“And Lord Thomas?” the duke asked.
“Left yesterday, your grace.”
“And where is the duchess?”
“In her apartments, your grace.”
The duke moved away from him. “Have Sidney sent to me,” he said, “and hot water for a bath.”
It was an enormous relief, he thought as he strode along the marbled corridors to his private rooms, to be out of his carriage finally. It had seemed so very empty and so very quiet without her. And there had been little to do all through the journey except think. And remember.
He did not want to do either. He was going to have a brisk bath, change into clean clothes, go up to see Pamela, and then call on Sybil. Thomas had left, then, without her. And he supposed that he would be the villain again, as he had been the last time.
Poor Sybil. He felt genuinely distressed for her, and he knew well how she was feeling—sore, empty, quite unable to convince herself that life could ever again bring any happiness. It was hard sometimes to know with one’s heart as one knew with one’s head that there would ever be reason to laugh again.
“Where the devil is that water?” he said ungraciously as his valet came through the door of his dressing room.
“Somewhere between the kitchen and here, sir,” Sidney said. “You will only tighten the knot of your neckcloth beyond any possibility of loosening it if you jerk on it like that. Let me undo it properly.”
“Damn your impudence,” his grace said. “How have you managed to live through the past week without me to fuss over like a damned mother hen?”
“Very peacefully, sir,” his valet said. “Very peacefully indeed. The side is aching?”
“No, it is not aching,” the duke said impatiently. “Ah, at last.” He turned to watch two menservants carry in large pails of steaming water.
“I shall rub it down for you anyway after you have bathed, sir,” Sidney said. “Sit down and let me tackle that knot or it will be fit only to be sawn through with a knife.”
The duke sat down and lifted his chin like an obedient child.
He was eager to bathe and dress and be on his way upstairs. To see Pamela. Yes, very definitely to see Pamela. There was no one else. There would be no more of the old urge to go up there, to sit in the schoolroom and listen to her talk and turn every lesson into an adventure. From now on there would be only Pamela.
And yet he was impatient to be up there even apart from his eagerness to see his daughter. Perhaps he had to prove to himself that Fleur really was gone. In some ways she was fortunate, he thought. She would be living in a place where he had neverbeen. There would be no ghosts. He was going to have to enter the nursery and the schoolroom, the music room, the library, the long gallery—all the places he associated with her.
But he did not want to think. He would not think. He got restlessly to his feet after Sidney had untied the knot in his neckcloth with almost insolent ease, and pulled impatiently at his shirt buttons. One came off in his hand, and he swore and dropped it onto the washstand.
“Someone must have slept on a mattress made of coal lumps last night,” Sidney said cheerfully to no one in particular.
“And someone is asking to be tossed out on his ear outside this house,” the duke said, discarding his shirt and sitting down again so that his valet could help him remove his Hessian boots.
THEDUCHESS OFRIDGEWAYwas in her sitting room. His grace could hear her coughing as he approached. He tapped on the door and waited for her maid to answer it and to curtsy to him and leave the room.
She was standing at the far side of the room, between the slender pillars that supported the entablature. She was dressed in a flowing white nightrobe, her hair loose down her back. She looked as pale as the robe except for the two spots of color high on her cheekbones. She looked thin and gaunt. Surely, the duke thought as he strode toward her, she had lost weight even since he last saw her.
“Sybil,” he said, reaching out his hands for hers and bending to kiss her cheek. “How are you?”
Her hands were as cold as ice, her cheek cool.
“Well,” she said. “I am well, thank you.”
“I heard you coughing,” he said. “Is it still bothering you?”
She laughed and withdrew her hands from his.
“You don’t look well,” he said. “I am going to take you and Pamela to London, where you may consult a physician whoknows what he is doing. And then we will go to Bath for a month or two. The change of air and scenery will do us all good.”
“I hate you,” she said in her light, sweet voice. “I wish there were a stronger word to use because I feel more than hatred for you. But I cannot think of any other way of saying it.”
He turned away from her. “He left yesterday?” he asked.
