It was hard to remember the first impression he had had of her—a thin whore with lusterless hair, pale skin, heavy shadows below her eyes, and dry, cracked lips. And that limp and crumpled blue silk dress. It was hard to realize that she was the same person.
“Miss Hamilton,” he said, “I owe you an apology.”
“No,” she said, staying where she was, just inside the door. “It is unnecessary.”
“Why?” he asked.
“You told me last night,” she said, “that you were not sorry. You told me that you would apologize to me today. They would be empty words, your grace.”
He looked at her and knew that she was right. He was not sorry. At least, in one way he was not sorry. Those moments had given him another brief taste of happiness, like the minutes of their wild ride together. And he knew that, however wrong, he would live on the memory of that embrace for a long time.
“I am sorry,” he said, “for the disrespect I showed you, Miss Hamilton, and for the distress I must have caused you. And I am sorry for dishonoring my wife and my marriage. I beg that you will accept my apology.”
Her chin was high, her face very calm. She looked as she had looked when he had sat down and ordered her to remove her clothes. And she had removed them with quiet dignity, folding them neatly and laying them beside her.
Fleur!
He closed his eyes briefly. “Will you?”
She hesitated. “Yes, your grace,” she said.
Adam, he wanted to tell her. My name is Adam. He wanted to hear her say it.
“I will not keep you, then,” he said, striding across the room toward her. “I will have Pamela sent to you.”
She stood to one side, away from the door. “Thank you, your grace,” she said.
Her eyes strayed downward. He was still limping, he realized. He closed the door of the schoolroom quietly behind him. That damned Sidney! Was he losing his touch? The pain in his side and leg was like a gnawing toothache. He made an effort to control his pain as he called at the nursery and bent to kiss his daughter, and as he went downstairs to keep another appointment.
Lord Thomas Kent was already in the library, sitting with a drink in his hand despite the early hour, one booted ankle crossed over the other knee.
“That was another thing Papa used to do,” he said with a grin, holding up his glass in a salute as his brother entered the room. “Do you remember, Adam? He would have us summoned here and then keep us waiting for perhaps an hour. We dared not stand anywhere but directly in front of his desk, and we dared not move a muscle or speak to each other because we never knew the exact moment when the door would come crashing open. It was almost worse than the thrashing we knew very well would come at the end of it, wasn’t it?” He laughed.
The duke went to sit behind the very desk before which he and Thomas had quailed as children.
“Tell me,” Lord Thomas said, “are you going to bend me over the desk, Adam? And are you going to use a cane?”
“She is in love with you,” his grace said, looking at the desktop. “She always has been. She bore your child, Thomas. And must you now come back to play games with her and with me?”
“Ah,” his brother said, raising his glass to his eye. “This is not to be chastisement, is it, but a serious talking-to. How dreary. And do you still dote on her, Adam?”
“I married her,” the duke said. “She is my wife. I owe her my care and protection.”
Lord Thomas laughed. “She hates you,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Are you sleeping with her?” his grace asked, looking very directly at his brother.
“With my brother’s wife?” Lord Thomas raised his eyebrows. “You surely cannot believe me capable of such perfidy and, ah, poor taste, can you, Adam?”
“Are you?”
His brother shrugged.
“Are you in love with her?”
“A foolish question,” Lord Thomas said, getting to his feet and examining the mosaic above the mantel. “How can I be in love with my brother’s wife?”
“If you are,” the duke said, “perhaps I can begin to forgive you. Perhaps you made as much of a mistake in fleeing more than five years ago as I made in not insisting that Sybil listen to the truth. We all act hastily at times and must live forever after with the consequences. But then, nothing is written in stone either.”
His brother turned in surprise and grinned at him. “Are you offering to exchange bedchambers with me for the duration of my stay?” he said. “Very sporting of you, I must say, Adam.”
“If you truly love her as she loves you,” the duke said, ignoring his brother’s tone, “then something must be arranged.”