“You are not coming into the house, your grace?” Miriam asked.
Fleur turned, her friends just a couple of steps behind her. She lifted her hands and he took them. He looked deeply into her eyes as he raised one to his lips.
“Good-bye,” he said.
Adam. Her lips formed his name, though no sound emerged.
And he was gone—into the carriage to sit on the far side while Ned closed the door, turned to smile and incline his head to her, and vaulted up onto the box with the coachman.
And he was gone, along the driveway, through the gates, and around the first bend.
He was gone.
“Well, he was in a hurry to leave,” Miriam said cheerfully. “Isabella, you foolish, independent woman. Why did you not call on me to go with you? You know I would have closed the school for a few days. But by the time Daniel had told me that he had refused to accompany you, you were gone already. And imagine our dismay to discover that you had gone with the Duke of Ridgeway.”
“It is done, Miriam,” the Reverend Booth said. “There is no point in scolding further. We will come inside with you, if we may, Isabella. It will relieve your mind, no doubt, to tell us all that happened.”
“You must be exhausted,” Miriam said, stepping forward to take her arm. She smiled up into her face and then turned back sharply to her brother. “Take Isabella’s bag inside, will you, Daniel? I want to have a brief word with her before we join you.”
She waited until he had disappeared into the house.
“Oh, Isabella,” she said quietly, touching her friend’s arm, patting it. “Oh, my poor, poor dear.”
Fleur stood staring down the driveway as if turned to stone.
AT LEAST THERE WAS PLENTYwith which to keep herself busy. Fleur was thankful for that fact more than for any other in the coming days and weeks. At least there was plenty to do.
She removed all her possessions to the cottage that had been Miss Galen’s and arranged and rearranged them to her satisfaction. At first she did everything for herself, including the cooking, since she could not afford to hire a servant. She spent many hours in the small garden, restoring the overgrown hedges and rosebushes to their original neatness and splendor.
And she taught the twenty-two pupils at Miriam’s school alongside her friend and discovered the challenge of instructing more than one child at a time.
She kept an eye on an elderly couple who lived next door to her, taking them some cakes when she baked, sitting and listening to their endless stories of the past, including many of her mother and father.
And she had friends to visit and be visited by. There was always Miriam, of course, who spent a great deal of her free time with her and who was cheerfully friendly without ever prying. For undoubtedly she knew. There had been that tact of hers in sending Daniel inside the house after Adam had left, and her simple words of sympathy and understanding. But if she was curious, she never showed it. She never asked questions. She was a true friend.
And there was Daniel too. He did not cast her off despite her confession to him and her improper behavior afterward in going to Wroxford with Adam. And there were several other inhabitants of the village and a few of the neighboring gentry who had held off as long as she was living at Heron House with her relatives but who were only too pleased now to make a friend of her.
Matthew did not come home. Neither did Cousin Caroline and Amelia, even when the London Season came to an end.
Word came to the village that the ladies had traveled north with friends. Rumor had it that Matthew had removed himself to the Continent to avoid some unknown embarrassment. Fleur did not know the truth of any of the stories. And she did not care where any of them were, provided they stayed away. She hated the thought of Cousin Caroline’s coming back, and she dreaded that Matthew would come.
She spoke with the steward at Heron House, and he promised to communicate with Lord Brocklehurst’s man of business in London concerning her affairs.
She had her answer in an unexpected way. She was sitting in her small parlor one afternoon, sipping on a cup of tea after a tiring day at school and wondering if she had the energy to go outside later to clip a hedge that had grown untidy again. She got to her feet with a sigh when there was a knock at the door. And she stood gaping at Peter Houghton a few moments later, her stomach feeling as if it were performing a complete somersault.
“Miss Bradshaw,” he said, making her a polite bow.
“Mr. Houghton?” She stood aside, inviting him to enter.
“I was sent to London to carry out some business for you, ma’am,” he said. “It seemed as well to call here on my way back to Willoughby Hall instead of writing you a letter.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Thank you.” She would not at all have enjoyed receiving a letter from Willoughby, only to find that it was from the secretary. “Won’t you have some tea?”
She sat on the edge of her chair listening to him, drinking in the sight and sound of him, this fragile link with Willoughby and Adam. And remembering the first time she had seen him at Miss Fleming’s agency.
Matthew had indeed fled the country. Someone must have tipped him off to the fact that his deception had been uncovered and that awkward, incriminating questions were about to be asked. Mr. Houghton, it seemed, had spoken with Matthew’s man of business, had pulled a few strings in highplaces, and had arranged it that her guardian was now a distant cousin, Matthew’s heir, whom she had met only once. And that man, whom Mr. Houghton had also called upon, had been quite uninterested in guarding either the person or the fortune of a twenty-three-year-old female relative he did not even know.
She was to be given a very generous allowance for the following year and a half, after which her dowry and her fortune would be released to her whether she was married or single.
