FLEUR HAD THOUGHT HER day was over. Mrs. Laycock was tired after a few busy days and had not invited the governess, as she often did, to spend the evening in her sitting room. Fleur sighed when Mrs. Clement summoned her to the nursery to inform her, tight-lipped, that her grace had requested she escort Lady Pamela to the drawing room after dinner.
“But will that not be after Lady Pamela’s bedtime?” she asked.
“Lord Thomas Kent is home,” Mrs. Clement said. “Her grace wishes Lady Pamela to meet her uncle.”
Fleur thought that Lord Thomas Kent could just as easily have been brought to the nursery the following morning, but she said nothing. She returned to her room to put on her best dress and brush and coil her hair again.
She was not comfortable as she led her pupil into the drawing room later. Lord Thomas Kent had once been Matthew’s friend. He could not possibly know her, of course. But his presence at Willoughby was a strong reminder of that constant threat to her security and happiness. She stood inside the door, her eyes lowered, and hoped that no one would feel it necessary to take notice of her. She hoped that Lady Pamela would not be kept long. The child was very excited and very tired.
She raised her eyes as the duchess led her daughter across the room, and looked at Lord Thomas Kent. He was the duke’s half-brother, she knew. But anyone could have mistaken them for full brothers. They were remarkably alike except that Lord Thomas was not quite as tall or his face quite so hawkish and severe in its expression. He smiled and was very handsome.
She glanced at the duke to note the contrast between the two and found him watching his brother talk to Lady Pamela with that dark expression that was so characteristic of him. She shivered. How could two men look so much alike and yet so very different?
And her eyes strayed beyond his grace’s shoulder to another gentleman, shorter too than the duke, fair-haired, inclined to stockiness. He was looking very directly at her, a gleam of—what?—pleasure? amusement? triumph? in his eyes.
She looked down hastily at the carpet between her feet and felt her heart and every pulse pump the blood painfully through her body. The room about her, the loud buzz of voices and laughter, the reason she was there—all fled from her consciousness, and she was aware only of a strawberry-red rose in the pattern of the carpet. It had a dark green stem and brown thorns.
There was no air in the room. Her hands felt thick and vibrating, as if the blood could not force its way through them. She was losing control of her hands. There was no air to breathe.
There was a door next to her. She reached out a hand to turn the knob, could not find it, bumped her knuckles against it, grasped it, could not control it, and then blessedly jerked the door open.
She fled along the hallway, hesitated when she reached the staircase, fled into the great hall, wrenched open one of the front doors without so much as glancing at the footmen, and fled down the horseshoe steps.
Fresh air. And darkness. And space.
She ran.
She was among the lime trees when pain and breathlessness forced her to stop. She grasped a tree trunk with both hands as the breath sobbed into her lungs, and she doubled up against the pain in her side.
God. Oh, please, dear God, let it not be so. Please, God.
Matthew. He had found her. He had come to take her away.
She stumbled slowly on. When had he come? Why had she not been summoned and arrested immediately? Why had everyone in the drawing room not turned to stare accusingly at her when she brought Lady Pamela in? What sort of a waiting game was he playing?
She leaned against another tree trunk, her cheek against its rough bark, and hugged it with her arms.
What would happen? Would he take her back alone, or would there be someone else to guard her? Would she be bound? Chained? She had no idea how such things were done. How long would she be in prison before being brought to trial? How long would she be in prison after the trial before …?
Oh, please, dear God. Please, dear God.
There was no point in running any farther. He had tracked her this far. There would be no further escape. There was no point in running.
She stood where she was for a long time before pushing wearily away from the tree and making her slow way back to the bridge. And she stood leaning against the parapet, looking sightlessly down at the moonlit cascades, and listening without hearing to the rushing and splashing of water.
She knew for several minutes that there was someone coming, though she did not turn her head to look. Matthew. It would be Matthew. Expecting that she would fight him again? Try to run again? She wondered that he was coming alone. He had not been alone the last time. She had killed his companion then.
Or perhaps he had seen from her face in the drawing room that there was no fight left in her. She was tired of fighting, tired of running. Tired of living.