The Secret Pearl

by Mary Balogh

  “No,” she said. “I did not think you would be persuaded to speak plainly. But I understand you very well for all that. I have, after all, known you for much of my life. I am to live with a threat hanging over my head. You will dangle me like a puppet on a string.”

  “You have heard, I suppose,” he said, “that the Reverend Booth was, ah, disappointed in you? I believe it is the elder Miss Hailsham who is currently the fortunate recipient of his smiles.”

  Daniel! Fleur lifted her chin.

  “When we leave eventually, Isabella,” he said, “I think it would be as well to do so without airing our dirty linen, so to speak, before the duke and duchess, wouldn’t you agree? And I am quite sure that you would not wish to cause his grace unnecessary disappointment when you leave by raising false hopes in the intervening weeks, would you? You will, of course, be coming home, where you belong.”

  “Don’t worry, Matthew,” she said, “there is no affair to put an end to.”

  He smiled. “He makes a habit of strolling the back lawns in the early morning, then?” he said.

  Fleur turned her head sharply to find that indeed his grace was walking toward them.

  “Good morning,” Lord Brocklehurst called. “I find that your park has as magnificent prospects at the back of the house as before it.”

  His grace was carrying a cloak over one arm. He shook it out and set it about Fleur’s shoulders without a word to her.

  “My grandfather hired the best of landscape gardeners,” he said. “I trust you had a good sleep, Brocklehurst?”

  “Indeed, yes, I thank you,” the other said. “And as you must have guessed, your grace, my feeling of last evening was quite correct. Miss Hamilton and I have a slight acquaintance and have been inquiring into the health of each other’s relatives.”

  “Miss Hamilton,” his grace said, turning to her, “I will be giving Pamela her first riding lesson this morning directly after breakfast. You will bring her to the stables, if you please. You are dismissed for now.”

  “Yes, your grace.” She curtsied without looking at either him or Matthew and turned to hurry back to the house.

  There was to be some reprieve, then. It was not to be quite as bad as she had feared all night, and for two months before that. He was prepared to give her her freedom in exchange for what he had wanted for three years past. Except that in the past she had been able to treat his attentions with scorn. Now he must feel that he had a hold on her.

  And who was she to say he did not? It was all very well now, in the relief of knowing that it was not to be today, to tell herself that she would throw his offer in his face when he told her finally that it was time for them to leave. It was well now to imagine herself telling him, her head thrown back, contempt in her eyes, that she would take the noose rather than him.

  But would she when the time came?

  And it was quite like Matthew, of course. It amazed her that she had not thought of it as a possibility before. He had wanted her badly enough. Was it likely that he would give her up to the gallows any more willingly than he would have given her up to Daniel?

  Of course. She was foolish not to have thought of it.

  She unbuttoned the cloak absently as she climbed the stairs inside the house. And then she looked down at it with awareness. It was her own cloak. It had been hanging in her wardrobe.

  He must have sent a maid upstairs for it. He had brought it out to her and wrapped it about her shoulders.

  And he had ordered her to bring Lady Pamela out to the stables to him after breakfast.

  There was to be another day, then. Not chains and a long carriage ride and a dark prison cell at the end of it. Not yet, anyway.

  Her step lightened and quickened. There was to be another day.

  IT WAS STILL TOO EARLY for breakfast when the Duke of Ridgeway came inside with Lord Brocklehurst. There was still time to accomplish one more thing before eating and going back outside with Pamela.

  He sent a servant to summon Lord Thomas Kent to the library if he was up. He must talk to his brother. Somehow, he could not take the coward’s way out and just say nothing.

  He thought grimly of the night before. Unable to sleep himself, he had done something he rarely did. He had gone into his wife’s room very late. He had half-expected to find the room empty and the bed unslept in.

  But she had been both there and awake. And feverish and coughing. She had watched him listlessly as he approached the bed.

  “You are not well?” he had asked, touching his fingers to her cheek and finding it dry and burning. He brought her a cool cloth from the washstand, folded it, and laid it over her forehead.

  “It is nothing,” she had said, turning her face from him.

  He had stood looking down at her for a long silent moment. “Sybil,” he had asked quietly, “shall I send him away? Will it be less painful for you if he is gone?”

  Her eyes had been open. She had been staring away from him. And he had watched one tear roll diagonally across her cheek and nose and drip onto the sheet. “No,” she had said.

  Nothing more. Just the one word. He had turned away after a while and left the room.

  Her maid had reported to him that morning that her grace had recovered from her fever.

  He fully expected that after a journey of a few days his brother would be still asleep. But he came wandering into the library fifteen minutes after being summoned, his customary half-smile on his lips.

  “This brings back memories,” he said, looking about him. “Many was the time we were summoned here, Adam, for a thrashing.” He laughed. “I more than you, I must confess. Is that why I have been summoned here this morning?”

  “Why did you return?” the duke asked.

  “The fatted calf is supposed to be killed for the prodigal’s return,” Lord Thomas said with a laugh. “You have not learned your Bible lessons well enough, Adam.”

  “Why did you return?”

  Lord Thomas shrugged. “It is home, I suppose,” he said. “When I was in India, England was home. And when I returned to England, then Willoughby was home—even if I am not welcome here. Sometimes it is not a good thing to be just a half-brother.”

  “You know that has nothing to do with anything,” his grace said harshly. “We were scarcely aware of the half-relationship when we were growing up, Thomas. We were simply brothers.”

  “But at that time one of us was not duke and afraid the other might waste some of his vast substance,” the other said.

  “And you know that that was never my concern either,” the duke said. “I tried to persuade you to stay. I wanted you to stay. I wanted to share Willoughby with you. You belonged here. You were my brother. But when you insisted on leaving, then I told you you must not return. I meant ever.”

  “Ever is a long time,” Lord Thomas said, strolling to the fireplace and examining the mosaic lion on the overmantel. “It’s strange how I could not even picture this room clearly in my mind when I was in India. But it all comes back now. Nothing ever changes at Willoughby, does it?”

  “You couldn’t leave her in peace, could you?” the duke said.

  “In peace?” Lord Thomas turned around with a laugh. “You mean she has been in peace married to you for the past five and a half years? She does not appear to me like a woman living in wedded bliss, Adam. Haven’t you seen that? Are you still besotted with her?”

  “She had accepted the fact that you were gone,” the duke said, “that you would never return.”

  “Well.” His brother sank into a leather chair and draped a leg over one of its arms. “She does not seem unduly unhappy at my return, either, Adam. She is not as niggardly in her welcome as you are.”

  “And what is she to do when you leave again?” his brother asked.

  “Have I said anything about leaving?” Lord Thomas spread his hands. “Perhaps I will stay this time. Perhaps she will not have to do anything.”

  “It is too late for you to stay,” the duke said curtly.
“She is married to me.”

  “Yes.” Lord Thomas laughed. “She is, isn’t she? Poor Adam. Perhaps I will take her from you.”

  “No,” the duke said. “Never that. I doubt that would serve your purpose at all, Thomas. You will merely take her heart again. You will convince her again that you love her, that for you the sun rises and sets on her. And then, when you tire of the game, you will leave her. She will not guard her heart against such an ending because she will believe in you as she did before and as she has done ever since you left.”

  “I gather you must have played the gallant and taken all the blame.” Lord Thomas was laughing again. “She did not rain blows at my head as I half-expected her to do. You are a fool, Adam.”

  “I happened to love her most dearly,” his brother said quietly. “I would have given my life to save her from pain. I knew she could no longer love me—if she ever had—and so I allowed her to think me the villain. But perhaps she already thought that. I came back alive, after all, and spoiled everything.”

  “And you also married her,” Lord Thomas said. “You were rather fortunate, I suppose, that Pamela was not born with my mother’s red hair. You would have been the laughingstock. As it is, I suppose people only smile behind their hands to think that you came home like an impatient stallion to mount her in the hay without even pausing to change out of the clothes you traveled in or to remove your boots.”

  “Yes, I married her,” the duke said. “You would not, so I did. I do not believe I would have been able to see her live through the disgrace even if I had not still loved her at the time. But you did not even have honor enough to stay away. Perhaps I should have insisted that she listen to the truth. She would be better able to guard against you now.”

  “Well,” Lord Thomas said, jumping to his feet again, “you did not because you were ever the Sir Galahad, Adam. You would not have ridden off to war if you had not been. Perhaps I can put a son in your nursery before I leave again—if I leave. Perhaps he too will be fortunate enough not to have red hair. You seem somewhat incapable of begetting your own heirs. Or should I keep my eye on the governess’s waistline?”

  The duke took two steps forward, and Lord Thomas found himself standing on his toes, his neckcloth and shirtfront in a grasp tight enough to half-choke him.

  “I could have you thrown from my property,” his grace said. “There would be many who would call me fool and weakling for not doing so. But you are my brother and this is your home. And I have enough feeling left for Sybil that I would not snatch you from her before you can make some peace between the two of you. But remember one thing, Thomas. She is my wife and Pamela is my daughter, and I will defend what is mine from disgrace and unnecessary pain. And it would be as well for you to learn that my servants, including Pamela’s governess, are under my protection, and protect them I will in any manner I deem necessary.”

  His brother turned his head from side to side when he was released, to loosen his shirt collar, and brushed at his ruined neckcloth a little shakily.

  “I came here because I have been away from both Willoughby and England for more than five years,” he said. “I was homesick. You should remember what that is like, Adam. I thought you would have forgiven and forgotten. It seems that I was wrong. Perhaps I should take myself off without further delay.”

  His brother watched him with tight lips and keen eyes.

  Lord Thomas laughed. “But I forget,” he said. “I brought Bradshaw with me. It would be rag-mannered to drag him away again less than a day after our arrival, would it not? I shall stay for a short while.” He sketched his brother a careless bow and left the room.

  His grace sank into the chair behind the mahogany desk, rested his elbows on the arms, and steepled his fingers beneath his chin.

  He had known, of course, that talking to Thomas would do no good at all. But he had hoped that he could appeal to some sense of honor. Its absence had not been noticeable when they were boys. They had always been reasonably good friends despite a five-year age difference. And the selfish lack of responsibility that had always been their father’s complaint against his younger son could have been expected to disappear with the coming of adulthood and maturity. Anyway, it was too late now for his brother to simply turn and leave. Too late for Sybil. She had seen him again, and all the old wounds must be open and raw again.

  He was well aware that she had never stopped loving Thomas. She had never had any feelings for her husband or for the occasional lovers she had taken since their marriage. Thomas was the love of her life.

  He had not known it or even suspected it during those months when he had returned from Spain and fallen in love with her and become betrothed to her. She had seemed willing enough. More than that, she had seemed eager. She had told him she loved him. She had allowed him to kiss and fondle her.

  But he had been the Duke of Ridgeway and had had a reputation as something of a hero. And her parents had been ambitious for her. She had always been intended for him.

  He had not suspected, though she had told him later, on one of the many occasions when she had wanted to hurt him, that even then she had loved Thomas and for as far back as she could remember.

  He had known it only when he returned the year after Waterloo, when she had been betrothed to Thomas and horrified to see him. She would have married Thomas even though he was no longer the duke or owner of Willoughby. She had loved him totally.

  But Thomas, who would have married her as the Duke of Ridgeway, part of the trophies that he had unexpectedly inherited from his slain brother, no longer wished to do so when he was simply Lord Thomas Kent again.

  But he had not told her. He had become her lover and sworn undying love to her. He had impregnated her. And he had left her in a great hurry after she had told him.

  He had told his brother that he was going and his reason for doing so. He had not told Sybil.

  God help him, the duke thought, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against his steepled fingers, he had done everything in his power to persuade Thomas to stay. He had himself loved Sybil so dearly that he had been unable to bear the thought of her grief on being abandoned or of the predicament she would be in.

  But Thomas had left.

  When Sybil had called with her father two days later, he had told both of them only that Thomas had gone. He had given no reason. And when she had accused him of sending his brother away because there was no room for the two of them at Willoughby, he had only shaken his head and put up no other defense at all. He had felt so desperately sorry for her. And so she had come to believe her own suggestion.

  One week later he had called on Sybil and offered for her. He had repeated the call for three days until she accepted him—with ashen face and dead eyes.

  She had been three months with child when they married.

  And he had known even at the time that he had done things all wrongly, that he should have told her the full truth, made her listen, however painful it would have been to her. She was entitled to know the truth. And only the truth would have given their marriage any chance of success. But he had been too hopelessly in love with her at the time, too full of pity for her. He would have died rather than give her unnecessary pain.

  And now he had allowed Thomas to come back—into his home and into Sybil’s life.

  Was he insane?

  He pushed his chair back roughly from the desk and got to his feet. It must be breakfasttime. There were guests to entertain and a riding lesson to give and a day to be lived through.

  Sitting and brooding would accomplish nothing whatsoever.

  HIS GRACE WAS LOOKING TIGHT-LIPPED AND impatient, Fleur saw when she led a reluctant Lady Pamela to the stables after breakfast. He was standing with one booted foot on the lower rung of the paddock fence, a riding crop beating rhythmically against his leg. He was bareheaded and looked very dark and forbidding in his black riding coat.

  “Ah, there you are at last,” he said, lowering his foot to the ground.


  Fleur curtsied and released her hold on Lady Pamela’s hand. She turned back to the house.

  “May I ride with you on Hannibal, Papa?” the child asked.

  “Nonsense,” he said impatiently. “You will never learn to ride that way, Pamela. You are five years old. It’s high time you could ride alone. Where are you going, Miss Hamilton?”

  “To the house, your grace,” she said, turning back again. “Is there something else you wish me to do?”

  He was frowning. “Where is your riding habit?” he asked, eyeing her cloak and the pale green cotton dress beneath.

  “I don’t possess one, your grace,” she said.

  His lips thinned. “Boots?”

  “No, your grace.”

  “You will have to manage without, then,” he said. “Call at Houghton’s office tomorrow morning. He will have made arrangements to send you into Wollaston to be measured for a habit and boots.”

  There were two horses and a pony, all saddled, trotting around the paddock under a groom’s guidance, Fleur saw in a glance over his shoulder. She was to ride too? Suddenly the day of her temporary reprieve seemed like a very glorious new creation. Suddenly it seemed that the sun must have burst through the clouds.

  “Don’t tell me that you are afraid of horses too,” he said, his frown turned to a scowl.

  “No, your grace.” She could not repress her smile. She turned her face up to the clouds and felt that it must be bathed in sunlight. She would have twirled about if she had been alone. “No, I am not afraid of horses.”

  “I will ride with you, Miss Hamilton,” Lady Pamela announced.

  “You will ride alone,” her father said firmly. “That pony is too meek and mild to toss you even if it took it into its head to do something so startling. You will ride beside me and I will hold the leading rein. Miss Hamilton will ride at your other side. You will be as safe as you are in your own bed.”