that were sure to come. But as the carriage rolled along toward Devon House, his mother remained oddly silent.
Phillip glanced at her. She was wiping tears from her eyes with her lacy monogrammed handkerchief. Stunned, he couldn’t recall ever seeing his mother cry before.
“Mother? What is it? What’s wrong?”
Colette Hamilton Sinclair had never been anything less than a pillar of strength. And he’d always been a bit in awe of her. His mother wasn’t like most mothers. Hell, she wasn’t even like most women!
She was a very special lady, indeed.
He knew her whole history. How she and her four sisters grew up living above the bookstore their father owned, Hamilton’s Book Shoppe. How Colette had struggled to keep the shop going after their father died and worked to support her sisters. Phillip had heard how his father came into the shop one day and had fallen in love with her. And even though his mother obviously didn’t need to work after she married him and became a marchioness, she loved the bookshop so much that she continued to manage it.
In fact, she and her sisters opened a second bookshop in London and one in Dublin as well, and just launched a children’s bookshop a few months ago with his cousin Mara. The Hamilton bookstores were innovative, successful, and only hired women to work in them.
Phillip was quite proud of his mother and all that she had accomplished, in spite of being a marchioness. His mother was a strong, independent, intelligent and beautiful woman, and he adored her all the more for it. He’d always been proud of her and her sisters.
To see her crying now confounded him and filled him with worry.
“Mother?” he asked again.
“I don’t know what I’ve done wrong,” she said in a voice so filled with sorrow his heart constricted in his chest.
“What are you saying, Mother?”
A tearful sigh escaped her. “It seems that I have failed you as a mother.”
“Whatever do you mean by that?” he questioned, a sense of panic welling in his chest.
She shook her head wearily.
“I have failed you as a mother somehow, and I accept my part in this. You are the way you are because I didn’t spend enough time with you when you were a child. I was always judged by everyone who knew me for keeping the bookstores and continuing with my work. Even my own mother disapproved of me. I was told I wasn’t feminine enough and that I wasn’t devoting myself to my husband and children. They told me that I was neglecting my motherly duties and that I wasn’t spending enough time at home with you and Simon.”
A little sob escaped her, and she took a breath before she continued.
“Although your father never believed that. Lucien has always agreed with me and encouraged me to do what I loved. I was quite fortunate in that respect. But perhaps he was wrong . . . and I was dreadfully wrong, and everyone else was right after all . . .”
Phillip remained silent as tears slid down her cheeks.
His mother looked at him, placing her gloved hand over his.
“I’ve been very worried about you, Phillip. I always believed that I had set a good example for you with my work at the bookshops. An example of responsibility, respect, hard work, and dedication. But I don’t see those qualities in you. Somehow, I must have done something terribly wrong.”
Phillip’s heart sank. A deep feeling of shame overcame him. His mother blamed herself for his bad behavior.
“Mother, that’s not possible,” he protested vociferously, defending her. “You’ve been a wonderful mother. Loving, kind, and understanding. Anyone would be lucky to have Colette Hamilton Sinclair as their mother.”
She glanced at him, tears welling in her eyes once again. “I should have stayed home and taken better care of you. I should have been a better mother.”
“That’s quite enough now, Mother.” He patted her shoulder. “You mustn’t talk this way, for you’ve done nothing wrong. You have been a model mother. And my behavior of late, although not a stellar example of proper deportment, is in no way a reflection of your mothering. I’m just having a bit of fun before I settle down. There’s nothing to fuss over.”
His mother sniffed. “But you’ve taken up with that Vickers woman. It’s such a scandal, Phillip. The things people are saying about her . . .”
Phillip withdrew his arm from her shoulder and looked away from his mother.
Lady Katherine Vickers elicited strong opinions within polite society, there was no doubt about it. But that was what made her so exciting. She was irreverent and witty and audacious. Not to mention wickedly seductive, with bedroom skills too wonderful to believe.
“I just don’t understand how you can associate with a woman like that.”
He turned and glared at her, a bit of anger rising within his chest. “A woman like what, Mother? A widow? A beautiful woman who is alone through no fault of her own? You hold her in low regard because her husband died two years ago, and she has chosen not to remarry? You judge her, yet you don’t even know her.”
“I know enough of her,” Colette shot back at him, her tears disappearing. “Lord Vickers married her in his dotage. She was a stage actress from who knows where when he picked her up. She’s not good enough for you.”
“I would have thought that you, Mother, of all people, would be the last to look down upon someone because they were not high born.”
His mother was the daughter of a tradesman and she was raised above a bookshop, for crying out loud! She ought to have more sympathy and understanding for Katherine.
“If it were only just that, Phillip!” she cried, becoming irate. “Lady—and I use that title very lightly—Vickers has bedded just about every male in town, married and unmarried. I have met her on occasion, and she is coarse, common, and rude. I won’t have it! I won’t have her in our house or as a part of our family!”
“So that’s what all this is about? You don’t want me to marry her? Who said anything about my marrying Lady Vickers?”
Honestly, his mother was hysterical over nothing. Phillip’s annoyance grew at her state of panic. He was having a glorious time with Katherine, but the matter of marriage had not once entered his mind.
“Everyone is saying it, Phillip, because she has been saying it!”
Dumbfounded, Phillip stared at his mother. “What?”
“Apparently, your lady has been telling her closest friends that the two of you have been making plans to marry soon. Lady Abbott mentioned it to me earlier today when she came by the shop. And believe me, if Lady Abbott knows about it, then everyone in London knows, and I just hope . . .”
As his mother continued her little tirade, Phillip’s heart leapt at the thought of having Lady Katherine Vickers as his wife. He hadn’t believed she was serious about him in any way up until now! He’d assumed they were simply having a deliciously sinful romp together that would run its eventual course and come to an amicable end in due time.
