“It will not be easy,” Mrs. Laycock said, motioning Fleur to a chair. “May I pour you some tea, Miss Hamilton? I can see you are weary. You will have the duchess to contend with.”
Fleur looked her inquiry.
“Armitage, her grace’s personal maid, has confided to me that the duchess is not pleased with his grace’s sending a governess without even consulting her,” the housekeeper said, pouring a cup of tea and handing it to Fleur.
“Oh, dear,” Fleur said.
“But you are not to worry,” Mrs. Laycock said. “It is the duke who is master here, and his grace has seen fit to look to the future of his daughter. Now, Miss Hamilton, tell me something about yourself. You and I will get along well together, I believe.”
PETER HOUGHTON, SORTING THROUGH THE DUKE of Ridgeway’s post and setting aside invitations that he thought his master might wish to accept, knew that the duke was in a bad mood as soon as he entered the house and even before he came into the study. There was a certain tone to his voice, even when one could not hear the exact words, that betrayed his mood.
And his grace was limping slightly, the secretary saw, getting to his feet as the duke entered the room and sinking back into his chair again when the latter waved an impatient hand. Normally his grace went to great pains not to limp.
“Anything of importance?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the pile of mail.
“An invitation to dine with his majesty,” Houghton said.
“Prinny? Make my excuses,” the duke said.
“It is a royal summons to dinner and cards,” the secretary said with a cough.
“Yes, I understand,” the duke said. “Make my excuses. Is there anything from my wife?”
“Nothing, your grace,” Houghton said, looking down at the pile.
“We will be leaving for Willoughby,” his grace said curtly. “Let me see. I have promised to accompany the Denningtonsto the opera tomorrow evening in order to escort their niece. There is nothing else that cannot be canceled, is there? We will leave the day after tomorrow.”
“Yes, your grace.” Peter Houghton smiled to himself as his employer strode from the room. It was two weeks to the day since the ladybird had been sent on her way by the stage. The duke had shown great fortitude in waiting that long before finding an excuse to go in pursuit.
The Duke of Ridgeway took the stairs two at a time, as he usually did, despite the fact that his leg and side were aching. He rubbed absently at his left eye and cheek. It was the damp weather. The old wounds always acted up when the weather turned for the worse.
Confound Sybil! She had consistently refused to accompany him to London since the time four years before when he had been forced to confront her and put an end to the wildest of her indiscretions. And yet it seemed that almost every time he had settled in London alone for a few months of peace, she had decided to organize a large country party, inviting every disreputable member of theton, male and female, who could be persuaded to leave London for Dorsetshire.
Very rarely did she think it necessary to inform him of her plans. He was left to find out—if he found out at all—by accident. On one occasion two years before he had not known until he returned home to find that all the guests had been and left again except for one straggler. And that straggler had been kind enough to do the chambermaids a favor by vacating his own guest bedchamber in order to share that of the duchess.
The duke had sent that particular gentleman on his way within an hour of his return, and the man seemed to have taken to heart the advice not to show his face either at Willoughby or in London for at least the next ten years.
And he had given his duchess a tongue-lashing about propriety before the servants and those dependent upon them that had finally turned her pale and reduced her to tears. Sybilalways looked more beautiful than usual when in tears. And she had accused him of hard-heartedness, neglect, tyranny—all the old charges.
This time his grace had learned of Sybil’s party from Sir Hector Chesterton at White’s. The man had seemed pleased by his invitation as he creaked inside his stays and wheezed for breath.
“There’s nothing much to do in town these days, old chap,” he had said, “except ogle the young things. And their mamas cling to them like leeches so that all one can do is ogle. Decent of Sybil to invite me.”
“Yes.” The duke had smiled arctically. “She likes to surround herself with company.”
And so he must return to Willoughby himself, many weeks before he had planned to do so. He pulled the bell rope in his dressing room and shrugged out of his coat while he waited for his valet to arrive. For the sake of his servants and for Pamela’s sake, he must return. It would not be fair to allow them all to be witnesses to the debaucheries of Sybil and her friends.
God! He pulled at his neckcloth and tossed it aside. He had loved her. Once upon a time, an eternity ago, he had loved her. Sweet, fragile, blond and beautiful Sybil. He had dreamed of her, ached for her all the time he was in Belgium waiting for the battle that had become the Battle of Waterloo. He had lived on the memory of her bright smiles, her sweet protestations of love, her shy acceptance of his marriage proposal, her warm maiden’s kisses.
God! He pulled at the top button of his shirt and watched it sail across the room and tinkle against the china bowl on the washstand.
“Get someone to sew these infernal buttons on firmly,” he barked at his valet, who had the misfortune to come through the door at that moment.
But his valet had been with him from boyhood, and accompanied him to war and been his personal servant in Spain and in Belgium. He was made of stern stuff.
“The leg and side are aching, are they, sir?” he said cheerfully. “I thought they would in this weather. Lie down and let me massage them.”
“How will that keep the buttons on my shirts, confound you?” the duke said.
