The child was torn between an impatient eagerness for him to come and a stubborn insistence that she did not care, that she did not wish to see him anyway.
Sullen and petulant as her charge was much of the time, sometimes Fleur ached to take her into her arms, to hold her close, to assure her that she was loved, that she mattered, that she was not forgotten.
She knew what it was like. Oh, she knew, though she had not known at so young an age. And by the time it had happened she had been old enough to know that her parents were in no way to blame. She had always been able to comfort herself with the knowledge that they had loved her totally, that she had meant all the world to them.
Perhaps Lady Pamela’s case was worse than hers after all. Her mother rarely visited her, though she showered her with love and endearments when she did. Her father had been away for many weeks.
But he did come at last. They heard a firm masculine tread in the corridor outside the schoolroom and a deep voice talking to Mrs. Clement. And Fleur breathed a sigh of relief for Lady Pamela, whose face brightened into that rare expression of pretty eagerness as her governess got quietly to her feet to cross the room and put the book away in order to leave father and daughter some privacy.
The door opened and she heard a childish shriek. She smiled and arranged the book carefully on its shelf with the others. She was nervous, if the truth were known. The Duke of Ridgeway! She had always thought of him as a very grand personage indeed.
“Papa, Papa!” Lady Pamela shrieked. “I have made you a picture, and I lost a tooth—see? What did you bring me?”
There was a deep masculine laugh, the sound of a smacking kiss.
“Cupboard love,” his voice said. “I thought it was me you were happy to see, Pamela. What makes you think I have brought you anything?”
“What did you bring?” The child’s voice was still a shriek.
“Later,” he said. “You look lopsided without your tooth. Are you going to get a big one instead of it?”
“How much later?” she asked.
The Duke of Ridgeway laughed again.
Fleur turned, feeling foolish at her own nervousness. She was the daughter of a baron. She had lived in a baron’s home, at Heron House, for most of her life. There was no reason to be awed by a duke. She held herself straight, folded her hands in front of her in what she hoped would look like a relaxed attitude, and raised her eyes.
He had his daughter up in his arms and was laughing as she hugged him tightly about the neck. The scarred half of his face was turned to Fleur.
She felt suddenly as if she were in a tunnel, a long and dark tunnel through which a cold wind rushed. She could hear the hum of it, though there was surely not air enough to breathe.
His eyes met hers across the room, and the coldness rushed into her nostrils and up into her head. The sound of the wind became a thick buzzing. Her hands felt cold and clammy and a million miles away from her head.
“Miss Hamilton?” The Duke of Ridgeway set his daughter down on the floor and took a few steps toward Fleur. He made her a slight bow. “Welcome to Willoughby Hall, ma’am.”
She knew that if she could just breathe deeply and evenly for long enough, her vision would return and blood would flow to her head again. She thought only of her breathing. In. Out. Don’t rush it. Don’t fight it.
“I trust you have found everything to your satisfaction here,” he said, indicating the schoolroom about them.
Breathe slowly. No, don’t give in to panic. Don’t faint. Don’t faint!
“Papa.” Lady Pamela was tugging at the leg of his pantaloons. “What did you bring me?”
Those intense dark eyes turned from her to look down at his daughter. He smiled, but the side of his mouth that Fleur could see, the scarred side, did not lift.
She felt a black terror, which had her gasping for air for a moment before she imposed control over her breathing again.
“We had better go down and see,” he said, “or I am not going to have any peace, am I? Sidney grumbled about it all the way from London. I only hope you like it.”
He held out a hand for his daughter’s—a hand with long, well-manicured fingers.
Slowly. In. Out.
“Sidney is silly,” was Lady Pamela’s opinion.
“I shudder to think what Sidney would say if he were ever to hear you say that,” he said.
“Sidney is silly, Sidney is silly,” she chanted, giggling and taking his hand.
Those dark eyes were on her again, Fleur could feel, though she kept her own resolutely on Lady Pamela.
“Miss Hamilton will come down with us,” he said, “and bring you back again before Nanny can send out a search party.”
Fleur walked through the door ahead of him and along the corridor beside him to one of the twin staircases that flanked the great hall.