The Secret Pearl(24)

“Ma’am?” he said at the head of the stairs, extending his free arm to her.

But she heard an inarticulate sound come from her throat, and she shrank farther away from him so that her dress brushed against the wall as they descended. He turned to listen to Lady Pamela’s chatter.

Fleur listened to the echo of their footsteps as they crossed the great hall, noted the smart way a footman sprang forward to open the double doors for them, felt fresh air and sunshine against her face, counted the marble steps as they descended them, and felt beneath her feet the cobbles of the winding avenue that led to the stable block.

She concentrated hard on immediate physical sensation. It was by far the best way to occupy her thoughts.

“Where are we going? What is it?” Lady Pamela tripped along at her father’s side, still clinging to his hand.

“You will see soon enough,” he said. “Poor Sidney.”

“Silly Sidney,” she said.

It was a puppy, a round, snub-nosed little Border collie with white fur about its nose and in a lopsided stripe over its head and about its neck. Two feet and its stomach were white. The rest was black.

It was protesting the fact that it had been placed in a makeshift pen with a pile of straw that it tripped on as it tried to walk. It was crying a loud protest, a demand for its mother.

“Ohhh!” Lady Pamela withdrew her hand from her father’s and stood staring speechlessly until she went down on her knees beside the pen and lifted the little bundle into her arms. The puppy stopped its crying immediately and licked at her face so that she wrinkled her nose and turned aside, giggling.

“Sidney traveled from London with a clean face and nipped fingers,” his grace said. “And frequently with wet breeches.”

“Oh.” Lady Pamela gazed in awe at her present. “He is mine, Papa? All mine?”

“Sidney certainly does not want it,” her father said.

“I am going to take him to my room,” she said. “I am going to sleep with him.”

“He is a she,” the duke said. “And your mother and Nanny might have something to say about a house pet.”

But Lady Pamela was not listening. She was playing with her puppy and laughing as it caught at her fingers with its sharp little teeth.

Fleur kept her eyes on the child and the puppy, her shoulders back, her chin high, her hands clasped together as she felt him turn to her and his eyes pass over her.

“You did not suspect?” he asked her quietly.

She could not move. If she moved a muscle, she would come all to pieces.

“You did not suspect,” he said, and knelt down beside his daughter.

It was arranged that the puppy would stay in the stables until it had been house-trained. Pamela could visit whenever she wanted as long as doing so did not interrupt either her lessons or her rest. After that she would be able to take her pet into the house, provided it was never allowed to stray down onto the piano nobile to give her mother a fit of the vapors or to send Sidney into a roaring rage.

The duke remained in the stables as Fleur took his daughter by the hand and led her back to the house, chattering without pause. The puppy was the sweetest little thing. The Chamberlain children were going to be ever so envious when they saw him—her. She was going to train it to sit up and beg and to walk at her heels. Wasn’t her papa the most wonderful papa in the whole wide world?

Fleur took the child back the way they had come, up the steps, across the great hall, through the archway and up the stairs, along the corridor to the nursery, where Mrs. Clement was waiting. Lady Pamela’s chatter increased in speed and volume for the benefit of her new audience.

“Classes are at an end for today, Miss Hamilton,” the nurse said dismissively.

Fleur walked to her room without hesitation, closed the door behind her, and leaned back against it, her eyes closed, as if by doing so she could keep out the world.

And then she went rushing across the room to the closet, where she leaned over the closestool and retched and retched until her stomach was sore from dry heaves.


“HIS GRACE THE DOOK has left London,” Mr. Snedburg reported to Lord Brocklehurst on a sweltering hot day in May. His face bore a distinct resemblance to a lobster. “Taking his secretary, Mr. Houghton, with him. That seems to settle the matter. He was the very man who hired Miss Fleur Hamilton, sir.”

“It must be her and that must be her destination,” his client said, watching with frowning disapproval as the Runner mopped at his face with a large handkerchief. “What excuse can I find for going there? You have not discovered the whereabouts of Lord Thomas Kent by any chance, have you?”

“I have not yet turned my inquiries his way,” Mr. Snedburg said. “I can do so, but is it necessary, sir? If the young lady is wanted for murder, I can go down there posthaste with your say-so as a justice of the peace and a warrant for her arrest and haul her back. She will not escape from me, you may be sure. You can have her head in a noose and her feet swinging on air in no time at all, sir.”