That would be a good idea. Then he could point out some sort of plant and tell them about it, and everything would remain perfectly simple and benign.

Phillip entered his greenhouse and shut the door behind him, taking a welcome breath of the moist air. He’d studied botany at Cambridge, taken a first, even, and in truth, he’d probably have taken up an academic life if his older brother had not died at Waterloo, thrusting the second-born Phillip into the role of landowner and country gentleman.

He supposed it could have been worse. He could have been landowner and city gentleman, after all. At least here he was able to pursue his botanical pursuits in relative serenity.

He bent over his workbench, examining his latest project—a strain of peas that he was trying to breed to grow fatter and plumper in the pod. No luck yet, though. This latest batch was not just shriveled but had even turned yellow, which had