by Mary Balogh
He looked somewhat different from all the other gentlemen, dressed in black evening clothes and snowy white linen that sparkled in the lantern light. And of course his height and his coloring emphasized the darkness that was him.
He looked quite splendid, Fleur supposed, if one saw only the right side of his face and not the terrifying scar of the left side. Though why a scar acquired in battle when fighting for one’s country should terrify her, she did not know. Perhaps even with the disfigurement he would look splendid to someone who had not watched him walk into the shadows of the Drury Lane Theater, tall and dark and menacing in his evening cloak and hat, to ask if she was looking for a night’s employment.
She tried not to cling too tightly to Mr. Chamberlain’s arm. She tried to keep her smile intact.
“Mrs. Kendall,” Mr. Chamberlain said, “have you met Miss Hamilton, Adam’s governess? Or Lady Pamela’s governess, I suppose I should say.”
Fleur smiled at Mrs. Kendall as the introductions were made.
“A splendid evening, Adam,” Mr. Chamberlain said. “I don’t know when one of the Willoughby balls has been better. Ah, a waltz. Ma’am?” He bowed and held out a hand for Mrs. Kendall’s.
They were gone almost before Fleur’s mind could register dismay.
“Miss Hamilton?” The duke’s dark eyes were glittering down into hers, she saw when she looked up at him. “Would you care to waltz?”
She stared at him, at his hand outstretched for hers, long-fingered, beautiful. And the nightmare was back. Not even this night was to be hers.
She watched as his hand closed upon itself.
“Let’s take a stroll instead,” he said quietly, and he clasped his hands at his back, turned onto the path that followed the shore of the lake, and waited for her to fall into step beside him.
“You have been enjoying the evening?” he asked. He was following the south shore, the one less frequented, more heavily wooded than the other, though a string of lanterns extended its entire length.
“Yes, thank you, your grace,” she said.
“Willoughby has always been famous for its grand entertainments,” he said. “And I have always been proud of that reputation. When one has been granted the privilege of inheriting all this, it seems only right to share it with others to some small degree, does it not?”
No one else was walking on this particular path. The wider paths and more open lawns on the north and west sides were crowded with guests. Fleur felt far more terrified than she had felt when walking beside him away from the Drury Lane Theater. Then she had not been terrified at all, only resigned to what must be.
“You dance well,” he said. “I have watched you a few times. You have had practice?”
“A little, your grace,” she said.
“But you have never been to London for a Season, have you?” he said. “I have never seen you there.”
Only on one occasion, Fleur thought, when she had very obviously not been a part of the social whirl of the Season.
“No, your grace,” she said.
She was aware of his eyes on her as they walked, and she had to concentrate every effort of will on setting one foot before the other. If she was forced to scream, would she be heard? The sounds of merriment coming from the dancing area and the refreshment tables were loud across the water.
“Where did you learn to dance?” he asked.
“At school,” she said. “We had a French dancing master. The girls used to laugh at him because he liked to wave his arms about, a handkerchief always in one hand. And he was more dainty on his feet than any of us.” She smiled at the memories. “But he could dance! I have always loved to dance. I have always loved to express music, whether with my fingers on a keyboard or with my feet on a dance floor.”
“You do both well,” he said.
“Sometimes …” She was looking across the water to the back of the pavilion and to the shimmering reflections of hundreds of lanterns. “Sometimes I think that without music, life would have no sweetness or beauty at all.”
The waltz music coming from the pavilion was part of the night and the beauty and the hope. She had forgotten her fear, forgotten her companion for the moment.
“Let’s dance here,” he said quietly, and she was brought jolting back to reality as she spun to face him. He had stopped walking. His left hand was extended to take hers. His face was in darkness, the row of lanterns behind him.
Her right arm felt like a leaden weight as she lifted it and placed her hand in his. She swallowed as she watched and felt his fingers close about it and she felt her heart thump painfully against her ribs and her eardrums. He set his other hand behind her waist, firm and warm. She lifted her left hand to his shoulder, broad and firmly muscled as she remembered it.
She closed her eyes as they danced, slowly at first. And she felt the rhythm of the music and gave herself up to it. The man she danced with led well. He was one with the music and took her into the flow of it and whirled her about, his hand firm at her waist so that at one moment the tips of her breasts brushed against his coat. She would not remember until it was over with whom she danced, who had become a part of the music with her.
But they had walked for several minutes before dancing. There was not a great deal of the music left. It ended finally and far too soon.
“You have music in your very soul, I believe, Fleur Hamilton,” a deep and quiet voice said.
And she was aware again of the hand clasping her own and the other spread at her back. She was aware again of the broad shoulder beneath her other hand and of the warmth and smell of him. She opened her eyes and took a step backward, dropping her arms to her sides.
“It is quicker to go back than to walk all about the lake,” he said. “Shall we return? Are you hungry?”
“No,” she said. “Thank you, your grace.”
“I understand that you took Pamela to visit the Chamberlains,” he said. “That was kind of you. She sees so little of other children.”
“I believe she enjoyed the outing, your grace,” she said.
“I’m sure she did,” he said. “You have danced with Chamberlain a number of times tonight. I believe he is taken with you.”
Fleur turned icy cold. But he did not need to warn her. She was quite capable of doing that for herself.
“He has been kind,” she said, “as have several other gentlemen, your grace.”
“Kind,” he said. “Yes. Miss Chamberlain is at the punch bowl, I see. Would you care to join her?”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”
A minute later, when she stood beside Emily Chamberlain and the duke had wandered away, she found herself forced to smile at the footman behind the punch bowl and assure him that she was not thirsty, though indeed she was. Her hands, she feared, were shaking too badly to reach out for a glass.
“Is it not a glorious evening, Miss Hamilton?” her companion said. “I am so glad that the weather has held for the occasion.”
THE DUKE OF RIDGEWAY HAD MADE SOMETHING of a habit since his return home of spending part of his mornings in the schoolroom, quietly observing the lessons there. Very often he would take Pamela afterward to the stables to play with her puppy before luncheon. Fleur had forced herself to accept the situation.
There were no classes the morning after the ball, Lady Pamela having had a late night. In the afternoon, Fleur took the child along the upper corridor before going into the schoolroom, showing her the paintings, pointing out a few important details. On the whole, though, she just hoped that Lady Pamela would absorb the beauty and perfection of the paintings without being burdened with too much technical detail, and want to try harder at her own. She had an eye for form and color, though a natural impatience of temperament always made her rush too much when she painted.
The duke appeared at the top of the staircase and walked toward them before they were finished. Fleur sighed inwardly. She had hoped to avoid seeing him at all that day—her grace and most of the guests,
she knew, had gone outside strolling in the park. She hated to remember her encounter with him the night before—her terror as she walked with him along the deserted path, her feeling of nausea when she had been forced to touch him and allow him to touch her, the strange and unexpected magic of waltzing with him on the path, her eyes tightly closed, shutting out the knowledge that it was with him she danced.
Try as she would all through the night, it had been that dance she had remembered of all the magical moments of the evening—until she had drifted off to sleep and he had been bending over her and hurting her and telling her that she did it because she enjoyed it.
Lady Pamela smiled and took his hand and lifted her face for his kiss.
“Timothy Chamberlain’s birthday is next week, Papa,” she said. “I have been invited, with Miss Hamilton. A letter came this morning. Will Mama let me go? Will you come too?”
“That sounds like a rare treat,” he said, as Fleur turned away and entered the schoolroom. “I am not sure I’ll be able to come, Pamela, as we have guests here to entertain. I’ll see what I can do.”
He sat quietly through the afternoon lessons until Fleur dismissed Lady Pamela early.
The duke stood up. “You are going to Nanny in the nursery?” he asked.
“She is going to wash my hair,” the child said, pulling a face. “I would rather visit Tiny with you, Papa.”
“We already did so just before luncheon,” he said. “If Nanny says your hair needs washing, I don’t doubt that it does. Off you go.”
She went, dragging her feet.
Fleur busied herself putting books away and tidying them on the shelf. She had thought that he would go with his daughter, as he usually did.
“The paintings upstairs are limited in number and scope,” he said. “You should show Pamela the paintings downstairs if you believe she is interested.”
Fleur said nothing.
“Have you seen the long gallery?” he asked.
“Yes, with Mrs. Laycock, your grace,” she said.
“Ah, with Mrs. Laycock,” he said. “She is always the first to admit that she is not very knowledgeable about the works of art at Willoughby. Her talents run to more practical matters. The portraits in the gallery would give you material for a whole series of history lessons. And a child is never too young to learn about her family. Are you free?”
Fleur could only turn from the bookshelf, which she could no longer pretend was still untidy.
“We will go there now,” he said. “I shall introduce you to my ancestors.”
She walked beside him in silence along the corridor, down the stairs, and through the great hall, past immobile footmen, except for the one who sprang forward at his nod, and through the doors into the long wing that was the gallery. It was flooded with afternoon sunlight.
“I love this room,” he said, pausing just beyond the doorway. “Even if there were not a single canvas here, I think I would love it.”
She followed his glance up to the ceiling with its intricately carved circles of plasterwork leaves and fruit.
“It is a good room to use during persistently rainy weather,” he said. “One can get at least some exercise promenading here. We used to spend hours in here as children, my brother and I. I believe there are still skipping ropes and spinning tops and games of spillikins and checkers in the lower cupboards. My wife and Nanny have always preferred to keep Pamela on the upper floor. Perhaps you will enjoy bringing her here occasionally.”
They walked to the far end of the gallery, and he spent the whole of the next hour describing the paintings, naming their painters, and giving her some history of each painted ancestor. He spoke with knowledge and pride and some humor.
“There is something,” he said, “some warmth, some security, perhaps, in knowing that one is descended from such a line. There is something about being able to call oneself the eighth duke instead of the first. My nose was in existence even with the fourth duke, you see? So I certainly cannot blame my mother.”
But the fourth duke wore a long and curling wig.
His grace was looking at her. She could feel his eyes on her and she had to will herself through careful and steady breathing not to stiffen.
“What about your family?” he asked. “Does it have a long history?”
Her parents. Her grandparents, whom she had never known. A few old portraits at Heron House, whom no one seemed able to identify with any certainty. She had grown up with a sense of rootlessness, with a hunger for knowing. Surely, she had thought, if only Mama and Papa had realized how early they would leave her, they would have taught her young, told her something about themselves, about their childhood, about their own parents and grandparents. Or perhaps they had but she had been too young or too inattentive, not knowing that the time would come when she would be hungry for such knowledge.
“Where are you from?” he asked quietly. “Who was your father? Who are you?”
“Fleur Hamilton,” she said, wishing they would move on to the next portrait. But Hamilton had been her grandmother’s name, had it not? How did she know that? Someone must have told her once upon a time. “Your daughter’s governess, your grace.” And once your whore, of course.
“Did you have an unhappy childhood?” he asked, his eyes still on her. “Was your father unkind to you?”
“No!” Her eyes blazed at him for a moment. “I was very happy until they died when I was eight.”
“Your mother and father together?”
“Yes.” And she bit her lip. She had never been a good liar. Her father was supposed to have died in debt quite recently.
They moved on finally and he resumed his description of the portraits. She had scarcely noticed his own at the end of the line when she was with Mrs. Laycock. Perhaps the housekeeper had been talking of something else at the time.
Would she have known him even then, before his return, if she had looked closely enough? Would she have had prior warning? She looked closely now. A slim young man, very young, dressed in riding clothes, a riding crop in one hand, a spaniel at his side. A young and handsome and carefree man with proud, uplifted head and an unmarred face.
No, she would not have known.
For some reason that she could not begin to explain to herself, she felt like crying.
“My pre-Waterloo days,” he said. “When I thought the world my oyster with a priceless pearl within. I suppose we all believe that when we are very young. Did you?”
“No,” she said. And yet there had been Daniel and her love for him and his for her and the prospect of an endless future in which she would be wanted, in which she would feel needed. “Oh, perhaps once, a long time ago.” Was it only a few months? Not a lifetime ago?
“You had a late night and have had a busy afternoon,” he said abruptly. “You will want to return to your room to rest for a while.”
He opened the door and allowed her to precede him into the great hall. But they arrived there at the exact moment when the front doors were being opened to admit a large number of the guests returning from their walk.
Fleur would have stepped back into the gallery, but his grace was in the doorway directly behind her.
“Ah, Ridgeway,” the voice of Sir Philip Shaw said, “and the delectable Miss Hamilton.”
“Ridgeway, you dark horse,” a jovial, florid-faced gentleman said. “While the rest of us have been baking in the sun, you have been entertaining the governess indoors, where it is cool.”
“Sometimes,” Sir Hector Chesterton said, “I almost wish I had some daughters of my own.”
“May I present Miss Fleur Hamilton to those of you who did not make her acquaintance last evening?” his grace said, a hand at the small of her back. “Miss Hamilton is Pamela’s governess.”
“You are dismissed, Miss Hamilton. Tea in the saloon immediately, Jarvis.” The light, sweet voice was that of the duchess.
Fleur turned and fled without more ado and half-ran up the stairs and along the corridor to
her room. How unspeakably embarrassing!
She stood at her open window, enjoying the breeze, unwilling to lie down despite her tiredness. Sleep would only bring the nightmares again.
Once he had been young and handsome and carefree. Once he had thought the world to be his oyster, life a priceless pearl. In his pre-Waterloo days, as he had described them. And yet he had spoken sadly, as if those dreams had proved to be empty, worthless ones. What could possibly make the Duke of Ridgeway less than satisfied with life? she wondered. He had everything.
She still felt like crying, she realized suddenly. Her throat and her chest were aching with a nameless something that made her feel indescribably sad.
“CONFOUND IT,” THE DUKE of Ridgeway said, “I am not going to a royal banquet, Sidney.”
“I’ll be finished in a twinkling if you will just keep your chin from clacking,” his valet said, putting the finishing touches to the folds of his master’s neckcloth. “You do have guests for dinner, after all, sir.”
“Damn your impudence,” his grace said. “Are you finished now?”
“And thankful to be, sir,” Sidney said. “I’ll take myself far away from your temper as soon as I have tidied up in here.”
“You wouldn’t have to be anywhere near it at all,” the duke said sharply, “if that shell had just bounced three inches closer to you at Waterloo.”
“That I wouldn’t, sir,” his valet agreed, turning away to tidy scattered garments and brushes. “But then, neither would you have had to dress for your guests if your shell had bounced half an inch closer to you.”
Sidney wisely ignored his master’s retort. His sensibilities had grown immune to far worse blasphemies and obscenities during his years with the British army.
His grace gazed irritably at his reflection and at the skillfully knotted neckcloth that he was about to display for the admiration of his wife’s guests. He hated to be a dandy at any time and in any place. But in his own home! And for two nights in a row. Last night’s ball had been enough formality to last him a month.
He had neglected the guests during the day. Most of them had not been up before noon, and he had made an excuse about business keeping him at home during the afternoon rather than join them on their walk. Confound it, he had a right to some privacy.