The Secret Pearl (39 page)

“Yardley did those things, miss,” he said, “with his lordship. His lordship was quite broken up over what had happened.”

Fleur set her napkin on the table. She had lost her appetite.

In the stables it was the same story. No one knew where Hobson had been taken for burial. Yardley had taken him. And Flynn had taken his lordship the following day. No one remembered Hobson’s ever saying where he came from.

Finally she went back to the house and into the morning room, which had always been her favorite. Cousin Caroline had never liked it because the direct sunlight gave her the headache, she claimed. And Amelia was rarely up in the mornings. So it had always seemed like her own room, Fleur thought, wandering to the window and looking out at the neat squares of flowers and low clipped hedges of the formal gardens.

There seemed to be nothing she could find out. What was more frustrating, she did not know what there was to find out.

She knew almost the whole of it. She had killed Hobson—accidentally. Matthew had had his body taken back to his own home for burial. Matthew had also planted Cousin Caroline’s jewels in her trunk and made sure that someone else discovered them there. Even if she could talk with Annie, there was really nothing she could do to prove that she had not put them there herself.

Perhaps she was foolish after all not to have fled to London when she had had the chance. The servants had a way of looking at her as if they rather expected to glance down and find that she was swinging an ax from one hand. When Matthew came, it would all begin. Or rather, it would all come to an end. And despite Daniel’s and Miriam’s protestations of the night before, she doubted that anyone or anything could save her. She was quite unable to prove her innocence.

But, no. She could not do any more running. She was where she had to be.

The quiet resignation of the thought did not last more than a moment. A carriage had appeared through the trees of the driveway in the distance—a carriage approaching the house.

Her hands turned cold suddenly and she could feel her heart pounding painfully against her ribs and in her ears. Her face turned cold. There was a dull buzzing in her ears.

She turned from the window and sat down on the edge of a chair, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her back straight. She concentrated on not fainting.

And she concentrated on calming herself. She had five minutes at the longest. He must find her quite calm. He must not find her cringing and pleading.

And she must not—even if he were still prepared to offer it—accept any sort of proposal from him. She must not.
Please, God
, she prayed silently,
give me the strength not to lose my integrity or myself. Please, God
.

She did not get up again or look out of the window even when the sounds of horses and carriage wheels drew close.
She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and concentrated on breathing slowly and deeply.

She rose to her feet when the door opened and he stepped past Chapman and into the room.

It took her a few moments to realize that he was not Matthew. At first her eyes would not relay the message to her brain. And then she felt all the breath shudder out of her.

“I thought you were Matthew,” she said. “I thought that was Matthew’s carriage. I thought he had come.”

But he was not Matthew. He was everything that Matthew was not. He was safety and comfort and warmth. He was home. He was everything in the world that was hope and sunshine. He took a step toward her and opened his arms to her, and she was in those arms without ever knowing how the distance between them had closed.

“Oh, I thought you were Matthew,” she said, feeling his arms close warmly about her, feeling the powerful muscles of his thighs against hers, the broad firmness of his chest against her breasts. Smelling that cologne fragrance that was peculiarly his. “I thought you were Matthew.”

His breath was warm against her ear. “No,” he said. “It’s just me, love.”

She touched his shoulders, felt strength and firmness there as he murmured comforting words. And she looked up into the dark, harsh face that she had thought never to see again, that she had been trying not to think of at all. She reached up a hand to touch his scar, so familiar to her eyes.

“I thought I would never see you again,” she said. The wonder of it was there to her sight, in her fingertips, in her body, in her nostrils. The wonder of it. Not yet in her brain. Only in her senses. And deeper than her senses. His face blurred before her eyes.

“I am here,” he said.

She watched his mouth as he spoke, listened to the deep tone of his voice, looked up into his dark eyes, and closed her own.

And she was suddenly safe and beyond safety. Enveloped in warmth and strength. She opened her mouth for more of it. And felt an ache of longing spiral down into her throat and into her breasts and stab down into her womb and between her thighs.

She kept her eyes closed and threw back her head as his mouth moved from hers and trailed warm kisses along her throat. He held back her shoulders with strong hands.

“You are safe, my love,” he said against her ear. “No one is ever going to hurt you again.”

My love.
My love
. He was the Duke of Ridgeway. At Heron House. He had come after her all the way from Willoughby Hall.

She pushed away from him, turned her back on him, crossed the room to one of the windows. There was a silence.

“I’m sorry.” His voice came from across the room. He had not come up behind her, as she had half-expected. “I did not mean for that to happen.”

“What did you mean to happen?” she asked. “What are you doing here? I did not steal anything from your house except perhaps the clothes I bought in London with your money. You may have them if you wish.”

“Fleur,” he said quietly.

“My name is Isabella,” she said. “Isabella Bradshaw. Only my parents ever called me the other. You are not my father.”

“Why did you run away?” he asked. “Did you not trust me?”

“No,” she said, turning to look at him. He was her customer of the Bull and Horn Inn, she told herself deliberately. She looked down to his hands, which she had always so feared. “Why should I have trusted you? And I did not run away. I stopped running. I came home. This is where I was born, you know. In this very house. This is where I belong.”

“Yes,” he said. “I see you in your own proper milieu at last. You are waiting for your cousin to come home? You are waiting for the worst?”

“That is not your concern,” she said. “Why did you come? I will not go back with you.”

“No,” he said. “I will not take you back, Fleur. You do not belong in my daughter’s schoolroom and I will not take you into any of my homes ever again.”

She turned away to a side table and began to rearrange the flowers in a bowl that stood there. She quelled the quite unreasonable twinge of hurt.

“Or try to establish you in any other home, if that is your fear,” he said. “I came to set you free, Fleur.”

“I have never been in thrall to you,” she said. “For all the money you have given me, I have rendered suitable services. The clothes you may take with you when you leave. I do not need to be set free. I have never been bound to you.”

He took a step toward her, but there was another tap on the door, and she froze as it opened.

“The Reverend and Miss Booth are here to speak with you, Miss Isabella,” the butler said, his eyes going briefly to the duke.

“Show them in, please,” she said, feeling a great surging of relief. And she hurried across the room to hug Miriam and to smile at Daniel.

The duke had strolled across to stand at the window she had earlier vacated.

“Miriam, Daniel,” she said, “may I present his grace, the Duke of Ridgeway? My friends Miriam Booth and the Reverend Daniel Booth, your grace.”

The men both bowed. Miriam curtsied. They all exchanged curious glances.

“His grace has come to assure himself that I arrived home safely,” Fleur said. “Now that he has done so, he is about to leave.”

“He is about to do no such thing,” his grace said, clasping his hands behind him. “There was no grand reunion a moment ago. Do I take it that the three of you have met before, since Miss Bradshaw’s return?”

“We were here last evening,” the Reverend Booth said, stepping forward. “Miss Bradshaw is among those who care for her again, your grace. We will look after her. You need have no further concern about her.”

The duke inclined his head. “You will be pleased for her sake, then,” he said, “to know that Lord Brocklehurst will be making a public statement within the next few days to the effect that the death of his valet was accidental, with no question of murder at all, and that the whole alarm over the misplacement of certain jewels was a false alarm. There was, in fact, no theft at all.”

Fleur’s hands were in the tight clasp of her smiling friend.

“If the statement is not made,” the duke continued, “though I believe there is no realistic chance that it will not be, then there will be a trial in which Miss Bradshaw will most certainly be acquitted and numerous serious grounds for bringing Lord Brocklehurst himself to trial will arise.”

Miriam’s arms were about Fleur, and she was laughing. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew the whole thing was quite ridiculous. Isabella, my dear, you are like a block of ice.”

“I hope you are not raising Miss Bradshaw’s hopes without good cause, your grace,” the Reverend Booth said.

“I would not do anything so cruel,” the duke said. Fleur looked at him. “I had a long talk with Brocklehurst and got enough of the truth out of him that he will not wish to pursue the course he was taking, I believe. And there was a witness to our talk, whose presence he was unaware of through most of it.”

“Matthew has admitted the truth?” Fleur said.

“To all intents and purposes,” his grace said. “I don’t believe you have anything more to fear from him, Fl … Miss Bradshaw.”

She put her hands up over her face and listened to Miriam’s bright laughter. She was aware of Daniel crossing the room to shake the duke by the hand.

“What a wonderful morning this is,” Miriam was saying. “I felt guilty about closing the school, but now I am very glad I did so.” Her voice seemed very far away.

“She needs to sit down,” another voice was saying, and strong hands were taking her by the arms and lowering her to a chair. And one of those hands cupped the back of her head and forced it down close to her knees. “It’s all over, Fleur. I told you you were safe.”

T
HE
D
UKE OF
R
IDGEWAY
liked Miriam Booth. She appeared to be just the sort of friend Fleur needed. She was sensible, practical, cheerful, affectionate. Once Fleur had recovered from her partial fainting spell, Miriam took her off to her room for a while, despite her protests.

He was not so sure he liked Daniel Booth. The man was blond and handsome, quiet and gentle. Yes, all the qualities to make women fall in love with him. Combined with his clerical garb, they might well be irresistible to most women, his grace conceded.

And he cared about Fleur. As soon as the women had left the room, he asked detailed and perceptive questions until the whole story was told.

“Such a man ought not to be the social leader of a community,” he said. “He ought to be prosecuted. Unfortunately, to do so would be to cause Isabella further stress. One must accept the arrangement you have made as satisfactory, I suppose.”

“Those are my conclusions too,” his grace said. “Personally I would like to take the man apart limb from limb and bone from bone, but that, again, would not be in Miss Bradshaw’s best interests.”

The Reverend Booth looked at him with very direct eyes, which seemed to see through to his soul.

“Miss Bradshaw ought not to remain here,” the duke said,
“though I am quite sure she is in no danger from her cousin. It would not be appropriate for a lady of her rank to return to my home as my daughter’s governess. I plan to find Brocklehurst and persuade him to release a sizable allowance to her until she gains control of all her fortune at the age of twenty-five. Failing that, I shall try to place her with an older lady as a companion.”

Again those eyes looked into his soul and saw everything.

“I believe you have done more than an employer is called upon to do for those dependent upon him,” the Reverend Booth said. “Isabella has been fortunate. But she is among friends again now. My sister and I have discussed plans for her future. Now that we know she will not be going to trial, we can present those plans to her for her approval.”

And one of those plans involved the curate’s marrying Fleur, his grace thought. And perhaps she would marry him, too, if she could somehow get past a certain event that had taken place in her life in London. And perhaps it would be the very best thing that could happen to her. She had been going to marry the man before the death of Brocklehurst’s valet had changed everything. She probably loved him, and he appeared to care for her.

The duke was not at all sure he liked Daniel Booth.

He should take his leave. There really was no further reason for staying, especially if her friends were willing to help her settle somewhere other than Heron House. He should wait until she reappeared, say a formal good-bye to her, and then begin his journey home.

He could be back at Willoughby less than a week after leaving. Back with Pamela. Back perhaps before Thomas left, in time to offer Sybil some sort of support in the agony she would suffer when he did so. Not that she would allow him near her, of course.

He should go back and try to begin the process of forgetting. It must be done soon. Why defer it?

And yet he accepted an invitation to luncheon and retold his story to an almost silent Fleur and a brightly curious Miss Booth. Fleur looked not nearly as relieved or excited as she should have looked. But of course, the stress of months had only just been lifted from her shoulders. It must be difficult to adjust her mind to the knowledge that it was over, that she was free.

And of course it was not over. The scars would remain for a long time. And one fact would remain with her for a lifetime. He met her eyes across the table as Miriam talked, and saw doubt there and pain. And he wanted to reach out a hand to her and ask her what it was, how he might help her.