The Secret Pearl (37 page)

She would not think of him. Or if she must, she would remember him telling her to remove her clothes and sitting down to watch the show. Or bent over her, watching as he took her virginity. Or telling her that she was a whore and was enjoying what he did to her—but had he really said either of those things? Or had they been merely part of her nightmares?

She would not think of him. Or if she must, she would remember that he was a married man, that he had a beautiful wife and a daughter whom he dearly loved.

She would not think of him.

“Come in,” she called when someone knocked on the door of her dressing room.

It was a maid to inform her that she had visitors belowstairs.

Well, she thought, getting to her feet and squaring her shoulders. It seemed that she was not to have even that one night of peace. It was beginning already. Perhaps coming home had been the most foolish thing she had done in her life.

But she had had to come. She had had no choice short of losing herself.

The butler opened the door into the visitors’ salon for her and she stepped inside.

“Isabella!” Miriam Booth, small, rather plump, fair heavy hair in its usual rather untidy knot on top of her head, hurried toward her, both hands outstretched. “Oh, Isabella, my dear, we just heard that you were home.”

Tears blurred Fleur’s vision as she was enfolded in her friend’s arms—but not before she had seen Daniel standing quietly before the fireplace, tall and blond and handsome in his black clerical garb.

“Miriam,” she said, her voice quite breaking out of control. “Oh, how I have missed you.”

T
HE DUKE OF RIDGEWAY KISSED HIS DAUGHTER and the puppy too when it was lifted up to him.

“No classes this morning, Pamela?” he asked. “Is it a holiday because it is raining, perhaps?”

She chuckled. “I am going to tell Miss Hamilton to take me down to the long gallery to skip with the ropes again,” she said, “and to look at the dark lady in the picture who is like me.”

“Try asking,” his grace suggested. “You are more likely to get what you want.”

“Miss Hamilton must have had a very late night,” Mrs. Clement said disapprovingly. “She has not appeared from her room yet this morning, your grace.”

He frowned. “And no one had been to wake her?” he asked.

“I tapped on her door half an hour ago, your grace,” she said. “But it is not my job to wake the governess.”

“Do so now as a favor to me, if you will, Nanny,” he said. “Pamela, is Tiny supposed to be dragging that blanket across the floor?”

His daughter chuckled again. “Nanny said she could because it is old,” she said. “Look, Papa.” And she pulled at one end of the blanket while the puppy tugged and strained at the other, growling with excitement. Lady Pamela giggled.

Mrs. Clement came bustling back into the nursery a couple
of minutes later. “Miss Hamilton is not in her room, your grace,” she said. “And the bed is made up, though I know no maid has been in there this morning.”

The duke glanced at the window and the rain beyond. “She must have been delayed belowstairs,” he said.

There was consternation in the kitchen a few minutes later when the duke himself strode in from the direction of the servants’ stairs. Mrs. Laycock, he was informed, was busy with the household accounts in the office beside her sitting room.

“But Miss Hamilton was not down for breakfast this morning, your grace,” she said in answer to his question. She had stood on his entrance. “I assumed she was eating in the nursery with Lady Pamela. She does so sometimes.”

“Come with me, Mrs. Laycock, if you will,” the duke said, and led the way up the servants’ stairs to the
piano nobile
and on up to the nursery floor.

He knocked at Fleur’s door before opening it and stepping inside.

“No chambermaid has been in here this morning?” he asked.

“I very much doubt it, your grace,” the housekeeper said.

There were no combs on the dressing table. No hairpins or perfumes or any of the paraphernalia that always cluttered his wife’s dressing room. He crossed the room to the wardrobe and opened the door. There was a new jade-green velvet riding habit hanging inside, and a faded and crumpled blue silk gown. He touched the latter briefly.

“She has gone,” he said.

“Gone, your grace?” Mrs. Laycock opened a drawer of the dressing table. It was empty. “Where would she have gone? And why?”

“Foolish woman,” the duke said, closing the door of the wardrobe and standing facing it. “Where has she gone? That is a good question. And how did she leave here? By foot? It would take her almost all night to reach Wollaston.”

“But why would she leave?” Mrs. Laycock was frowning in thought. “She seemed happy here, your grace, and is very well liked.”

“Go back downstairs, Mrs. Laycock, if you please,” his grace said. “Find out what you can from the servants. Anything at all. I shall go to the stables to question the grooms.”

“Yes, your grace.” She looked at him strangely and left the room.

None of the grooms knew anything. The foolish woman must have walked, the duke thought. And he wondered when during the night the rain had started. And he wondered where she was going. To London to lose herself again? It might be harder to find her this time. She would doubtless stay away from employment agencies—and from fashionable theaters too.

And he wondered if Houghton had paid her at all yet.

“Driscoll,” he said, turning to one of the youngest of his grooms, “ride down to the lodge, if you please. I want to know if and when Miss Hamilton passed the gates.”

“Yes, your grace,” the groom said, but he hovered where he was instead of rushing into immediate action.

The duke looked steadily at him.

“May I speak with you, your grace?”

The duke strode out into the stableyard, heedless of the rain. Ned Driscoll followed him.

“I took Miss Hamilton into Wollaston this morning before first light, your grace, in the gig,” he said. He added irrelevantly, “She got wet.”

“For what purpose?” his grace asked.

The groom was twisting his cap nervously in his hands. “To catch the stage, your grace,” he said.

The duke looked at him steadily. “On whose orders did you take the gig?” he asked.

Ned Driscoll did not answer.

“Why did you lie to me a few minutes ago?” the duke asked.

Again there was no answer.

“One or more of the other grooms must have known that you were gone,” the duke said.

“Yes, your grace.”

“So he or they lied too.”

Ned Driscoll was watching his cap turning in his hands.

“You must have expected to be found out,” the duke said. “You must expect dismissal.”

“Yes, your grace.”

“Did she pay you?”

“No, your grace.” The groom’s tone was indignant.

The duke looked at his young groom, standing with feet firmly planted on the cobbles of the stableyard, his eyes downcast, his cap turning and turning in his hands, his wet hair plastered to his head, his shirt clinging to his shoulders and chest. He remembered a certain morning when the same groom had stood outside the paddock laughing at Fleur and openly admiring her as she tickled the puppy with one toe.

“I will want my traveling carriage ready before the doors in one hour’s time,” he said. “You may inform Shipley to be ready to take the ribbons. You will accompany him. We will probably be away for several days. You will need to pack a bag.”

“Yes, your grace.” Ned Driscoll looked up at him with wary eyes. His cap had fallen from his hands.

“If we have lost her beyond trace,” his grace said coldly before turning away, “I shall beat you to a pulp on the road, Driscoll, and tie you upright to the box beside Shipley for the return journey.”

His wife had got up that morning and appeared to be feeling considerably better, the duke thought with some relief as he strode back to the house. He would feel guilty about leaving her if she were still indisposed. She was in the morning room, playing cards.

“Sybil, a word with you, if you please?” he said after standing behind her chair until the hand that was being played had been finished.

“Jessica will sit in for you,” Mr. Penny said. “Jessica?”

The duke led his wife from the room and in the direction of her sitting room.

“I have to leave for a few days,” he said, “on unexpected business. Are you feeling well enough to entertain alone?”

“If you will remember,” she said, “I invited my guests when you were from home and not expected back, Adam. I have learned to be alone and not expect help from you.”

“I hope to be back within a week,” he said.

“Don’t hurry,” she said. “The guests are all leaving soon. Indeed, Lord Brocklehurst has been called away and must leave today. I shall probably be gone myself by the time you return, Adam. I shall be leaving with Thomas.”

He opened the door into her sitting room and followed her inside.

“When I return,” he said, “I shall take you and Pamela to Bath for a few weeks. The waters and the change of air will do you good, and Pamela will enjoy something different. Perhaps we can start again, Sybil, and make something at least workable of our marriage.”

“I am going to be happy,” she said. “Before you return, Adam, I am going to be happy and I am going to stay so for the rest of my life.”

“Sybil.” He took her by the shoulders and looked down into her upturned face—lovely, fragile, and youthful. “I wish I could save you from pain. I wish I could go back and do everything very differently. He will not take you with him.”

She smiled at him. “We will see,” she said.

He squeezed her shoulders and left the room. He should not be going, perhaps. He should send Houghton after Fleur and remain with his wife. She was going to need someone within the next few days.

But he was the very last person she would need. When Thomas left, she would hate him with a renewed intensity. He
would probably never be able to establish anything resembling peace between them.

He took the stairs two at a time to say good-bye to Pamela and assure her that he would not be gone for long. Even so, he left her in tears after she had pounded his chest with her fists and told him she hated him and did not care if he went away forever.

“I want Miss Hamilton,” she said petulantly.

And he could not even assure her that he would bring Fleur back with him. Whatever happened, he would not be able to do that.

He left Willoughby before Lord Brocklehurst.

At the stagecoach stop in Wollaston he discovered that Fleur had taken a ticket to a market town in Wiltshire—probably not far from Heron House, he guessed. At least she had not gone to London.

But in all the guesses he had made over the past few hours, he had clung most firmly to the conviction that it would be to Heron House that she would have gone. If he had found no trace of her he would have gambled on going there. She had fled once—with terrible consequences. She would not do so again. Not Fleur. He believed that he was beginning to understand her quite well.

The foolish woman.

Did she still trust him so little? Did she still believe that his intention was to make her his mistress? Did she not realize what superhuman control he had had to impose on himself that night in the library to send her to bed alone? When he had wanted her so badly and when he had known that she would have been easily seducible?

He could have had her that night. He could have had that memory.

He turned his attention to the rain and mist and clouds beyond the window. Before the carriage traveled even one mile farther, he must be clear in his mind about why he was making
this journey. He was doing so in order to inform an innocent young woman that she could stop living with nightmares, that she was free. He was going in order to arrange some interim future for her until she came into her fortune and could live independently.

He was going because she was, or had been, his employee, his dependent, and he cared for all his servants.

He was not going because he loved her.

Although he did.

“W
HERE HAVE YOU BEEN
? We have been so very worried about you. But how wonderful to see you again.” Miriam Booth set her hands on her friend’s shoulders and stood back from her.

Fleur laughed shakily and drew a handkerchief from a pocket to blow her nose. “I was frightened and foolish,” she said. “But it feels good to be back.”

She glanced across the room to the silent figure of the Reverend Daniel Booth.

“Why did you not come to me, Isabella?” he asked.

“I was frightened,” she said. “I had killed Hobson.”

“But it was an accident, surely,” he said. “You did not mean to kill him, did you?”

“Of course she did not mean to kill him,” Miriam said, putting a protective arm about her taller friend’s shoulders. “That was always the most ridiculous idea I have ever heard. It was an accident. They were trying to stop you from coming to stay with me, weren’t they, Isabella?”

“Yes,” Fleur said. She closed her eyes briefly and opened them to look at the Reverend Booth.

“But by fleeing, you made yourself look guilty of murder,” he said. “I wish you had come to me.”