The Secret Pearl(43)

Try as she would all through the night, it had been that dance she had remembered of all the magical moments of the evening—until she had drifted off to sleep and he had been bending over her and hurting her and telling her that she did it because she enjoyed it.

Lady Pamela smiled and took his hand and lifted her face for his kiss.

“Timothy Chamberlain’s birthday is next week, Papa,” she said. “I have been invited, with Miss Hamilton. A letter came this morning. Will Mama let me go? Will you come too?”

“That sounds like a rare treat,” he said, as Fleur turned away and entered the schoolroom. “I am not sure I’ll be able to come, Pamela, as we have guests here to entertain. I’ll see what I can do.”

He sat quietly through the afternoon lessons until Fleur dismissed Lady Pamela early.

The duke stood up. “You are going to Nanny in the nursery?” he asked.

“She is going to wash my hair,” the child said, pulling a face. “I would rather visit Tiny with you, Papa.”

“We already did so just before luncheon,” he said. “If Nanny says your hair needs washing, I don’t doubt that it does. Off you go.”

She went, dragging her feet.

Fleur busied herself putting books away and tidying them on the shelf. She had thought that he would go with his daughter, as he usually did.

“The paintings upstairs are limited in number and scope,” he said. “You should show Pamela the paintings downstairs if you believe she is interested.”

Fleur said nothing.

“Have you seen the long gallery?” he asked.

“Yes, with Mrs. Laycock, your grace,” she said.

“Ah, with Mrs. Laycock,” he said. “She is always the first to admit that she is not very knowledgeable about the works of art at Willoughby. Her talents run to more practical matters. The portraits in the gallery would give you material for a whole series of history lessons. And a child is never too young to learn about her family. Are you free?”

Fleur could only turn from the bookshelf, which she could no longer pretend was still untidy.

“We will go there now,” he said. “I shall introduce you to my ancestors.”

She walked beside him in silence along the corridor, down the stairs, and through the great hall, past immobile footmen, except for the one who sprang forward at his nod, and through the doors into the long wing that was the gallery. It was flooded with afternoon sunlight.

“I love this room,” he said, pausing just beyond the doorway. “Even if there were not a single canvas here, I think I would love it.”

She followed his glance up to the ceiling with its intricately carved circles of plasterwork leaves and fruit.

“It is a good room to use during persistently rainy weather,” he said. “One can get at least some exercise promenading here. We used to spend hours in here as children, my brother and I. I believe there are still skipping ropes and spinning tops and games of spillikins and checkers in the lower cupboards. My wife and Nanny have always preferred to keep Pamela on the upper floor. Perhaps you will enjoy bringing her here occasionally.”

They walked to the far end of the gallery, and he spent the whole of the next hour describing the paintings, naming their painters, and giving her some history of each painted ancestor. He spoke with knowledge and pride and some humor.

“There is something,” he said, “some warmth, some security, perhaps, in knowing that one is descended from such a line. There is something about being able to call oneself the eighth duke instead of the first. My nose was in existence even with the fourth duke, you see? So I certainly cannot blame my mother.”

But the fourth duke wore a long and curling wig.

His grace was looking at her. She could feel his eyes on her and she had to will herself through careful and steady breathing not to stiffen.

“What about your family?” he asked. “Does it have a long history?”

Her parents. Her grandparents, whom she had never known. A few old portraits at Heron House, whom no one seemed able to identify with any certainty. She had grown up with a sense of rootlessness, with a hunger for knowing. Surely, she had thought, if only Mama and Papa had realized how early they would leave her, they would have taught her young, told her something about themselves, about their childhood, about their own parents and grandparents. Or perhaps they had but she had been too young or too inattentive, not knowing that the time would come when she would be hungry for such knowledge.

“Where are you from?” he asked quietly. “Who was your father? Who are you?”

“Fleur Hamilton,” she said, wishing they would move on to the next portrait. But Hamilton had been her grandmother’s name, had it not? How did she know that? Someone must have told her once upon a time. “Your daughter’s governess, your grace.” And once your whore, of course.