So much for love, he thought with heavy cynicism.
He turned to the door, aware of his wife coughing in her dressing room. There was not the spark of an ember of his love left. Only a certain pity for what she had undoubtedly suffered, and the vague hope of some peace between them. Some hope that he would not always appear to be the villain in their life together.
But it seemed that he was not to be granted even peace.
IT WAS PETER HOUGHTON WHO INFORMED FLEUR of the new arrangement later that same morning while she waited in the schoolroom for a pupil who would not come because her nurse insisted that she was ill with exhaustion from her exertions of the day before.
Fleur was a little afraid of Peter Houghton because he undoubtedly knew who she was and what she was. And yet he had treated her with unfailing courtesy in the two days since his return to Willoughby—they both ate with the upper servants at Mrs. Laycock’s table. Not by word or gesture had he shown that he felt any distaste at having to consort with her on terms of near-equality. There had been not a whisper or a hint of what she was to any of the other servants.
She was relieved by the new arrangement, not because she wished to have power over Lady Pamela’s nurse, but because she wished to feel that she was doing something to earn her salary and keep. She had had the uneasy feeling for the previous weeks that she was there on false pretenses.
The duke himself brought his daughter to the schoolroom that afternoon. Fleur curtsied and did not look directly at him. But, she realized before many minutes had passed, he had no intention of leaving immediately. He settled himself quietly on a chair in one corner of the room and watched.
They worked with the alphabet book for a short while, making a game out of memorizing the letters, each of them thinking of some absurd word that began with the letter in question and then trying to remember each word and its letter in sequence.
“Faradiddle,” the duke said when Lady Pamela had puzzled over F for several seconds.
She exploded with sudden laughter.
It was his only contribution to that particular lesson.
They counted up to fifty and back to one again and did some simple sums on paper. They examined a tablecloth that Fleur had found folded in a drawer in her room, and she named each embroidered stitch for Lady Pamela and promised that she could start a handkerchief of her own the next day and learn one of the stitches.
“Can I choose whatever colors I want?” she asked Fleur.
“Any colors you wish,” Fleur promised with a smile.
“Red daisies and blue stems?”
“Purple daisies and canary stems if you wish,” Fleur said.
“But everyone will laugh.”
“Then you must choose whether to pick your own colors and be laughed at or pick the expected colors and not be laughed at,” Fleur said. “It is quite simple. The choice will be entirely yours.”
Lady Pamela frowned and looked suspiciously at her governess.
They talked about the picture of the pavilion, which had still not been painted, and Fleur lifted down a rather large landscape painting that was on the wall so that her pupil could see how many different colors and shades had been used to create the total effect of sky and grass and trees.
“But the choice is yours, you see,” she said. “Your job as an artist is to help the viewer see what you see. And no one can tell you quite what you see. We all see things differently.”
“I want you to play the harpsichord for me,” Lady Pamela said when the topic was exhausted.
Fleur was very aware of her employer sitting silently in his corner.
“Perhaps you would like to sit on the stool and I shall give you a lesson,” she suggested.
But Lady Pamela had already tried to play for herself and had discovered that she could not produce music as Fleur could. She had also learned that even after a lesson or two she had not acquired the magic formula for producing a fluent melody.
“Sit down,” she said, “and play for me.”
“Please,” Fleur said quietly.
But even as she prayed silently for cooperation, she knew that she would not get it.
“Play for me,” the child ordered petulantly.
“Please,” Fleur said.
“That is silly,” Lady Pamela said. “What difference does ‘please’ make?”
“It makes me feel that I am being asked, not ordered,” Fleur said. “It makes me feel good about myself.”
“That is silly,” the child said.
“Please will you play the harpsichord, Miss Hamilton, while Pamela goes to lie down on her bed?”
Fleur’s back stiffened. She had not heard him get up and cross the room.
His daughter threw him an exasperated look. “Please, Miss Hamilton,” she said.