Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,179

I will punish them. God knows it’s long past due.”

Eloise stared at him with growing horror. He was nearly shaking with rage, and while she could have happily swatted the children on their bottoms herself, she didn’t think he ought to be meting out punishment in his state.

“They hurt you,” Phillip said in a low voice. “That is not acceptable.”

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him again. “In a few days I won’t even—”

“That is not the point,” he said sharply. “If I had . . .” He stopped, tried again with, “If I hadn’t . . .” He stopped, beyond words, and leaned against the wall, his head hanging back as his eyes searched the ceiling—for what, she didn’t know. Answers, she supposed. As if one could find answers with the simple upward sweep of the eyes.

He turned, looked at her, his eyes grim, and Eloise saw something on his face she hadn’t expected to see there.

And that was when she realized it—all that rage in his voice, in the shaking of his body—it wasn’t directed at the children. Not really, and certainly not entirely.

The look on his face, the bleakness in his eyes—it was self-loathing.

He didn’t blame his children.

He blamed himself.

Chapter 6

. . . should not have let him kiss you. Who knows what liberties he will attempt to take the next time you meet? But what’s done is done, I suppose, so all there is left is to ask: Was it lovely?

—from Eloise Bridgerton to her sister Francesca,

slid under the door of her bedroom

the night Francesca met the Earl of Kilmartin,

whom she would marry two months later

When the children entered the room, half dragged and half pushed by their nursemaid, Phillip forced himself to remain rigidly in his position against the wall, afraid that if he went to them he’d beat them both within an inch of their lives.

And even more afraid that when he was through, he wouldn’t regret his actions.

So instead he just crossed his arms and stared, letting them squirm under the heat of his fury, while he tried to figure out what the hell he meant to say.

Finally, Oliver spoke up, his voice trembling as he said, “Father?”

Phillip said the only thing that came to mind, the only thing that seemed to matter. “Do you see Miss Bridgerton?”

The twins nodded, but they didn’t quite look at her. At least not at her face, which was beginning to purple around the eye.

“Do you notice anything amiss about her?”

They said nothing, forcing a silence until a maid appeared in the doorway with a “Sir?”

Phillip acknowledged her arrival with a nod, then strode to take hold of the piece of meat she’d brought for Eloise’s eye.

“Hungry?” he snapped at his children. When they didn’t reply, he said, “Good. Because sadly, none of us will be eating this, will we?”

He crossed the room to the bed, then sat down gently at Eloise’s side. “Here,” he said, still too angry for his voice to be anything but gruff. Brushing aside her efforts to help, he set the meat against her eye, then arranged a piece of cloth over it so that she would not have to dirty her fingers while keeping it in place.

Then, when he was done, he walked over to where the twins were cowering, and stood in front of them, arms crossed. And waited.

“Look at me,” he ordered, when neither removed their gaze from the floor.

When they did, he saw terror in their eyes, and it sickened him, but he didn’t know how else he was supposed to act.

“We didn’t mean to hurt her,” Amanda whispered.

“Oh, you didn’t?” he bit off, turning on them both with palpable fury. His voice was icy, but his face clearly showed his anger, and even Eloise shrank back in her bed.

“You didn’t think she might possibly be hurt when she tripped over the string?” Phillip continued, his sarcasm lending him a controlled air that was even more frightening. “Or perhaps you realized correctly that the string itself wasn’t likely to cause injury, but it didn’t occur to you that she might be hurt when she actually fell.”

They said nothing.

He looked at Eloise, who had lifted the meat from her face and was gingerly touching her cheekbone. The bruise under her eye seemed to be worsening by the minute.

The twins had to learn that they couldn’t continue like this. They needed to learn that they had to treat people with more respect. They needed to learn . . .

Phillip swore under