Whenever he had thought of her in the past weeks, he had pictured her as thin and pale, not at all pretty, only marginally attractive. There had been those long, slim legs, of course, and the shapely hips and firm, high breasts. But a basically unattractive woman—a gentlewoman down on her luck, he had guessed, someone he had felt obliged to help for some unknown reason.
He had helped her.
She was not as he remembered her. She had put on enough weight that her figure was now alluring even through the barrier of her clothes. Her face had color and a healthy glow. It was no longer shadowed and haggard. And her hair, which he had remembered as a dull, tired red, now glowed fire-golden.
Miss Fleur Hamilton, he had discovered the day before with something less than pleased surprise, was a startlingly beautiful woman.
In one way only was she as he remembered her. She was like a marble statue: cool, remote, unresponsive. She had spoken scarcely a word to him during their first encounter, though she had watched him every moment while he took his pleasure of her, he recalled. She had spoken not a word the day before. She had not even curtsied to him.
She had only shrunk from him, naked terror and revulsion in her eyes, when he had offered her his arm to go down the stairs. Why would he have offered his arm to a servant, anyway?
Don’t touch me. His lips thinned. She could probably teach Sybil a thing or two about cringing.
He continued his progress toward her, and he knew before he came up to her that she had became aware of his approach, though she gave no visible sign and did not look his way.
“Good morning, Miss Hamilton,” he said quietly, stopping when he was still several feet away from her.
She looked back at him with that steady, direct look he remembered.
“Do you like the early morning too?” he asked. “I always find it the loveliest time to be outdoors.”
“I will not be your mistress,” she said in a steady, low voice.
“Won’t you?” he said. “Pardon me, but did I ask?”
“It is so very clear,” she said. “I understood perfectly as soon as I saw you yesterday. I will not be your mistress.”
“I understood that you had been employed as my daughter’s governess,” he said. “I expect you to devote all your energies to that task, ma’am.”
“It is disgusting,” she said. “You are a married man. You have brought me here to live beneath the same roof as your wife and daughter. You expect me to spend several hours a day teaching your daughter. And you expect me also to be your whore here under such conditions. Is that why you paid me so well and fed me? So that I would be beholden to you? I will go back to the gutter where I belong, but I will not allow you to touch me again. You disgust me.”
He was angry with the girl. Furious. How dared she? Accusing him of bringing her here to his ancestral home to teach Pamela so that he could sport with her among the groves and in the attics.
“Let me make one thing clear, Miss Hamilton,” he said quietly, his hands clasped behind his back. “I instructed my secretary to employ you because you were desperately in need of employment other than that in which you had chosen to engage. I was satisfied from his report that you had been employed in a suitable capacity. You are my servant, ma’am, well paid and well looked after, I believe you will agree. I am not in the habit of consorting with my servants. I am certainly not in the habit of sleeping with them. When I need a whore, I employ one who offers her services for the purpose, and I pay her accordingly. Have I made myself clear?”
She flushed and said nothing.
His eyes narrowed. “I seem to recall having to tell you once before that when I ask a question I require an answer,” he said. “Answer me.”
“Yes,” she whispered. She looked at him steadily, her chin up. “Yes, your grace.”
He inclined his head to her. “You may continue your walk,” he said. “Good day to you, ma’am.”
He strode back the way he had come, the morning ruined by the heat of his temper and the turmoil of his feelings. But he was thankful for his years in the army, which had taught him the discipline of releasing his temper only through words.
He had wanted to take the woman by the arms and shake her until her head flopped on her neck. He had wanted to hurt her, to leave bruises.
He branched off from the terrace to cross a lawn that would take him to the lake. And he deliberately slowed both his steps and his mind. His experiences as an officer had taught him to do the latter, to think with icy logic rather than with white-hot fury.
If she had believed what she said—and she obviously had—then he must admit to himself that she had shown remarkable courage. He supposed that it would not be easy for a woman in a lowly and precarious situation to spit in the eye of a duke. And that was what she had done, figuratively speaking.