Fleur felt a little uneasy. She had been permitted to bring Lady Pamela down to see the paintings, but nothing had been expressly said about allowing her to play there. But it was time to end lessons for the day, and the weather would prevent them from going outside again.
“You skip with them,” she said. “You hold one of the handles in each hand and turn the rope over your head. You have to jump over it when it reaches the ground.”
“Show me,” Lady Pamela demanded, holding out one of the ropes.
“Please,” Fleur said automatically.
“Please, silly,” the child said.
It took Lady Pamela a while to catch the idea of turning the handles steadily instead of stopping each time she jumped successfully over the rope. But finally she could jump three times in succession before getting the rope tangled about her feet.
“How can you do it so many times?” she asked Fleur petulantly.
Fleur laughed. “Practice,” she said. “Just as with the pianoforte.” Though that was ridiculous, she thought, laughing again. She had not skipped rope for perhaps fifteen years.
“Charming,” a languid voice said from the doorway, so far distant that neither Fleur nor Lady Pamela had heard the doors open. “Two happy children, would you say, Kent? Ah, but no, one of them transforms herself into Miss Hamilton, now that I have my glass to my eye.”
Fleur could feel her face flaming. Lord Thomas Kent and Sir Philip Shaw were strolling toward them along the gallery, Sir Philip’s quizzing glass to his eye. She rolled up her own skipping rope with hasty fingers.
“I am skipping,” Lady Pamela announced.
“So I see.” Lord Thomas regarded them both with laughing eyes and winked at Fleur. “How is my favorite niece today? Can you skip the length of the gallery?”
“I don’t think so,” Lady Pamela said.
He took a coin from his pocket and stooped down in front of her. “This is yours if you can,” he said.
Lady Pamela drew a deep breath and went hurtling off along the gallery, tripping over the rope every few steps. Both gentlemen laughed as they watched her go.
“I forgot to tell her that she must do it without once coming to grief,” Lord Thomas said, and strolled, laughing, after her.
“What a charming picture you made,” Sir Philip said to Fleur. “I am sorry in my heart that I spoke as soon as I did. I have not seen such a trim pair of ankles in a long while.”
Fleur stooped down without replying and put her skipping rope back into the cupboard. She had found the gentleman decidedly flirtatious when she had danced with him on the evening of the ball. By the time she stood up, Sir Philip was standing before her, one hand against the wall, regarding her with heavy-lidded eyes.
“Where do you hide away when you are not with the child, my sweet?” he asked. “Upstairs?”
She smiled briefly and willed Lady Pamela to turn and skip back down the gallery again.
“You must be lonely up there all alone,” he said, and leaned forward to kiss the side of her neck.
“Don’t,” she said firmly.
But the hoped-for interruption came in an unhoped-for way. Two ladies had entered the open doors of the gallery, one of them the duchess.
“Ah, darling,” she said, stooping down to kiss her daughter as Sir Philip moved off to examine one of the paintings through his glass. “Making friends with Uncle Thomas, are you?”
“See, Mama?” Lady Pamela held up her coin. “I can skip. I will show you.”
“Some other time, darling,” her grace said, straightening up. “Miss Hamilton, will you please take my daughter upstairs to her nurse, then await me in my sitting room?”
“The dragon is incensed, I fear,” Sir Philip muttered without turning from the picture. “She is usually at her worst when she smiles and speaks so sweetly. My most abject apologies, my sweet. I will make it up to you some other time.”
Fleur walked half the length of the gallery, her chin up, though her eyes were lowered to the floor. She curtsied, took the skipping rope from Lady Pamela’s hands, took one of her hands in hers, and led her from the room.
“But, Mama,” the child wailed. “I want to show you.”
“Was it a forbidden romp, Sybil?” Lord Thomas’ laughing voice was saying before Fleur was beyond earshot. “How shocking.”
FLEUR STOOD QUIETLY INSIDE the door of the duchess’s sitting room for all of half an hour. For some five minutes of that time she could hear coughing in the adjoining dressing room. Finally the door opened and her grace came in. She crossed to a small escritoire without even glancing Fleur’s way and picked up a letter lying there. Fleur stood for another full five minutes while she read it.