“Can I help it if you take yourself off to London at every opportunity in search of pleasure?” she said. “I would imagine everyone would sympathize with me. It is to be an outdoor ball. An orchestra has been hired to play in the pavilion. A dance floor is to be laid on the west side of the lake—in the usual place. And the lanterns have been arranged for and the refreshments. I hope it does not rain.”
“This is all to take place in four days’ time?” he said. “I am so glad you thought to mention it to me today, Sybil. I hate surprises.”
“And I hate that tone of sarcasm,” she said. “You used not to use it with me. You used to be kind to me. You used to love me.” She started to cough, and drew a handkerchief from beside her.
“It is so hot in here,” she said fretfully. “I think I ought to rest now. The doctor told me to rest more. You will be anxious to leave me and go about your own business anyway.”
“Let me help you to your bed,” he said, bending toward her. “I would have brought a physician with me from town if I had known you were still unwell. Obviously Hartley is not doing you much good.”
“You never wrote to ask after my health,” she said. “I shall be quite happy to rest here, thank you, Adam.”
Don’t touch me. She had not said the words, but her actions had said them for her. The slight shrinking from his outstretched hands. The refusal to be helped. The turning of her cheek for his kiss of greeting. The duke’s jaw tightened as he stood outside her door a few moments later. The old familiar words, sometimes spoken, sometimes merely implied.
Would Pamela still be at her lessons? he wondered. Or in the nursery? He would go and see. He had missed her.
FLEUR WAS READING A STORY TO LADY PAMELA, although she knew that the child was not listening. She had seen her father arrive more than an hour before from the nursery window, where she had been with Mrs. Clement. But her nurse had not allowed her to rush downstairs to greet him and had sent her to the schoolroom soon after.
The child was torn between an impatient eagerness for him to come and a stubborn insistence that she did not care, that she did not wish to see him anyway.
Sullen and petulant as her charge was much of the time, sometimes Fleur ached to take her into her arms, to hold her close, to assure her that she was loved, that she mattered, that she was not forgotten.
She knew what it was like. Oh, she knew, though she had not known at so young an age. And by the time it had happened she had been old enough to know that her parents were in no way to blame. She had always been able to comfort herself with the knowledge that they had loved her totally, that she had meant all the world to them.
Perhaps Lady Pamela’s case was worse than hers after all. Her mother rarely visited her, though she showered her with love and endearments when she did. Her father had been away for many weeks.
But he did come at last. They heard a firm masculine tread in the corridor outside the schoolroom and a deep voice talking to Mrs. Clement. And Fleur breathed a sigh of relief for Lady Pamela, whose face brightened into that rare expression of pretty eagerness as her governess got quietly to her feet to cross the room and put the book away in order to leave father and daughter some privacy.
The door opened and she heard a childish shriek. She smiled and arranged the book carefully on its shelf with the others. She was nervous, if the truth were known. The Duke of Ridgeway! She had always thought of him as a very grand personage indeed.
“Papa, Papa!” Lady Pamela shrieked. “I have made you a picture, and I lost a tooth—see? What did you bring me?”
There was a deep masculine laugh, the sound of a smacking kiss.
“Cupboard love,” his voice said. “I thought it was me you were happy to see, Pamela. What makes you think I have brought you anything?”
“What did you bring?” The child’s voice was still a shriek.
“Later,” he said. “You look lopsided without your tooth. Are you going to get a big one instead of it?”
“How much later?” she asked.
The Duke of Ridgeway laughed again.
Fleur turned, feeling foolish at her own nervousness. She was the daughter of a baron. She had lived in a baron’s home, at Heron House, for most of her life. There was no reason to be awed by a duke. She held herself straight, folded her hands in front of her in what she hoped would look like a relaxed attitude, and raised her eyes.
He had his daughter up in his arms and was laughing as she hugged him tightly about the neck. The scarred half of his face was turned to Fleur.
She felt suddenly as if she were in a tunnel, a long and darktunnel through which a cold wind rushed. She could hear the hum of it, though there was surely not air enough to breathe.
His eyes met hers across the room, and the coldness rushed into her nostrils and up into her head. The sound of the wind became a thick buzzing. Her hands felt cold and clammy and a million miles away from her head.
“Miss Hamilton?” The Duke of Ridgeway set his daughter down on the floor and took a few steps toward Fleur. He made her a slight bow. “Welcome to Willoughby Hall, ma’am.”
She knew that if she could just breathe deeply and evenly for long enough, her vision would return and blood would flow to her head again. She thought only of her breathing. In. Out. Don’t rush it. Don’t fight it.
“I trust you have found everything to your satisfaction here,” he said, indicating the schoolroom about them.
Breathe slowly. No, don’t give in to panic. Don’t faint.Don’t faint!
