The Secret Pearl(76)

But the time inevitably came when she looked up between dances to find that Matthew was leading Miss Dobbin her way.

“Miss Hamilton,” she said, “how well you play. I am wishing now that I had played first so that I would not have to follow you.”

Fleur protested that she really did not have to play at all, but Miss Dobbin insisted that dancing was not her favorite activity and she had done enough of it during the ball and the last couple of hours to last her for the next month.

“Besides, Miss Hamilton,” Matthew said with a bow, “how am I to dance with you if you are to sit at the pianoforte all night?”

“I am not here to dance, my lord,” she said, “but to provide accompaniment.”

“Ah, but you will dance,” he said, smiling at her. “Please, ma’am? Because it is I who ask?”

What would he do if she refused? Fleur wondered. Turn to the company and denounce her in a loud voice? Expose her as a murderer and a jewel thief? She thought not. He would embarrass himself by such an exhibition, and that would not serve his purpose at all.

But of course it was an academic question. The truth was that she would not put it to the test, and Matthew must know her well enough to know that she would not.

“A waltz, if you please, Miss Dobbin?” he asked, holding out a hand for Fleur’s.

Matthew waltzed tolerably well. But of course she could not give herself up to an enjoyment of the dance. She was a servant in this house, and her cheeks burned at the impropriety of her dancing with the company in the drawing room despite the permission his grace had granted her earlier. She looked about nervously to see how the duchess was reacting at sight of her, but her grace was absent from the room.

And of course she could not forget the last time she had waltzed—on the deserted path south of the lake, her eyes firmly closed. His grace was dancing with Lady Underwood, she could see out of the corner of her eye.

The music drew to an end, but Fleur was given no chance to seat herself behind the pianoforte, as she had planned. Sir Philip Shaw was bowing over her hand.

“Ah, but Miss Hamilton is faint from her exertions at the pianoforte,” Matthew said with a smile. “I was about to take her into the hall, Shaw, for some air.”

“What a lucky devil you are, Brocklehurst,” Sir Philip said, looking Fleur up and down with lazy eyes. “I don’t suppose I can remind you of a prior acquaintance too, Miss Hamilton, can I?”

Fleur set her hand on Matthew’s arm and lifted her chin.

He took her into the hall and up to the high gallery beneath the dome. He must have found out the staircase during the daytime hours. She had never been up there before.

They seemed much higher up than the gallery had looked from below. And yet the dome still seemed to soar high above. But they were not there to sightsee.

He held her against the inner wall with his body and kissed her: her face, her throat, her breasts through the fabric of her dress. He fondled her breasts with his hands, pushed one knee between her legs. He opened his mouth over hers, prodded at her closed lips with his tongue.

She stood quiet and passive.

“You have never given me a chance, Isabella,” he said. “You have disliked me just because my mother and my sister have always treated you rather shabbily, and perhaps because my father was too lazy to intervene. And because I did not notice you when you were a girl. But I was never openly unkind to you. Was I?”

“Not until recent years,” she said quietly.

“When have I been unkind?” he asked. “Oh, I suppose you will throw Booth in my teeth again. I was doing you a kindness if you only knew it, Isabella. He is not the man for you.”

“And you are?”

“Yes,” he said, “and I am. I love you, Isabella. I worship you. And I could teach you to love me if you would give me the chance, if you would not close your mind to me.”

“Perhaps I could have liked you,” she said, “and respected you too if you had shown me some respect, Matthew. But you have always been like this, grabbing me and protesting your love for me. In the past, of course, I was always free to fight you. Now I am no longer free. I cannot create a scene in this house by screaming, as I would like to do. I am a servant and you are a guest. And I cannot demand that you leave me alone. I have no particular wish to hang. But if you loved me, you would not play this cruel game with me. And you would not force on me attentions that you know to be unwelcome.”

“It is because you will not give me a chance,” he said.

But he looked behind him at that moment and covered her mouth loosely with his hand. There was the sound of footsteps below, and both of them could see his grace crossing the hall slowly, looking about him. It seemed that he was down there many minutes before he walked on to the long gallery and through the doors.