The Secret Pearl(44)

“Did you have an unhappy childhood?” he asked, his eyes still on her. “Was your father unkind to you?”

“No!” Her eyes blazed at him for a moment. “I was very happy until they died when I was eight.”

“Your mother and father together?”

“Yes.” And she bit her lip. She had never been a good liar. Her father was supposed to have died in debt quite recently.

They moved on finally and he resumed his description of the portraits. She had scarcely noticed his own at the end of the line when she was with Mrs. Laycock. Perhaps the housekeeper had been talking of something else at the time.

Would she have known him even then, before his return, if she had looked closely enough? Would she have had prior warning? She looked closely now. A slim young man, very young, dressed in riding clothes, a riding crop in one hand, a spaniel at his side. A young and handsome and carefree man with proud, uplifted head and an unmarred face.

No, she would not have known.

For some reason that she could not begin to explain to herself, she felt like crying.

“My pre-Waterloo days,” he said. “When I thought the world my oyster with a priceless pearl within. I suppose we all believe that when we are very young. Did you?”

“No,” she said. And yet there had been Daniel and her love for him and his for her and the prospect of an endless future in which she would be wanted, in which she would feel needed. “Oh, perhaps once, a long time ago.” Was it only a few months? Not a lifetime ago?

“You had a late night and have had a busy afternoon,” he said abruptly. “You will want to return to your room to rest for a while.”

He opened the door and allowed her to precede him into the great hall. But they arrived there at the exact moment when the front doors were being opened to admit a large number of the guests returning from their walk.

Fleur would have stepped back into the gallery, but his grace was in the doorway directly behind her.

“Ah, Ridgeway,” the voice of Sir Philip Shaw said, “and the delectable Miss Hamilton.”

“Ridgeway, you dark horse,” a jovial, florid-faced gentleman said. “While the rest of us have been baking in the sun, you have been entertaining the governess indoors, where it is cool.”

“Sometimes,” Sir Hector Chesterton said, “I almost wish I had some daughters of my own.”

“May I present Miss Fleur Hamilton to those of you who did not make her acquaintance last evening?” his grace said, a hand at the small of her back. “Miss Hamilton is Pamela’s governess.”

“You are dismissed, Miss Hamilton. Tea in the saloon immediately, Jarvis.” The light, sweet voice was that of the duchess.

Fleur turned and fled without more ado and half-ran up the stairs and along the corridor to her room. How unspeakably embarrassing!

She stood at her open window, enjoying the breeze, unwilling to lie down despite her tiredness. Sleep would only bring the nightmares again.

Once he had been young and handsome and carefree. Once he had thought the world to be his oyster, life a priceless pearl. In his pre-Waterloo days, as he had described them. And yet he had spoken sadly, as if those dreams had proved to be empty, worthless ones. What could possibly make the Duke of Ridgeway less than satisfied with life? she wondered. He had everything.

She still felt like crying, she realized suddenly. Her throat and her chest were aching with a nameless something that made her feel indescribably sad.


“CONFOUND IT,” THE DUKE of Ridgeway said, “I am not going to a royal banquet, Sidney.”

“I’ll be finished in a twinkling if you will just keep your chin from clacking,” his valet said, putting the finishing touches to the folds of his master’s neckcloth. “You do have guests for dinner, after all, sir.”

“Damn your impudence,” his grace said. “Are you finished now?”

“And thankful to be, sir,” Sidney said. “I’ll take myself far away from your temper as soon as I have tidied up in here.”

“You wouldn’t have to be anywhere near it at all,” the duke said sharply, “if that shell had just bounced three inches closer to you at Waterloo.”

“That I wouldn’t, sir,” his valet agreed, turning away to tidy scattered garments and brushes. “But then, neither would you have had to dress for your guests if your shell had bounced half an inch closer to you.”

Sidney wisely ignored his master’s retort. His sensibilities had grown immune to far worse blasphemies and obscenities during his years with the British army.

His grace gazed irritably at his reflection and at the skillfully knotted neckcloth that he was about to display for the admiration of his wife’s guests. He hated to be a dandy at any time and in any place. But in his own home! And for two nights in a row. Last night’s ball had been enough formality to last him a month.