The Secret Pearl(47)

“What is happening?” he asked, advancing across the room. “Pamela?”

But she continued to cry quietly in Fleur’s arms.

“Miss Hamilton?”

She raised her head to look at him. “Broken promises,” she said quietly.

He stood there for a while longer and then slumped down onto the window seat beside them, half-turned to them, one of his knees brushing against Fleur’s. He reached out to run one finger along his daughter’s bare arm as it circled Fleur’s neck.

And Fleur looked at him to find him staring back bleakly, his scar starkly noticeable in the light from the window on his weary face. It was once a remarkably handsome face, she thought, remembering his portrait, despite the blackness of hair and eyes and the prominence of his nose—perhaps because of those features. But it still was handsome, the scar somehow enhancing rather than detracting from the strength of his features.

If she had not met him under such terrifying circumstances, if she could but rid her nightmares of the image of that face bent over her while he did painful, humiliating things to her body, perhaps she would always have seen him as handsome.

He shifted his gaze to his daughter. “What can I do, Pamela?” he asked her. “What can I do to set things right?”

It felt as if he were talking to her, Fleur thought with an inward shudder.

“Nothing,” the child said, pausing for a moment in her crying. “Go away!”

“Mama promised that you could meet the ladies someday, didn’t she?” he said. “And I promised to talk to her and remind her. But I have not done it yet. I’m sorry, Pamela. Will you forgive me?”

“No!” she said against Fleur’s bosom.

He sighed and laid his hand over the back of her head. “Will you give me a chance to put it right?” he asked. “There is to be a picnic at the ruins this afternoon. Shall I arrange for you to come too?”

“No,” she said. “I want to stay with Miss Hamilton and learn French. She is to teach me this afternoon.”

“Please, Pamela?” he said. “If we persuade Miss Hamilton to postpone the lesson until tomorrow?”

Fleur kissed the child’s hot temple. “We will learn French tomorrow, shall we?” she said. “It is such a lovely day for a picnic. I expect the ladies will all be dressed in their muslins and have pretty bonnets and parasols.”

“And there are to be lobster patties, so I have heard,” the duke said. “Will you come, Pamela?”

“If Miss Hamilton comes too,” Lady Pamela said unexpectedly.

Fleur’s eyes locked with the duke’s.

“But Mama and Papa will want you all to themselves,” she said.

“Miss Hamilton will be glad of a free afternoon,” he said at the same moment. “She does not have many.”

“Then I won’t go,” the child said petulantly.

He raised his eyebrows and Fleur closed her eyes.

“Do you like lobster patties, Miss Hamilton?” he asked quietly.

“They always were my favorite picnic fare,” she said.

Lady Pamela jumped down from her lap and pushed untidy strands of hair away from her flushed and puffed face.

“I am going to find Nanny,” she said. “I am going to tell her to put my pink dress on me and my straw bonnet.”

“Ask her, Pamela,” his grace said. “It is better than telling.”

He got to his feet as his daughter whisked herself from the room, and looked down at Fleur. “I’m sorry,” he said, “that you had to cope with that alone. Nanny sent Houghton running for me with the news that Pamela was screaming and you half-throttling her. I have been greatly at fault in hoping that she would forget her desire to meet the ladies.”

Fleur said nothing but gathered up the ruined remains of the handkerchief.

“I will make the arrangements for this afternoon,” he said. “If it is any consolation to you, Miss Hamilton, I would say that your pupil is becoming attached to you.”

But she did not want to go on the picnic, she thought in some alarm as he left the schoolroom. She would do almost anything to get out of going—except break a promise to Lady Pamela. And so she was stuck with having to go.

She looked back with considerable nostalgia to the first two weeks of her life at Willoughby, when she had been happy despite the disapproval of the duchess and Mrs. Clement.

How she wished that the Duke of Ridgeway had not turned out to be who he was. But of course, she had realized before now, she would not have her post at all if he had not. She would be in London, living in her bare little room, a seasoned whore by now.

She supposed that, after all, she owed him some gratitude.