The Secret Pearl

by Mary Balogh

The Duke of Ridgeway! Fleur leapt to her feet.

  “I didn’t mean to alarm you,” he said. “I couldn’t resist coming a little closer when I heard the music.”

  “I’m sorry, your grace,” Fleur said. “I brought the music back. I could not stop myself from playing just one piece.”

  “After playing all evening?” he said with a smile. “I must thank you for that, Miss Hamilton. I am very grateful.”

  “It was my pleasure, your grace,” she said.

  He walked a few steps closer to her. “It was you up in the gallery?” he asked. “You and Brocklehurst?”

  She felt herself turn cold. “Yes, your grace.”

  “Did you go with him freely?” he asked. “Did he force you?”

  “No, your grace.” She watched his dark eyes. Was she about to be dismissed?

  “And this.” He indicated her slightly swollen upper lip. “It is cut on the inside?”

  She did not answer him.

  “It was with your consent?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She cleared her throat when no sound came out. “Yes, your grace.”

  His lips thinned as he looked up to meet her eyes. And he passed a hand over his eyes and shook his head. “Come into the library with me,” he said, “for a nightcap.”

  He moved toward the library door without looking back to see if she followed. But he did look back when he opened the door, his eyebrows raised. Fleur crossed the room and preceded him into the library, where candles had been lighted.

  He poured her some sherry, and brandy for himself. He indicated the comfortable leather chair at one side of the fireplace and handed her her glass before taking the chair at the other side.

  “Here’s to good health, Fleur Hamilton,” he said, raising his glass to her, “and to happiness. An elusive something, that last, is it not?” He drank some of his brandy.

  Fleur sipped her sherry and did not answer. He was sprawled on his chair, relaxed, comfortable, informal. She sat straight and tense on her own.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he said. “Oh, nothing that will uncover the mystery in which you like to shroud yourself. Who taught you to play?”

  “My mother,” she said, “when I was very young. My guardian hired a music teacher for his own children and me after that. And at school.”

  “At school,” he said. “Where did you go? No, you will not wish to answer that, I suppose. How long were you there?”

  “For five years,” she said. “It was Broadridge School. I told Mr. Houghton.”

  He nodded. “A long time,” he said. “Did you like it, apart from the music and dancing lessons?”

  “I believe I had a good education there,” she said. “But discipline was strict and humorless. There was very little warmth of feeling there.”

  “But your guardian continued to send you?” he said. “Was there much warmth of feeling at home?”

  She looked down into the sherry in her glass. “We were a wonderfully happy family while my parents were alive,” she said. “Nothing could appear very warm with them gone. I was too young. I daresay I was difficult to manage.”

  “You were the orphan spurned, I take it,” he said. “Did they not try to marry you off young?”

  Fleur thought of the two gentlemen farmers, both over fifty, who had offered for her before she reached even her nineteenth birthday, and of Cousin Caroline’s fury when she refused both.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “But you resisted. I suspect you are made of stern stuff, Miss Hamilton,” he said. “Stubborn to a fault. Is that how you were described by your guardian and his family?”

  “Sometimes,” she said.

  “Frequently, I would imagine,” he said. “Have you never met anyone you wished to marry?”

  “No,” she said hastily. And she thought about how Daniel had been in her nightmares lately, his image fading in and out with the duke’s.

  “And did he wish to marry you too?” he asked.

  She looked up at him sharply and down into her glass again.

  “He was ineligible?” he asked.

  “No,” she said dully.

  “It was spite, then?” he said. “You were not allowed to marry him? Do you have a dowry?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you have no control over it until you marry or reach a certain age, I suppose,” he said. “And your guardian decided to cut up nasty. Why did you run away, Fleur? Would your beau not elope with you? Was the money more important to him than you were?”

  “No!” she said, looking up at him fiercely. “My fortune was of no interest to Daniel at all.”

  “Daniel,” he said quietly.

  She swirled the dark liquid in her glass. She did not think she would be able to raise it to her lips.

  “Did you love him?” he asked. “Do you love him?”

  “No,” she said. “That is all a long, long time in the past.” Like something from another lifetime altogether.

  He downed the brandy that remained in his glass and got to his feet. “Drink up,” he said, his hand stretched out for her glass. “It’s time for bed.”

  She took one more sip and handed him the half-empty glass. He set it with his own on a table beside her chair and offered her his hand. She looked at it, at the long, well-manicured, beautiful fingers, and set her own resolutely within it. She watched his fingers close about hers. And she got to her feet.

  He did not move. “You won’t confide in me?” he asked. “You won’t let me help you? It was not of your own free will, was it? This was not consented to, was it?” He ran one finger lightly along her upper lip.

  She grabbed for his wrist and gripped it.

  “There is nothing to confide,” she said. “There is no mystery.”

  “And yet,” he said, “you preferred your life as it had become in London to the one you left behind? And your Daniel would not come after you to rescue you?”

  “He did not know I was leaving,” she said, still gripping his wrist. “He did not know where I went.”

  “If I loved you, Fleur,” he said, “and knew that you loved me, I would turn heaven and earth upside down to find you if you disappeared.”

  Her eyes followed his scar up from his chin to his mouth, up his cheek to his eye. And she looked into his eyes.

  “No,” she said. “No one loves that much. It is a myth. Love can be pleasant and gentle. It can be selfish and cruel. But it is not the all-consuming passion of poetry. Love cannot move mountains, nor would it wish to do so. I don’t blame Daniel. Love is not like that.”

  “And yet,” he said, and his dark eyes burned into hers, “if I loved you, Fleur, I would move mountains with my bare hands if they kept me from you.”

  She laughed a little uncertainly. “If,” she said. “Make-believe is a children’s game. It is very easy to live with ifs. But real life is different.”

  She knew he was going to kiss her several moments before his lips touched hers. She supposed afterward that she could have avoided it. He did not imprison her with his arms or back her against a wall. But she did nothing to avoid it. She was rigid with shock, her hand gripping his wrist like a vise. And there was a certain fascination, too, in seeing that dark harsh face, not hovering above her as in her nightmares, but bending close to her own face until she was forced to close her eyes.

  And his kiss was so startlingly different from either Matthew’s or Mr. Chamberlain’s that she did not for the moment think of springing away. There was none of the grinding of lips and teeth that there had been earlier up in the gallery, none of the firm pressure of the night before, but a light and gentle warmth, a living movement over her own lips. And a parting of the lips so that her own were enclosed in moist, brandy-flavored warmth.

  He was only the third man ever to have kissed her. Strange, when he had done that other to her more than a month before. But there had been no kisses to accompany that.

  And then she panicked and bent her head back away from him.

  Sh
e caught sight of the expression on his face before one of his arms came about her and the other behind her head to press it to the folds of his neckcloth. He had looked lost, pained. And it was there in his voice when he spoke.

  “Don’t spurn me, Fleur,” he said. “Please. Just for these few moments don’t spurn me. Don’t be frightened of me.”

  And yet every part of her body rested against him and remembered—remembered the sight of him, male and powerful enough to crush the life out of her with his hands, the terrible purple scars of the wounds down his left side and leg. And remembered the feel of him, his hands, his thumbs, his knees holding her legs apart. And the feel of him plunging into her, tearing at her, and the repeated thrust and withdrawal until he was done and there had seemed to be nothing of herself left.

  But there was the kindness of the inflated payment and this job, the concern for her well-being, the surprising warmth and gentleness of his kiss, the vulnerability on his face and in his voice. And her terrible loneliness.

  And it was difficult to take that memory and this present reality and combine them in her mind. It was difficult to believe that he was the same man. It was difficult to feel with her body the revulsion that her mind instructed her to feel.

  She made herself relax against him, feel his body against hers without shrinking. And it was not, after all, hard to do.

  “Just for these moments only,” he murmured. He was rubbing his cheek lightly across the top of her head.

  She did not consciously lift her head. But she must have done so because she was gazing into his eyes again and angling her head for his kiss. And his warm lips were gentle on hers again and moving over them, and the tip of his tongue was moving lightly over her lips until she parted them and opened her mouth, granting him what Matthew had demanded earlier and not been given.

  His tongue moved against hers, circled it, explored the soft flesh inside her mouth, the sensitive flesh at the roof.

  She heard herself whimper, and stilled both body and mind to the knowledge of what she was doing and with whom. She would not let her nightmares intrude into this waking moment. And it was but for a moment. Just for this moment only. His shoulders were broad and firm beneath her arms, his hair thick and silky between her fingers.

  His mouth moved from hers at last to kiss her cheeks, her eyes, her temples. And he wrapped both arms about her, held her arched in to him, and set his cheek against the top of her head.

  “God!” he whispered. “Oh, my God.” His arms tightened like iron bands about her. “My good God.”

  She felt the breath shudder into him, and he released her.

  They stood looking at each other.

  “Fleur,” he said. He lifted a hand, and she saw it and knew again to whom it belonged and what it had done to her. She trembled as he cupped one of her cheeks with it. “I wish I could say I am sorry. God, how I wish it. Tomorrow I will apologize to you. Tonight I can’t feel sorry, God help me. Go to bed. Go. I cannot escort you tonight. I would not be able to stop at your door.”

  She went, hurrying to the door, fumbling with the knob, running along the hallway, pounding up the stairs, and racing along the corridor to her room as if she thought he was in pursuit of her after all.

  But it was not from him she fled. The person from whom she ran was inside the room with her despite her speed and despite the fact that she had locked the door with hasty, trembling fingers.

  What had she done? What had she allowed to happen? Her breasts were taut and tender. She was throbbing where he had given her such pain on a previous occasion. She could taste his brandy. Her body was in a turmoil of feeling. And her mind was telling her quite dispassionately who he was and exactly how he had made her into a whore and how much money he had put into her palm afterward. He was a man who paid women for sexual favors. He had paid her.

  He had been unfaithful to his wife only once, he had told her at one time. She had been almost inclined to believe him. She was almost inclined now to believe that she really had seen that vulnerability in his face and heard it in his voice. She wanted to deceive herself. She did not want to see their encounter as the sordid thing that it had really been.

  She had allowed a married man, her employer, to take incredible liberties with her person. And the encounter had not been all one-sided. She had wanted him too.

  It was from herself she had fled. But she had brought herself right inside her room, behind its locked door.

  THE DUKE OF RIDGEWAY HAD NO IDEA IF FLEUR had gone to the music room the next morning for her early practice. He was out for a long and reckless gallop on Hannibal.

  He did seriously consider not returning to the house again. There were numerous things to be done on his own land that he had somewhat neglected for the sake of the entertainment of his guests. There were crops to check on and newborn livestock to be viewed. And of course there were always tenants and laborers to talk to, to convince that he was interested in their well-being and concerned about their complaints.

  Or he could ride beyond his lands. He could spend the morning with Chamberlain. He had scarcely spoken with his friend since his return from London. Visiting guests had a tendency to cut one off from one’s neighbors and usual habits.

  But he resisted both temptations. There were two matters of particular importance to be dealt with at home—two equally unpleasant matters.

  He came in limping and barking at his valet to get him some decent clothes so that he would not have to go to breakfast smelling like a horse.

  “I just hope you didn’t punish poor Hannibal as much as you have punished yourself,” Sidney said, “or you will have some unhappy grooms to glare at you next time you go to the stables. I’ll help you out of the horsy clothes, sir, and give you a brisk rubbing before I worry about the other clothes. Lie down.”

  “Keep your infernal impudence to yourself,” his grace said. “I have no time for rubdowns.”

  “If you walk around in that pain all day,” Sidney said, unperturbed, “you’ll be barking at all the servants, not only at me, sir, and they’ll all blame me for it, too, as they always do. Lie down.”

  “Confound it,” the duke said, “I always treat my servants with courtesy.”

  Sidney gave him a speaking glance and his grace lay down. He groaned as his man set firm hands against his aching side. And he rubbed at his left eye.

  “There,” Sidney said, so much as if he were talking to soothe a child that the duke smiled despite himself. “It will feel better in a minute. Tight as a coiled spring you are, sir.”

  Fleur was not in the schoolroom. She was not in the nursery either, as the duke found when he went in there. But Pamela was up and brightened at the unexpected treat of having him with her as she ate her breakfast. She fed the crusts of her toast to the puppy, who sat on the floor beside her, panting and looking hopeful. The day before, the dog had been pronounced house-safe at last and allowed indoors—under certain strict conditions.

  “I thought we agreed that Tiny was not to eat food from the table,” he said. “She has her own special food, does she not?”

  “But I don’t give her any of my good food, Papa,” his daughter protested. She lowered her voice. “Nanny was furious this morning. Tiny wet the bed.”

  The duke closed his eyes briefly. “I thought it was also agreed that Tiny not sleep on the bed, but beside it or under it,” he said.

  “But, Papa,” she said, “she was crying and pulling at the blankets with her little teeth. It would have been cruel to make her stay down.”

  “One word of complaint from Nanny to your mama,” he said, “and Tiny will be back in the stables. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “Nanny won’t complain,” she said. “I wiped the wet spot with my own handkerchief. And I admired Nanny’s new cap.”

  The duke closed his eyes again. But Mrs. Clement was bustling over from the other side of the room.

  “I wish to have a word with Miss Hamilton before morning classes begin, Nanny,”
he said, getting to his feet. “You will keep Pamela here until she is sent for?”

  “Certainly, your grace,” she said, curtsying. “We had a little accident with the dog last night. Did Lady Pamela tell you?”

  “Yes, she did,” he said. “And I believe we have decided that it will not happen again.”

  Fleur was still not in the schoolroom. He twirled the globe with agitated fingers and picked out a tune with one finger on the harpsichord. He looked at a painting of one of the follies that Pamela had made and one that Fleur herself must have painted. She was talented as a painter too, he thought, picking it up.

  He set it down again when the door opened behind him, and wished that he had rehearsed some speech. He deliberately had not done so. He hated rehearsed speeches. They only tended to tongue-tie him completely. He turned to look at her.

  Her lip still looked a little swollen. Shadows beneath her eyes suggested that she had not slept well. But she was prettily clothed in her green dress, and her hair was in its usual neat coil at her neck. She stood very straight, tall and slender, with pleasing feminine curves. She was easily the most beautiful woman he had ever known.

  It was hard to remember the first impression he had had of her—a thin whore with lusterless hair, pale skin, heavy shadows below her eyes, and dry, cracked lips. And that limp and crumpled blue silk dress. It was hard to realize that she was the same person.

  “Miss Hamilton,” he said, “I owe you an apology.”

  “No,” she said, staying where she was, just inside the door. “It is unnecessary.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “You told me last night,” she said, “that you were not sorry. You told me that you would apologize to me today. They would be empty words, your grace.”

  He looked at her and knew that she was right. He was not sorry. At least, in one way he was not sorry. Those moments had given him another brief taste of happiness, like the minutes of their wild ride together. And he knew that, however wrong, he would live on the memory of that embrace for a long time.

  “I am sorry,” he said, “for the disrespect I showed you, Miss Hamilton, and for the distress I must have caused you. And I am sorry for dishonoring my wife and my marriage. I beg that you will accept my apology.”