No, he thought as they rode into the stableyard and she hastily summoned a groom to lift her to the ground, it was as well that the morning had developed as it had. The situation had been wrong and dangerous. He was being tempted as he had been tempted even at his first sight of her outside the Drury Lane.
She was Pamela’s governess now, his servant. She was under his protection, as he had told her earlier. It was his duty to protect her from lechery, not to lead the attack himself.
“I daresay Pamela has enjoyed her brief holiday,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “We must start lessons early this afternoon.” She stood uncertainly, watching him.
“I have some matters to discuss with my head groom,” he lied. “You may return to the house, Miss Hamilton.”
“Yes, your grace.” She curtsied and turned to leave.
He watched her go, wondering if life ever offered happiness in more than very small, very brief doses.
THE FRENCH LESSON HAD gone very well, as had the history lesson, or rather the history story. When Fleur took the large globe from its shelf for a geography lesson, Lady Pamela wanted to know where India was.
“My uncle Thomas was there,” she said, and she traced with a finger under Fleur’s guidance the long sea route that her uncle must have taken in order to come home to England.
“I don’t like my uncle Thomas,” she said candidly.
“Why not?” Fleur turned the globe so that India was facing them again. “You have met him only once, and you were tired.”
“He did not really like me,” the child said. “He was laughing at me.”
“This is probably because he is not used to little girls,” Fleur said. “Some people do not know how to talk to children. They are a little afraid of them.”
“He said I do not look like Mama,” Lady Pamela said. “He said I was all Papa. I wish I looked like Mama. Everyone loves Mama.”
“And you think everyone does not love you because you are dark like your papa?” Fleur asked. “I think you are very wrong. Dark looks can be very handsome. Your many-times-great-grandmother was very dark and very beautiful. She reminded me of you when I saw her portrait downstairs a couple of days ago.”
Dark eyes looked at her critically. “You are just saying that,” Lady Pamela said.
“Perhaps you should see for yourself, then,” Fleur said. “And perhaps you should start to become acquainted with your papa’s family. They go back for hundreds of years, long before you or Papa was ever thought of.”
Most of the ladies, including the duchess, were still in Wollaston, Fleur knew. His grace had ridden away with several of the gentlemen to view his farms, though the drizzle had started to fall again an hour before. It would surely be safe to take Lady Pamela down to the long gallery, as his grace wished her to do on occasion.
They looked first at the Van Dyck portrait of the dark lady who had once been Duchess of Ridgeway, surrounded by her family, including the duke, and by the family dogs.
“She is lovely,” Pamela said, clinging to Fleur’s hand. “Do I really look like her?”
“Yes,” Fleur said. “I think you will look very like her when you are grown up.”
“Why do the men have such funny hair?” the child asked.
They examined the hair and the beards and the clothes of her ancestors to note how very much fashions had changed over the years. Lady Pamela chuckled when Fleur explained to her that men had used to wear wigs, until quite recent years.
“And ladies too,” she said. “Your papa’s grandmama would have worn a large wig and powdered it until it was white.”
They moved along the gallery to look at a Reynolds portrait of a more recent ancestor so that she could prove her point.
It was an informal lesson without plan or any particular object, but the child was definitely interested, Fleur could see. She must bring her down whenever she knew that they would not be disturbed. She would see to it if she could that Lady Pamela would not grow up with such a poor sense of her family past as she herself had.
But the child quickly tired of examining old pictures.
“What is in those cupboards?” she asked, pointing.
“I believe your papa said that there are some old toys and games there that he and your uncle Thomas used to play with on rainy days,” she said.
“Like today,” Lady Pamela said, and stooped down to open one of the cupboard doors. She pulled out a spinning top and two skipping ropes. She pushed the top back inside. She had one in the nursery. She picked up one of the ropes and uncoiled it from the heavy wooden handles. “What do you do with these?”