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The Secret Pearl(17)

By:Mary Balogh


Lord Brocklehurst frowned. His glass was still stranded several inches from his mouth.

“There can’t be that many Kents in Dorsetshire,” Mr. Snedburg said. “I shall look into the matter and see if we can’t nail our man to one single spot on the map, sir.”

Lord Brocklehurst drank, deep in thought. “Kent?” he said. “Not the Ridgeway Kents, surely?”

“As in the Dook of Ridgeway?” the Runner asked, raising one hand to scratch the back of his neck. “Is he a Kent?”

“I knew his half-brother,” Lord Brocklehurst said. “They lived in Dorset. Willoughby Hall.”

Mr. Snedburg dug into his ear with his little finger. “I’ll see what I can find out for definite, sir,” he said. “We will run her to ground in no time at all, take my word on it.”

“Fleur,” the other said, gazing into the swirling contents of his glass. “She used to have tantrums as a young child because my mother and father would not call her that. Apparently it was the name she went by until her parents died. I had forgotten.”

“Yes, well, right you are, sir,” Mr. Snedburg said, downing what remained in his glass in one gulp and getting to his feet. “I’ll see what I can find out about this dook and his governess.”

“I want her found soon,” Lord Brocklehurst said.

“It will be soon, or sooner,” the other said briskly. “My word on it, sir.”

“Well,” Lord Brocklehurst said, “you were recommended to me as the best. Though it has taken you precious long to find out this much.”

The other chose not to comment on either the compliment or the criticism. He saluted in almost military manner and hurried smartly from the room.





FLEUR’S LIFE WAS BY NO MEANS ARDUOUS DURING her first two weeks at Willoughby. She had been instructed to take her orders from Mrs. Clement, and Mrs. Clement, it seemed, did not approve of schooling for her young charge any more than the duchess did. The new governess was lucky if she was granted an hour morning and afternoon with her pupil.

She was somewhat uneasy, perhaps a little worried that she would be dismissed as a servant of little use or that the duke and Mr. Houghton would come home and find that she was not after all earning her keep. But she tried to take the advice of Mrs. Laycock, who told her to relax and do her best, and who assured her that when his grace finally arrived home—and he would surely come when he heard about the party that her grace had organized—all would be set to rights.

In the meanwhile Fleur became familiar with and comfortable in her new home. There were long hours of quiet and peace in which to allow the old fears to die and the old wounds to heal. Sometimes a whole day would pass without her feeling that old urge to look anxiously over her shoulder for a pursuer. And sometimes she could sleep for a whole stretch without seeing that hawkish and scarred face bending over her and telling her what she was while making her into just that.

She was eating well and had put back on some of the weight she had lost. Her hair seemed thicker again and shinier. The worst of the shadows had disappeared from beneath her eyes. There was color in her cheeks. There was energy in her muscles. She was beginning to feel young again.

Mrs. Laycock found the time over those two weeks to stroll over much of the vast park with her. And always Fleur found out more from the quiet conversation of the housekeeper about her new home and the family for whom she worked.

“It was laid out years ago to give the impression of natural beauty,” Mrs. Laycock said of the park. “The lake was dug and the cascades created and every tree planted in order to give a pleasing prospect from almost every vantage point. A little silly, I call it, Miss Hamilton, when nature does very nicely on its own without the help of men to make their fortunes out of landscaping the gardens of the rich. I would prefer to see flat formal gardens with a good show of flowers myself. But that is only my opinion.”

Fleur loved the park and its rolling and seemingly endless lawns and groves of trees. She loved the winding avenues and stone temples and other follies. She felt that she could wander there forever and never tire of the views or the sense of peace that it all brought her.

His grace, she discovered from Mrs. Laycock, had fought with the English army in Spain and at the Battle of Waterloo, even though he had always been the heir to the late duke, and had already succeeded to his title when he left for Belgium.

“He never shirked any duty,” the housekeeper said. “There were those, of course, who said that his duty was to remain here safe and alive in order to take over his responsibilities. But he went.”