“I will not be going anywhere,” he said. “From now on, Pamela, wherever I go, you will go too.”
“I wonder if Timothy Chamberlain and the others have grown,” she said.
“I daresay they have,” he said. “Or maybe it was just the continental air that stretched you out.”
She looked at him and giggled.
“What if we do not take Miss Hamilton back to Willoughby as your governess?” he said. “What if we take her back as your new mama?”
She looked at him blankly. “But I have a mama,” she said.
“Yes.” He knew that he should have broached the subject with her long before. But he had never found the right words or the courage. He was not sure that he had found the words yet. “You have a mama, Pamela, and she will always be more dear to you than anyone else in life until you grow up and have a family of your own. But since Mama cannot be with you any longer, wouldn’t you like someone else who would do with you some of the things Mama would have done?”
“Miss Hamilton?” she said doubtfully.
“You like her, don’t you?” he asked.
She hesitated. “Yes,” she said. “But she went away without saying good-bye, Papa.”
“That was not her fault,” he said. “She would have done so if she could. But she had to run from a wicked man, Pamela, and had no chance to say good-bye to anyone. I believe she loved you.”
“But if she is to be my mama,” she said, “then she will have to be your wife, Papa. How would you like that?”
He looked at her gravely. “I would like it very well,” he said.
“You would not find it a trouble to do that for me?” she asked, turning her head aside and wrinkling her nose as the dog sat up and tried to lick her face.
“No,” he said. “It is something I want too, Pamela. You see, I love Miss Hamilton.”
She pushed the dog away with uncharacteristic roughness. “But you love me!” she said.
“Of course I do.” He moved across the carriage to sit beside her, and lifted her onto his lap. “You are my daughter. My firstborn and my very own. Nothing will ever change that, Pamela. You will always be the first girl in my life. But we can all love more than one person. You loved Mama and you love me, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said doubtfully. “And I love Tiny.”
“Well, then,” he said. “I love you and I love Miss Hamilton. And if she marries me and we have other children, I will love them too. And you will always be their eldest sister—always someone special.”
“Is she going to come with us right away?” she asked. “I am going to show her Tiny. She will be surprised to see how big she has grown, won’t she? And I am going to tell her that I was not sick on the boat. Don’t you tell, Papa. Let me.”
“Agreed,” he said, resting his cheek against the top of her head. “I haven’t asked her yet, Pamela. Maybe she will say no. Maybe she is quite happy where she is, teaching in her school and living in her little cottage. But I shall ask her.” He chuckled. “Don’t you ask. Let me.”
“Agreed,” his daughter said, and wriggled from his lap to worry the dog, who had settled peacefully on the other seat.
The duke sat back against the cushions and watched them. It was very possible that she would say no. Indeed, perhaps she was married already—to her Daniel or to some other gentleman of her neighborhood. He must not allow himself to hope too much.
A year before—or eleven months before, when he had finally pulled himself free of the worst of the nightmare surrounding the double death of his brother and his wife—he had felt confident of her answer though he had felt obliged to stay away from her during the year of his mourning. He had allowed himself only that one brief letter.
But eleven months seemed like an eternity. He and Pamela had traveled for the whole of that time and had seen many places and met many people. It seemed like longer than a year since he had been in England.
He could remember the words she had said to him—how could he ever forget? And he could remember the passionate abandon with which she had given herself to him on that one night before he left her. He had relived that night many times in his imagination. At the time he had believed that her love, like his own, would last for all eternity and even beyond. But now he was less sure.
Her love had not been of such long duration as his own. She had hated him and been repulsed by him—with good reason. It was only in those last days, when they had traveled together in search of Hobson’s grave, that she had grown comfortable with him, that they had developed a friendship and become lovers.