The Secret Pearl(87)

He stood at the window, his back to the room, listening. He did not interrupt often.

“Do you have a single source for all these details?” he asked at one point.

“A servant from Heron House, your grace,” Houghton said, “a gentleman who liked to frequent the taproom at the inn where I put up, and the curate and his sister. Particularly the sister. I gather she was a friend of Miss Bradshaw’s. The brother was more reticent.”

“She had a friend, then,” the duke said more to himself than to his secretary.

“The gentleman’s name?” he asked later. “The taproom gentleman, that is?”

“Mr. Tweedsmuir, your grace.”

“First name?”

“Horace, your grace.”

“Ah,” the duke said. “Did you encounter any gentleman whose first name was Daniel?”

“Yes, your grace.”

“Well?” His grace turned impatiently to look at his secretary.

“The curate, your grace,” Houghton said. “The Reverend Daniel Booth.”

“Curate,” the duke said. “He is a young man, then?”

“Yes, your grace,” the secretary said. “And a younger son of Sir Richard Booth of Hampshire.”

“The detail of your research is admirable,” his grace said. “Is there anything you have missed?”

“No, your grace,” Houghton said after a reflective pause. “I believe I have recalled everything. Do you wish me to see to the dismissing of Miss Hamilton?”

“Miss Hamilton?” The duke’s brows drew together. “What the devil does all this have to do with Miss Hamilton?”

Peter Houghton shuffled through the papers on his desk with nervous hands. “Nothing, your grace,” he said.

“Then your question was a strange non sequitur,” his grace said. “Have I left enough work on your desk to amuse you for the rest of the afternoon, Houghton?”

“Yes, indeed, your grace,” his secretary said. “It will all be attended to before I leave here.”

“I would not burn the midnight oil if I were you,” his grace said, opening the door into the hallway. “You will doubtless wish for a free evening in which to entertain Mrs. Laycock and a select few others with an account of the christening at which you were recently godfather.”

Peter Houghton watched him go. He was not going to dismiss his ladybird after all he had just heard? His grace must be badly smitten indeed.

And what the deuce was Brocklehurst doing at the house if not to arrest her? Houghton shook his head and turned his attention to the mounds of papers on his desk.





FLEUR LOOKED FORWARD TO TIMOTHY CHAMBER-lain’s birthday for a variety of reasons. Lady Pamela was excited about it, and it was always a pleasure to see the child happy. Lady Pamela had hoped that her mother would accompany her, but her grace, of course, was too busy with her guests to devote a whole afternoon to her daughter. The child still hoped that her father would come. Fleur did not share the hope.

It would be good to spend a whole afternoon away from Willoughby, she thought. Away from him. Not that she had seen much of him since the morning of his apology. He had not sat in the schoolroom at all. He had appeared only briefly at the library door in the mornings when she was practicing in the music room. She had been required to accompany him when he gave Lady Pamela another riding lesson on a morning when it was not raining, but there was no ride afterward. Apart from that, she had not seen him.

But there was always the chance that she would. Despite herself, and although she always hoped he would not come, she listened for his footsteps outside the schoolroom.

And she dreamed of him. But the dreams were no longer the old nightmare. They were new, for in these dreams he kissed her deeply, as he had done in reality, and she kissed him back, as she had done then, and she ran her palms over the strong muscles of his shoulders and undid the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt in order to touch the dark hair that she knew to be beyond them. In her dream she wanted him as she had had him once upon a time, but with tenderness, with his body on hers as well as in, and his mouth on hers.

She always woke in a sweat and burrowed farther beneath the bedcovers. And she always squirmed with shame.

She looked forward to an afternoon away, in the company of children and in that of the safe and amusing Mr. Chamberlain. And she hoped and hoped that the Duke of Ridgeway would not be there, and felt guilt at the thought because his presence would mean the world to Lady Pamela. It would mean that he cared enough to want to share her pleasures.

And she looked forward to the afternoon because it would mean several hours free of Matthew. He had meant what he said when he had told her that he expected a great deal of her spare time. If she walked outside in the mornings or the early evenings, he was there with her. Once when she took Lady Pamela to the bridge to paint, he appeared there and made himself agreeable to both of them for a whole hour. And on the afternoon before the birthday, on the day when Mr. Houghton came home from his holiday and his grace was from home with his daughter, he invited her—with the duchess’s approval—on a walk to the lake that several of the guests were to make.