The Secret Pearl (22 page)

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.

H
IS 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.”

Fleur stooped down and took the child’s cold hands in hers. “It is the most glorious feeling in the world to ride a horse,” she said. “To be high on the back of an animal who can move so much more surely and swiftly than we can. There is no greater sense of freedom and joy.”

“But Mama says I could break my neck,” Lady Pamela wailed. “I want to stay here with Tiny.”

“You can break your neck if you ride recklessly,” Fleur said. “That is why Papa is going to be with you to teach you to ride properly. He would not allow you to fall, would he? And I would not, would I?”

Lady Pamela still looked dubious, but she allowed the duke to lift her into his arms and carry her into the paddock and seat her on the little sidesaddle on the pony’s back. Fleur signaled
the groom to help her onto the back of the sleek brown mare.

The three of them rode slowly across the back lawns for almost half an hour, Lady Pamela closely flanked by the duke on one side and Fleur on the other. Gradually the terror faded from the child’s face. She was even flushed with triumph by the time they returned to the stables, and loudly demanded to know whether the groom her father had summoned had seen her.

“That I did, my lady,” the groom said, lifting her to the ground. “You will be galloping to hounds before we know it.”

“I want a real horse next time,” she said, looking up to her father.

“Let Lady Pamela play with her dog for a while, Prewett,” the duke said, “and then escort her to the house and have her taken to her nurse.” He turned to Fleur and nodded his head curtly. “Let’s ride.”

Her eyes widened. Not even the fact that he was to be her riding companion could spoil the beauty and unexpected wonder of this particular morning. She had ridden very slowly with a child and her father. Now she was to ride free?

His grace had already turned his horse’s head toward the lawns of the park, which stretched for miles to the south of the house.

W
AS IT ONLY TWO NIGHTS
before that he had resolved to stop seeing her? the Duke of Ridgeway wondered, taking his horse to a canter and hearing the mare increase its pace behind him.

A number of the gentlemen had gone fishing. Most of the ladies were going into Wollaston. He had told Treadwell and Grantsham that he would probably join them in the billiard room after giving his daughter a short riding lesson.

How foolish of him to have expected to see her arrive at the stables in riding habit and boots. When he had hired her, he had given Houghton instructions to provide her with enough
money to buy herself some essential garments. Houghton would have seen to it that there was enough money to do just that. There would have been no extra for riding habits or boots.

It was hard to adjust his mind to some of the realities of poverty.

Would he be indulging in this stolen hour, he wondered, if she had not smiled at him? In reality, of course, she had not smiled at him at all, but at the prospect of riding. Clearly she had misunderstood him earlier and assumed that it was her task only to bring Pamela to the stables.

It was the first time he had seen her smile almost directly at him. And it had been a total smile, lighting up her face, making of its beauty a dazzling thing. He could have sworn that all the rays of the sun had been directed at her face when she had lifted it to the sky, even though the clouds had still been low and heavy.

He had been dazzled pure and simple. And if she loved riding so much, he had decided while they had led Pamela slowly about a back lawn between them, then he would take her riding.

He glanced back over his shoulder and saw that she was not at all perturbed by the pace he had set. She was obviously a woman bred to the saddle. He spurred Hannibal into a full gallop.

Sybil hated riding. She preferred to be conveyed from place to place, she always said, in safety.

He usually did his riding alone.

She drew level with him, and he realized in a flash of surprised pleasure that she was racing him. She tossed him that dazzling smile again—and this time it was directly at him that she smiled. He took up the challenge.

They raced recklessly across the smooth miles of the park. Her mare was no match for Hannibal, of course, but sometimes he allowed her to draw level with him and nose ahead
before surging into the lead again. She knew his game very well but would not give in to defeat. She was laughing.

He veered off to his left suddenly, heading directly for the ivy-draped wall that divided this southern end of the park from a pasture. Yes, there it was—the gate. It was a dangerous game. He knew it even as he committed both his own horse and hers to it. But he was in the reckless throes of a race.

He eased back on Hannibal’s reins as soon as he had cleared the gate and watched the mare soar over with a clear foot to spare, Fleur bent low over its neck. She was no longer laughing as she slowed the mare with expert hands and brought it alongside Hannibal, leaning forward to pat its neck. But her face was glowing with a beauty and an animation that had his breath catching in his throat. She wore no bonnet. Most of the pins that had held her hair back in its usual neat knot seemed to have been shed along the way. Her head seemed surrounded by a golden halo.

“You have gone down to ignominious defeat,” he said. “Admit it.”