Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,236

the one with concerns. I’ve never had cause to doubt Nurse Edwards before, but if you feel uncomfortable, by all means, you should investigate. Besides, you’re better at this sort of thing than I am.”

“But”—she squirmed slightly as he pulled her against him and nuzzled her neck—“you’re their father.”

“And you’re their mother,” he said, his words coming out thick and hot against her skin. She was intoxicating, and he was aching with desire, and if he could only get her to stop talking, he could probably maneuver her to the bedroom, where they could have considerably more fun. “I trust your judgment,” he said, thinking that would placate her—and besides, it was the truth. “It’s why I married you.”

Clearly, his answer surprised her. “It’s why you . . . what?”

“Well, this, too,” he murmured, trying to figure out just how much he could fondle her with so many clothes between them.

“Phillip, stop!” she cried out, wrenching herself away.

What the devil? “Eloise,” he asked—cautiously, since it was his experience, limited though it was, that one should always tread carefully with a woman in a temper—“what is wrong?”

“What is wrong?” she demanded, her eyes flashing dangerously. “How can you even ask that?”

“Well,” he said slowly, and with just a touch of sarcasm, “it might be because I don’t know what is wrong.”

“Phillip, this is not the time.”

“To ask you what is wrong?”

“No!” she nearly shrieked.

Phillip took a step back. Self-preservation, he thought wryly. Surely that had to be what the male side of marital spats was all about. Self-preservation and nothing else.

She began waving her arms in a bizarre fashion. “To do this.”

He looked around. She was waving at the workbench, at the pea plants, at the sky above, winking in through the panes of glass. “Eloise,” he said, his voice deliberately even, “I am not an unintelligent man, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Her mouth fell open, and he knew he was in trouble. “You don’t know?” she asked.

He probably should have heeded his own warnings about self-preservation, but some little devil—some annoyed male devil, he was sure—forced him to say, “I don’t read minds, Eloise.”

“It is not the time,” she finally ground out, “to be intimate.”

“Well, of course not,” he agreed. “We haven’t a bit of privacy. But”—he smiled just thinking about it—“we could always go back to the house. I know it’s the middle of the day, but—”

“That is not what I meant at all!”

“Very well,” he said, crossing his arms. “I give up. What do you mean, Eloise? Because I assure you, I haven’t a clue.”

“Men,” she muttered.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Her glare could have frozen the Thames. It quite froze off his desire, which irritated him no end, since he’d been looking forward to getting rid of it in another fashion altogether.

“It wasn’t meant as such,” she said.

He leaned back against the workbench, his casual posture meant to irritate her. “Eloise,” he said calmly, “try to afford a small measure of respect for my intelligence.”

“It is difficult,” she shot back, “when you display so little.”

That was it. “I don’t even know why we are arguing!” he exploded. “One minute you were willing in my arms, and the next you’re shrieking like a banshee.”

She shook her head. “I was never willing in your arms.”

It was as if the bottom dropped out of his world.

She must have seen the shock on his face, because she quickly added, “Today. I meant just today. Just now, actually.”

His body sagged with relief, even as the rest of him seethed with anger.

“I was trying to talk with you,” she explained.

“You’re always trying to talk with me,” he pointed out. “That’s all you ever do. Talk talk talk.”

She drew back. “If you didn’t like it,” she said in a snippy voice, “you shouldn’t have married me.”

“It wasn’t as if I had a choice in the matter,” he bit off. “Your brothers were ready to castrate me. And just so you don’t paint me completely black, I don’t mind your talking. Just not, for the love of God, all of the time.”

She looked like she was trying to say something utterly clever and cutting, but all she could do was gape like a fish and make sounds like, “Unh! Unh!”

“Every now and then,” he said, feeling quite superior, “you might consider shutting your mouth and using it for some other purpose.”

“You,” she fumed, “are insufferable.”

He raised his brows, knowing it would irritate her.

“I’m sorry you find my propensity for speech so