The Secret Pearl(133)

“Where the devil is that water?” he said ungraciously as his valet came through the door of his dressing room.

“Somewhere between the kitchen and here, sir,” Sidney said. “You will only tighten the knot of your neckcloth beyond any possibility of loosening it if you jerk on it like that. Let me undo it properly.”

“Damn your impudence,” his grace said. “How have you managed to live through the past week without me to fuss over like a damned mother hen?”

“Very peacefully, sir,” his valet said. “Very peacefully indeed. The side is aching?”

“No, it is not aching,” the duke said impatiently. “Ah, at last.” He turned to watch two menservants carry in large pails of steaming water.

“I shall rub it down for you anyway after you have bathed, sir,” Sidney said. “Sit down and let me tackle that knot or it will be fit only to be sawn through with a knife.”

The duke sat down and lifted his chin like an obedient child.

He was eager to bathe and dress and be on his way upstairs. To see Pamela. Yes, very definitely to see Pamela. There was no one else. There would be no more of the old urge to go up there, to sit in the schoolroom and listen to her talk and turn every lesson into an adventure. From now on there would be only Pamela.

And yet he was impatient to be up there even apart from his eagerness to see his daughter. Perhaps he had to prove to himself that Fleur really was gone. In some ways she was fortunate, he thought. She would be living in a place where he had never been. There would be no ghosts. He was going to have to enter the nursery and the schoolroom, the music room, the library, the long gallery—all the places he associated with her.

But he did not want to think. He would not think. He got restlessly to his feet after Sidney had untied the knot in his neckcloth with almost insolent ease, and pulled impatiently at his shirt buttons. One came off in his hand, and he swore and dropped it onto the washstand.

“Someone must have slept on a mattress made of coal lumps last night,” Sidney said cheerfully to no one in particular.

“And someone is asking to be tossed out on his ear outside this house,” the duke said, discarding his shirt and sitting down again so that his valet could help him remove his Hessian boots.


THE DUCHESS OF RIDGEWAY was in her sitting room. His grace could hear her coughing as he approached. He tapped on the door and waited for her maid to answer it and to curtsy to him and leave the room.

She was standing at the far side of the room, between the slender pillars that supported the entablature. She was dressed in a flowing white nightrobe, her hair loose down her back. She looked as pale as the robe except for the two spots of color high on her cheekbones. She looked thin and gaunt. Surely, the duke thought as he strode toward her, she had lost weight even since he last saw her.

“Sybil,” he said, reaching out his hands for hers and bending to kiss her cheek. “How are you?”

Her hands were as cold as ice, her cheek cool.

“Well,” she said. “I am well, thank you.”

“I heard you coughing,” he said. “Is it still bothering you?”

She laughed and withdrew her hands from his.

“You don’t look well,” he said. “I am going to take you and Pamela to London, where you may consult a physician who knows what he is doing. And then we will go to Bath for a month or two. The change of air and scenery will do us all good.”

“I hate you,” she said in her light, sweet voice. “I wish there were a stronger word to use because I feel more than hatred for you. But I cannot think of any other way of saying it.”

He turned away from her. “He left yesterday?” he asked.

“You know he did,” she said. “You ordered him to leave.”

He passed a hand across his brow. “I suppose you begged him to take you with him,” he said. “Why do you think he refused, Sybil?”

“He has too much regard for my reputation,” she said.

“And he would put your reputation before your happiness?” he said. “And his own? Did you find his refusal convincing?”

“I want to be alone,” she said, crossing to the daybed and sitting down on it. “I want you to go away. I hoped you would not come back this time. I hoped you would find her charms just too enticing. I wish you would go back to her so that I would never have to see you again.”

He sighed and turned to look down at her. “Six years ago,” he said, “I would have given my life to save you from pain, Sybil. I think perhaps I gave more than that. I still hate to see you in misery. You are my wife and I am pledged to do all in my power to secure your safety and happiness. I know you are feeling a pain almost too great to be borne. But nothing can be accomplished by looking back. Can we not just go on together and try to make what remains of our lives at least peaceful?”