The Secret Pearl (34 page)

“His valet?”

“Yes. And then he came up behind me.” She caught sight of her hands, which were twisting in her lap. She stilled them.

“Brocklehurst’s mother and sister had left for London?” he asked. “Why did they leave you without a chaperone?”

“They do not care for me,” she said.

“You were going to the rectory,” he said, “to stay with Miss Booth. Why did you leave it until the evening?”

“You are well-informed,” she said. “You appear to know everything.”

“Houghton is a good man,” he said. “But it is the whys that still puzzle me.”

“Matthew was expecting guests,” she said. “They would have played cards and got drunk. I could have slipped away unnoticed. But they did not come. It was the day his mother and sister left. I suppose he planned a night alone with me.”

“But you tried to leave anyway?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “He caught me. I think he knew and was waiting for me.”

“You did not steal the jewels?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I knew nothing of them until he mentioned them to me here.”

“And so you fled,” he said, “with only the clothes you were wearing. No money?”

“A little in my cloak pocket,” she said. “Very little.”

“Why did you not go to the Reverend Daniel Booth?” he asked.

She looked at him and bit her lip. “Daniel?” she said. “They would have come for me there immediately. Besides, he would not have harbored a killer.”

“Not even if he loved her?” he said.

She swallowed.

“How long did it take you to get to London?” he asked.

“About a week, I think,” she said. “Perhaps longer.”

He got to his feet and stood looking out through the window for several minutes, his back to her.

“I would guess that Brocklehurst is prepared to make a trade,” he said. “Your body in exchange for your life. Am I right?”

“Yes,” she said.

“What is your decision?” he asked. “Have you decided?”

“It is easy to be heroic in one’s imagination,” she said. “I am not so sure I will be a hero when it comes to the point. I told him two days ago that I would not marry him or be his mistress or have anything more to do with him, and yet when he gave me a few more days to make a final decision, I did not have the courage to repeat what I had just said.”

“And yet,” he said, turning to look at her over his shoulder, “you are capable of great courage, Fleur. I have seen proof of it, if you will remember—in a certain inn room in London.”

She felt herself flush.

“You might have asked for my help, you know,” he said. “I
would have given it. And even if I had said no, I could hardly have done worse to you than what I did. But you had the pride and courage—and foolishness—to sell what was yours rather than beg.”

She lowered her eyes from his.

“It is not always like that, you know,” he said quietly. “When coupled with love, it can be a beautiful experience, Fleur—for the woman as well as the man. Don’t be afraid of all men as I know you are afraid of me.”

She realized she was biting on her lower lip again only when she tasted blood.

“Now,” he said, “what are we going to do about your situation? It is not as hopeless as you seem to think. There are several defenses that can be made.”

She laughed.

“Will you allow me to help you?” he asked.

“There were no witnesses,” she said, “except Matthew and me. And my maid was the one who discovered the jewels in my trunk. There is no defense except the truth, your grace, and the truth will sound lamentably false when set against the word of Baron Brocklehurst.”

He bent down suddenly and took both her hands in his. She had not realized how cold hers were until they were enveloped in the warmth of his.

“You are not going to hang, Fleur,” he said, “or languish in prison. I promise you that. You have been living with that terror for weeks, haven’t you? Why did you not come to me sooner? But of course, I am the last person you would come to, am I not? For today and perhaps tomorrow I want you to stay with Pamela during lesson times and with Mrs. Laycock at other times. If Brocklehurst tries to speak with you, it is my order as your employer that you keep away from him. Understood?”

“You cannot help me,” she said.

He stooped down on his haunches and looked up into her
face. His hold on her hands tightened. “I can,” he said, “and I will, though I know that you do not trust me. Do you really believe that I brought you here to be my mistress?”

“It does not matter,” she said. She was looking at his hands holding hers. And feeling that she should pull away from them. And wanting to grip them as they gripped hers. And wanting to lean her head forward until her forehead rested on his shoulder. And wanting to trust him and forget about everything else.

She looked up and saw the dark, harsh, scarred face that had hovered over her in her nightmares for weeks and that had more latterly kissed her in her dreams and made her yearn for tenderness and love. She bit her lip again as his face swam before her vision.

“It does matter,” he said. “Fleur, it has never been my intention to make you my mistress. What has happened here between us has happened unexpectedly and against my wishes. I am a married man and cannot establish any relationship at all with you. And if I were not married, it would certainly not be as my mistress that I would want you.”

She drew blood from her lip again as he raised first one hand and then the other to his lips, his own eyes never leaving hers. And he released one of her hands in order to brush away a tear that had spilled over onto her cheek.

“I will do this for you,” he said, “perhaps to atone in some small way for the harm I have done you. And then I will send you away, Fleur. If you must wait for your fortune, I will find you a good position in a home I never visit. I will set you free and never come after you. Perhaps in time you will believe me and trust me.”

He released her hands and she covered her face with them, taking deep breaths to steady herself.

“I will have Jeremy escort you upstairs,” he said, straightening up. “Rest in your room for this morning. I shall leave orders
that you are not to be disturbed—by anyone. I shall take Pamela.”

She got to her feet. “That will be unnecessary, your grace,” she said. “I have lessons planned.”

“Nevertheless,” he said, “you will do as I say.”

She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and turned to the door. “It will be unnecessary to send Jeremy with me,” she said. “I can find my own way, thank you.”

He smiled fleetingly. “As you wish,” he said.

And so she made her way upstairs alone and into her room. And she stood at the window staring out at the back lawn, deserted at that hour of the morning.

T
HE DUKE FULLY INTENDED
to talk with Lord Brocklehurst without further delay, but a series of events conspired to frustrate his plans.

The doctor was with her grace, Jarvis told him when summoned to the library. His wife and her doctor must come first, then, his grace decided, dismissing the butler with the instruction to bring Dr. Hartley to him before he left.

A bad chill during the winter had left her grace with a weakness in the chest, the man gave as his opinion when he appeared in the library sometime later. Her health had always been delicate. It probably always would be.

“I would recommend a quieter life and less of the outdoors, your grace,” he said. “Perhaps a month or two at Bath partaking of the waters would effect a significant improvement in her grace’s health.”

“She coughs constantly,” the duke said. “She suffers from frequent fevers. She has lost weight. It is all the result of a severe chill that just did not go away?”

The doctor shrugged expressively. “There are certain ladies who have delicate constitutions, your grace,” he said. “Unfortunately, your wife is one of them.”

His grace dismissed the man and stood looking out through the window for a while. He should, he supposed, have insisted on sending for a more learned physician from London. But Sybil had always been adamant in her refusal to hear of any such thing.

He drummed his fingers on the windowsill and turned away. She had refused to admit him the night before. This time he did not wait after tapping at the door of her bedchamber. He let himself in, as he had early the evening before, when he had caught his brother almost in the act of making love to her.

He looked at her grace’s maid, who curtsied and withdrew to the dressing room.

“Good morning, Sybil,” he said. “Are you feeling any better?”

She had turned her head aside on the pillow at his entrance. She did not answer him.

He walked a little closer. “The fever still?” he asked, laying the backs of his fingers gently against one of her cheeks. “The doctor suggested Bath and a course of the waters. Would you like me to take you there?”

“I want nothing of you,” she said. “I am leaving with Thomas.”

“Shall I bring Pamela down for a few minutes?” he asked. “I am sure she is longing to tell you about Timothy Chamberlain’s birthday party yesterday.”

“I am too ill,” she said.

“Are you?” He smoothed back her silver-blond hair from her face. “I shall entertain our guests for today, then. You must lie quietly here and not worry. The doctor has given you some new medicine? Perhaps you will feel better by tomorrow.”

She said nothing, and he crossed the room to the door. But he paused with his hand on the knob and looked broodingly at her for a long moment.

“Would you like me to send Thomas?” he asked.

She neither turned her head toward him nor answered. He let himself quietly out of the room.

The ladies were on their way into Wollaston with Sir Hector
Chesterton and Lord Brocklehurst. His grace joined some of the gentlemen for billiards. Lord Mayberry, Mr. Treadwell, and Lord Thomas Kent had gone fishing.

After luncheon, when the duke suggested a ride and picnic at the ruins, most of the guests accepted with delight. Lord Brocklehurst, though, with Sir Hector, expressed his intention of remaining at the house, since he had been invited to call upon Sir Cecil Hayward later in the afternoon, whom they had met in Wollaston that morning.

Before leaving for the stables, his grace assigned the footman Jeremy to patrol the upper corridor outside the schoolroom and to escort Miss Hamilton and Lady Pamela wherever they might choose to go during the afternoon.

And he found himself half an hour later in the midst of an encounter that he had planned to postpone until the following day.

“It seems that you and I are doomed to ride together, Adam, since everyone else is paired off,” Lord Thomas Kent said. “Perhaps it is as well. I shall probably be leaving tomorrow or the next day.”

“Alone?” his grace asked.

His brother looked across at him and smiled. “I cannot think you were serious in the suggestion you made the other day,” he said.

“I would not have made it if I had thought for one moment that you would take it seriously,” the duke said, his eyes directed forward to where Sir Philip Shaw was flirting quite openly with Lady Underwood.

“There,” Lord Thomas said. “You see what I mean? Of course I could not take it seriously, Adam. How could I take Sybil away, knowing what scandal she would be facing? She has lived a sheltered life and can have no conception of what would be in store for her. And of course, women are incurable romantics. They are never prepared for cold reality.”

“I think you left her with a large dose of cold reality the last time,” the duke said.

Lord Thomas shrugged. “Besides,” he said, “she is unwell. I would not be at all surprised to find that she is consumptive.”

His grace’s lips tightened.

“And the child, of course, must be my primary concern,” Lord Thomas said. “How could I take her from you and from this home, Adam? And how could I take Sybil and not the child? Sybil’s heart would be broken.”

The duke still said nothing.

“Yes,” his brother said. “Of course I will leave alone. I really have no choice in the matter if I want to do the decent thing, do I?”

His grace turned his head and looked at him coldly.

“It is just rather a shame that we both fell in love with the same woman, that is all,” Lord Thomas said. “We had a good relationship until Sybil entered the picture.”

“Perhaps it is a shame that we both did
not
fall in love with her,” his grace said. “I could have lived with her loss, knowing she was happy with you, Thomas. I would have recovered because I loved her. What you have succeeded in doing is destroying all her happiness and all my love. Yes, we did have a good relationship—once.”

Lord Thomas continued to smile.

“I left a message that you were to go to her when you returned from fishing this morning,” his grace said. “Did you go?”

“She is ill,” Lord Thomas said. “I am sure she needed to be quiet.”

“Yes,” the duke said. “It seems hardly worth the effort of visiting her if she is not well enough to be bedded, I suppose.”

His brother shrugged.

“I hope she finally realizes the truth about you,” his grace said, “though she will not hear it from my lips. Perhaps after all the pain she will finally be free of you and be able to make
something meaningful of her life. Hindsight is easy. I can see now that I should have insisted that she listen at the start.”

Lord Thomas shrugged once more and spurred his horse ahead to ride beside Miss Woodward and Sir Ambrose Marvell.

Just before dinner that evening a note was delivered to the duke to explain that Lord Brocklehurst and Sir Hector Chesterton were to extend their visit with Sir Cecil Hayward to include dinner and an evening of cards.

And so one rather unpleasant day was almost behind him, his grace thought, though the main order of business would have to be postponed until the following morning. He left a message with Lord Brocklehurst’s valet that his grace would be pleased if his lordship would join him for an early-morning ride the next day.

I
T WAS VERY LATE
. She should have been in bed long before, Fleur knew, especially since she would have to be up even before daylight. But she did not believe she would sleep anyway. She counted her money once more and cursed herself again for buying those silk stockings when they had been a pure extravagance.