The Secret Pearl(141)
Giggles from the girls, shouts of laughter from the boys.
Classes were at an end, it seemed. The girls were openly admiring Lady Pamela’s fashionable clothes and she was eyeing them with shy interest. The boys were gazing at the duke in some awe. He was conversing politely with Miriam. And then Dr. Wetherald was there, and Daniel too, and Lady Pamela was gazing pleadingly up at her father.
“May I, Papa?” she was saying. “Oh, please, may I?”
“You are hardly dressed to go rambling,” he was saying with a smile.
“But I have other dresses,” she said. “I can change. Oh, please, Papa. Please. Miss Hamilton, may I go? Please?”
Miriam was looking very directly at her. It was Miriam, it seemed, who had suggested that Lady Pamela might enjoy joining the school ramble, though his grace must realize that they intended to be gone for several hours.
“Only Papa can say yes to that,” Fleur said, smiling at the eager, pretty face of her former pupil. “But I know you would have a great deal of fun.”
One minute later Lady Pamela was dashing for the carriage, having been granted the permission she had begged for.
“I am going to bring Tiny,” she shrieked. “May I, Miss Hamilton?”
Miriam was laughing. “I will take very good care of her, your grace,” she said. “And my brother and Dr. Wetherald will be with me to lend a hand. Three adults will be more than enough. We will not need your presence, Isabella. You had better stay to entertain his grace, since he will have a wait of several hours.”
Fleur opened her mouth to speak and closed it again.
It seemed that all the children found it impossible to speak in less than a shriek. The schoolroom sounded very quiet indeed when all of them and the three adults had set off on their way.
“Miss Booth is a kind lady,” the Duke of Ridgeway said from behind her shoulder. “Pamela will talk about this treat for weeks to come.”
“Yes,” she said. “I am glad for her, your grace.”
“Your grace?” he said quietly.
She glanced over her shoulder and fixed her eyes on his neckcloth.
“Can we go somewhere else?” he asked. “To your home, maybe?”
“Yes,” she said. “It is quite close by.”
She locked the school carefully and walked by his side along the street to her cottage. They did not touch or speak a single word.
SHE LAID DOWN THE BOOKS SHE HAD BEEN CARRYING and watched him set his hat and gloves on a table. She turned and led the way into a square and cozy parlor, the pianoforte in one corner dwarfing the rest of the furniture in the room.
It was as he had thought, as he had led himself to expect. She was not really pleased to see him. She was awkward and embarrassed.
“Won’t you have a seat, your gr …?” Her hand was gesturing to a chair. She stopped and flushed.
So very beautiful. His breath had caught in his throat as soon as he had seen her stooping down to hug Pamela. More beautiful even than he had remembered. There was a poise about her, a sense of dignity that was more pronounced than it had been before.
He was very aware of his own ugliness, of his scar. And he had to consciously resist the impulse to turn sideways so that she would not see it.
“I shall ring for some tea,” she said, “and for something to eat. It is luncheontime. Doubtless you have been traveling since breakfast, have you? You must be hungry.”
“I am not,” he said quietly. “Are you happy, then? The school seems to be a merry place. This is a cozy cottage, and larger than I expected.”
“Yes.” She smiled at him. “I am happy. I am doing what I like doing, and I am surrounded by my friends.”
“I am glad,” he said. “I had to come to make sure.”
“Thank you,” she said. “That was good of you. You must be very eager to be home, having been away so long.”
“Yes,” he said. “Very eager.”
And yet, he thought, he had not prepared himself well at all. He had thought he had. He had thought he was prepared for the worst. But his heart was a lead weight in his chest and he could not think of home or the winter ahead or of all the years after that.
Not without Fleur. Willoughby would not be home without her, or the future worth living. Not after a year of hope that he had tried to persuade himself was not hope at all.
She plumped a cushion on a chair quite unnecessarily and sat down, although he had not accepted her invitation to seat himself.
And she searched in her mind for something to say and kept her expression politely bright.
For a whole month—for eleven months—she had persuaded herself that he would not come, that he would forget about her, regret his hasty words of love to her. And yet for the past month she had expected him hourly and told herself and told herself that he would not come.