The Secret Pearl

by Mary Balogh

  “Just a few people,” she said. “It was so dull here with you gone.”

  “You know that you could have come with me,” he said. “I asked you. I would have taken you and Pamela both. We could have shown her London.”

  “But you know you would have been playing jealous husband as soon as I smiled at another gentleman,” she said. “You always do, Adam. You hate to see me enjoy myself. Have you come home to spoil things for me again? Will you be scowling at all my guests?”

  “Will I need to?” he asked.

  “You are horrid to me,” she said, her large blue eyes filling with tears. “Did you know about the ball?”

  “Ball?” he said.

  “I have arranged it for the night after everyone arrives,” she said. “And I have invited everyone, Adam. You need not fear that anyone will feel slighted.”

  “You planned a ball without me here?” he asked. “Would that not have struck our neighbors as strange, Sybil?”

  “Can I help it if you take yourself off to London at every opportunity in search of pleasure?” she said. “I would imagine everyone would sympathize with me. It is to be an outdoor ball. An orchestra has been hired to play in the pavilion. A dance floor is to be laid on the west side of the lake—in the usual place. And the lanterns have been arranged for and the refreshments. I hope it does not rain.”

  “This is all to take place in four days’ time?” he said. “I am so glad you thought to mention it to me today, Sybil. I hate surprises.”

  “And I hate that tone of sarcasm,” she said. “You used not to use it with me. You used to be kind to me. You used to love me.” She started to cough, and drew a handkerchief from beside her.

  “It is so hot in here,” she said fretfully. “I think I ought to rest now. The doctor told me to rest more. You will be anxious to leave me and go about your own business anyway.”

  “Let me help you to your bed,” he said, bending toward her. “I would have brought a physician with me from town if I had known you were still unwell. Obviously Hartley is not doing you much good.”

  “You never wrote to ask after my health,” she said. “I shall be quite happy to rest here, thank you, Adam.”

  Don’t touch me. She had not said the words, but her actions had said them for her. The slight shrinking from his outstretched hands. The refusal to be helped. The turning of her cheek for his kiss of greeting. The duke’s jaw tightened as he stood outside her door a few moments later. The old familiar words, sometimes spoken, sometimes merely implied.

  Would Pamela still be at her lessons? he wondered. Or in the nursery? He would go and see. He had missed her.

  FLEUR WAS READING A STORY TO LADY PAMELA, although she knew that the child was not listening. She had seen her father arrive more than an hour before from the nursery window, where she had been with Mrs. Clement. But her nurse had not allowed her to rush downstairs to greet him and had sent her to the schoolroom soon after.

  The child was torn between an impatient eagerness for him to come and a stubborn insistence that she did not care, that she did not wish to see him anyway.

  Sullen and petulant as her charge was much of the time, sometimes Fleur ached to take her into her arms, to hold her close, to assure her that she was loved, that she mattered, that she was not forgotten.

  She knew what it was like. Oh, she knew, though she had not known at so young an age. And by the time it had happened she had been old enough to know that her parents were in no way to blame. She had always been able to comfort herself with the knowledge that they had loved her totally, that she had meant all the world to them.

  Perhaps Lady Pamela’s case was worse than hers after all. Her mother rarely visited her, though she showered her with love and endearments when she did. Her father had been away for many weeks.

  But he did come at last. They heard a firm masculine tread in the corridor outside the schoolroom and a deep voice talking to Mrs. Clement. And Fleur breathed a sigh of relief for Lady Pamela, whose face brightened into that rare expression of pretty eagerness as her governess got quietly to her feet to cross the room and put the book away in order to leave father and daughter some privacy.

  The door opened and she heard a childish shriek. She smiled and arranged the book carefully on its shelf with the others. She was nervous, if the truth were known. The Duke of Ridgeway! She had always thought of him as a very grand personage indeed.

  “Papa, Papa!” Lady Pamela shrieked. “I have made you a picture, and I lost a tooth—see? What did you bring me?”

  There was a deep masculine laugh, the sound of a smacking kiss.

  “Cupboard love,” his voice said. “I thought it was me you were happy to see, Pamela. What makes you think I have brought you anything?”

  “What did you bring?” The child’s voice was still a shriek.

  “Later,” he said. “You look lopsided without your tooth. Are you going to get a big one instead of it?”

  “How much later?” she asked.

  The Duke of Ridgeway laughed again.

  Fleur turned, feeling foolish at her own nervousness. She was the daughter of a baron. She had lived in a baron’s home, at Heron House, for most of her life. There was no reason to be awed by a duke. She held herself straight, folded her hands in front of her in what she hoped would look like a relaxed attitude, and raised her eyes.

  He had his daughter up in his arms and was laughing as she hugged him tightly about the neck. The scarred half of his face was turned to Fleur.

  She felt suddenly as if she were in a tunnel, a long and dark tunnel through which a cold wind rushed. She could hear the hum of it, though there was surely not air enough to breathe.

  His eyes met hers across the room, and the coldness rushed into her nostrils and up into her head. The sound of the wind became a thick buzzing. Her hands felt cold and clammy and a million miles away from her head.

  “Miss Hamilton?” The Duke of Ridgeway set his daughter down on the floor and took a few steps toward Fleur. He made her a slight bow. “Welcome to Willoughby Hall, ma’am.”

  She knew that if she could just breathe deeply and evenly for long enough, her vision would return and blood would flow to her head again. She thought only of her breathing. In. Out. Don’t rush it. Don’t fight it.

  “I trust you have found everything to your satisfaction here,” he said, indicating the schoolroom about them.

  Breathe slowly. No, don’t give in to panic. Don’t faint. Don’t faint!

  “Papa.” Lady Pamela was tugging at the leg of his pantaloons. “What did you bring me?”

  Those intense dark eyes turned from her to look down at his daughter. He smiled, but the side of his mouth that Fleur could see, the scarred side, did not lift.

  She felt a black terror, which had her gasping for air for a moment before she imposed control over her breathing again.

  “We had better go down and see,” he said, “or I am not going to have any peace, am I? Sidney grumbled about it all the way from London. I only hope you like it.”

  He held out a hand for his daughter’s—a hand with long, well-manicured fingers.

  Slowly. In. Out.

  “Sidney is silly,” was Lady Pamela’s opinion.

  “I shudder to think what Sidney would say if he were ever to hear you say that,” he said.

  “Sidney is silly, Sidney is silly,” she chanted, giggling and taking his hand.

  Those dark eyes were on her again, Fleur could feel, though she kept her own resolutely on Lady Pamela.

  “Miss Hamilton will come down with us,” he said, “and bring you back again before Nanny can send out a search party.”

  Fleur walked through the door ahead of him and along the corridor beside him to one of the twin staircases that flanked the great hall.

  “Ma’am?” he said at the head of the stairs, extending his free arm to her.

  But she heard an inarticulate sound come from her throat, and she shrank farther away from him so that her dress b
rushed against the wall as they descended. He turned to listen to Lady Pamela’s chatter.

  Fleur listened to the echo of their footsteps as they crossed the great hall, noted the smart way a footman sprang forward to open the double doors for them, felt fresh air and sunshine against her face, counted the marble steps as they descended them, and felt beneath her feet the cobbles of the winding avenue that led to the stable block.

  She concentrated hard on immediate physical sensation. It was by far the best way to occupy her thoughts.

  “Where are we going? What is it?” Lady Pamela tripped along at her father’s side, still clinging to his hand.

  “You will see soon enough,” he said. “Poor Sidney.”

  “Silly Sidney,” she said.

  It was a puppy, a round, snub-nosed little Border collie with white fur about its nose and in a lopsided stripe over its head and about its neck. Two feet and its stomach were white. The rest was black.

  It was protesting the fact that it had been placed in a makeshift pen with a pile of straw that it tripped on as it tried to walk. It was crying a loud protest, a demand for its mother.

  “Ohhh!” Lady Pamela withdrew her hand from her father’s and stood staring speechlessly until she went down on her knees beside the pen and lifted the little bundle into her arms. The puppy stopped its crying immediately and licked at her face so that she wrinkled her nose and turned aside, giggling.

  “Sidney traveled from London with a clean face and nipped fingers,” his grace said. “And frequently with wet breeches.”

  “Oh.” Lady Pamela gazed in awe at her present. “He is mine, Papa? All mine?”

  “Sidney certainly does not want it,” her father said.

  “I am going to take him to my room,” she said. “I am going to sleep with him.”

  “He is a she,” the duke said. “And your mother and Nanny might have something to say about a house pet.”

  But Lady Pamela was not listening. She was playing with her puppy and laughing as it caught at her fingers with its sharp little teeth.

  Fleur kept her eyes on the child and the puppy, her shoulders back, her chin high, her hands clasped together as she felt him turn to her and his eyes pass over her.

  “You did not suspect?” he asked her quietly.

  She could not move. If she moved a muscle, she would come all to pieces.

  “You did not suspect,” he said, and knelt down beside his daughter.

  It was arranged that the puppy would stay in the stables until it had been house-trained. Pamela could visit whenever she wanted as long as doing so did not interrupt either her lessons or her rest. After that she would be able to take her pet into the house, provided it was never allowed to stray down onto the piano nobile to give her mother a fit of the vapors or to send Sidney into a roaring rage.

  The duke remained in the stables as Fleur took his daughter by the hand and led her back to the house, chattering without pause. The puppy was the sweetest little thing. The Chamberlain children were going to be ever so envious when they saw him—her. She was going to train it to sit up and beg and to walk at her heels. Wasn’t her papa the most wonderful papa in the whole wide world?

  Fleur took the child back the way they had come, up the steps, across the great hall, through the archway and up the stairs, along the corridor to the nursery, where Mrs. Clement was waiting. Lady Pamela’s chatter increased in speed and volume for the benefit of her new audience.

  “Classes are at an end for today, Miss Hamilton,” the nurse said dismissively.

  Fleur walked to her room without hesitation, closed the door behind her, and leaned back against it, her eyes closed, as if by doing so she could keep out the world.

  And then she went rushing across the room to the closet, where she leaned over the closestool and retched and retched until her stomach was sore from dry heaves.

  “HIS GRACE THE DOOK has left London,” Mr. Snedburg reported to Lord Brocklehurst on a sweltering hot day in May. His face bore a distinct resemblance to a lobster. “Taking his secretary, Mr. Houghton, with him. That seems to settle the matter. He was the very man who hired Miss Fleur Hamilton, sir.”

  “It must be her and that must be her destination,” his client said, watching with frowning disapproval as the Runner mopped at his face with a large handkerchief. “What excuse can I find for going there? You have not discovered the whereabouts of Lord Thomas Kent by any chance, have you?”

  “I have not yet turned my inquiries his way,” Mr. Snedburg said. “I can do so, but is it necessary, sir? If the young lady is wanted for murder, I can go down there posthaste with your say-so as a justice of the peace and a warrant for her arrest and haul her back. She will not escape from me, you may be sure. You can have her head in a noose and her feet swinging on air in no time at all, sir.”

  Lord Brocklehurst shuddered slightly. “Find Lord Thomas Kent for me,” he said, “or find me a way of appearing at that house without seeming to be a complete imbecile, and your job will be at an end. I’ll do the bringing back.”

  “Then all you need to do, sir, is go down there and fetch her,” Mr. Snedburg said, wiping the back of his neck and eyeing the decanters on the sideboard with a decidedly wistful air. “You don’t need no excooses when the dook’s governess is a murderer and a jewel thief.”

  “Thank you.” Lord Brocklehurst fixed the Runner with a cold eye. “I shall do this in my own way. Bring me the information I want and I will settle with you.”

  “There is to be a party at Willoughby Hall,” the Runner said, “by all accounts, sir. I shall get you a list of the guests and which of them are in London and have not left yet.”

  “As soon as possible, if you please,” Lord Brocklehurst said, brightening. He rose dismissively.

  “You may depend upon it, sir,” Mr. Snedburg said. “And if Lord Thomas is in England, I shall ferret him out.”

  Lord Brocklehurst crossed the room to pour himself a drink when he was alone again, and stood with the decanter in his hands, staring frowningly at it.

  She had to be Isabella. But working as governess to the Duke of Ridgeway? And hired by his secretary, who had sat at that agency for four days waiting just for her?

  What the devil was going on? If Ridgeway or anyone else had laid a hand on her … His hand tightened on the decanter.

  He was going to find her. She was going to see things his way if it was the last thing he ever accomplished. Now, of course, she would have little choice but to view things as he did. Not that he had ever wanted to threaten her. He had never thought it would be necessary.

  Foolish woman. He had always been amazed by her stubbornness. He had not been able to understand her reasoning. Of course, women in love were never reasonable. And she had fancied herself in love with that milksop Daniel Booth. Though what Isabella had seen in a clergyman who was still only a curate, it was impossible to say. Long limbs, blond curls, and blue eyes—he supposed they must be enough for a woman who did not know what was good for her.

  He closed his eyes and thought of Isabella’s sunset-gold hair, felt his fingers twined in its silkiness, smelled its fragrance.

  Damnation, but he had her where he wanted her now, and she would be made to see it. If he had to start threatening, then he would do so. A dangling noose did not make a comfortable mental image. He would make it up to her later.

  IT ANGERED THE DUKE of Ridgeway, standing on the upper terrace outside his house early on the morning after his arrival and looking out over the park that was almost everything of home to him, to know that it was all to be invaded in two days’ time.

  He loved to entertain at Willoughby. He loved to host concerts and grand balls when possible and to entertain his neighbors to dinner and cards or conversation. He even enjoyed having the occasional overnight guest. But he hated having a houseful of people who looked for nothing but gay and mindless entertainment—Sybil’s type of people. And he had seen the guest list. This occasion was to be no exception to the general
rule.

  He loved the peace and quiet of his home almost more than anything else in his life. And that was to be shattered for goodness knew how long. Sybil’s guests never knew quite when to leave once they had come.

  He strolled across the terrace and along the side of the house to the lawns at the back and the kitchen garden and greenhouses.

  What he would not give for his freedom, he thought in an unguarded moment, and immediately had a mental image of Pamela and her excitement over her dog, which she had insisted on calling Tiny, though he had explained to her that the puppy would grow. And he thought of her sleepy face and tumbled hair when he had gone to her the night before, not realizing that she would be in bed already. He thought of her warm clinging arms and her wet kiss and her question.

  “You won’t go away again, Papa?”

  “I will be here for a good long while,” he had assured her.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise,” he had said, hugging the slight little body and kissing her. “Go to sleep now. I will see you tomorrow.”

  No. A child had a right to a secure home and two parents even if they were not model parents by any stretch of the imagination. He had been wrong to leave her for so long merely for the sake of his own peace of mind.

  He drew to a halt. There was a woman strolling past the massive flowerbeds, where the house flowers were grown.

  She was not quite as he remembered her. In fact, when he had looked at her the afternoon before, his first impression had been that Houghton had made a mistake and engaged the wrong woman. But it was she, of course. He had seen that on a closer look.

  Whenever he had thought of her in the past weeks, he had pictured her as thin and pale, not at all pretty, only marginally attractive. There had been those long, slim legs, of course, and the shapely hips and firm, high breasts. But a basically unattractive woman—a gentlewoman down on her luck, he had guessed, someone he had felt obliged to help for some unknown reason.

  He had helped her.

  She was not as he remembered her. She had put on enough weight that her figure was now alluring even through the barrier of her clothes. Her face had color and a healthy glow. It was no longer shadowed and haggard. And her hair, which he had remembered as a dull, tired red, now glowed fire-golden.