He laughed and used the excuse of a plate of cakes passing at that moment to draw the Mayberrys into the group.
He could stomach the flirtations and the empty chatter when in London. He could even derive some amusement from them, though he preferred evenings of serious and stimulating conversation with his closer friends. But there he could always withdraw to the quiet of his own home when he had had enough. Here he was in his own home.
That was always the trouble with Sybil’s confounded parties.
Fortunately the guests did not linger. Almost all of them had had long journeys and welcomed the chance of some time to rest and refresh themselves in the privacy of their own rooms. The duchess, too, flushed and bright-eyed, retired to her own apartments until dinnertime.
The duke wandered out onto the terrace. He wondered if Pamela was visiting her puppy and heard a distant shriek of laughter even as he did so. He turned and strolled in the direction of the stables, wondering idly if Fleur Hamilton would be there too or if Pamela had brought a footman with her as she had the day before. He did not imagine that Nanny would consider a visit to the stables and a puppy consistent with her dignity.
Pamela was sitting on top of the fence around the paddock beside the stables, her legs swinging, while Fleur, inside the paddock, tickled the puppy’s stomach with her slippered foot. She was laughing, a look of such carefree beauty on her face that his grace hung back, reluctant to be seen.
A groom—Ned Driscoll—was also laughing, one foot resting on a lower rung of the fence, his arms draped over the top, his cap pulled low over his eyes.
“I think the puppy likes it,” Fleur said.
“But then, who wouldn’t, miss,” Ned said boldly a moment before spotting his master standing quietly behind him. He straightened up hastily, pulled at the brim of his cap, and scuttled off in the direction of the stables.
Fleur did not look up, and continued to tickle the dog with her toes. But the laughter in her face faded. His grace knew with an inward sigh that his presence had been noted.
“Papa.” Pamela looked at him petulantly, her laughter of moments before forgotten. “Mama promised that she would call me down for tea. Nanny got me all dressed up, but Mama did not send, and Miss Hamilton would not let me go down unless she did.”
The duke looked at Fleur, who was watching the puppy try to eat the grass.
“She was not sent for,” she said. “I explained to her that all the guests must be tired and that her grace must have decided to wait for another day. I brought her out here, hoping she would forget her disappointment.”
“But she promised, Papa,” the child said. “And Miss Hamilton would not let me go. Nanny would have let me.”
“I think not,” he said. “And doubtless Miss Hamilton is right. Mama must have decided that some other day will be better, Pamela. I will remind her.”
“You are horrid,” the child shrieked. “You are both horrid. Mama said I could. I am going to tell Mama.”
She jumped from the top of the fence to the outside of the paddock, gathered up her skirt, and raced around the corner of the stable block and out of sight.
“I’ll catch up to her,” Fleur said.
“Let her go,” he said. “She will come to no harm, and sometimes it is best to be alone when in the middle of a temper tantrum.”
The gate into the paddock was chained shut. Fleur must have entered it over the fence. He saw her flush as she glanced toward the gate. She arranged her skirt carefully as she set a foot on the lower rung of the fence and swung the other leg over. He kept his hands behind him. He knew she would not welcome his help.
But her skirt caught on the rough wood of the rung below and behind her, and she was stuck. He strode toward her, leaned over to release the fabric, took her by the waist, and lifted her to the ground.
He did not remember her sweet fragrance from that first time. But then, of course, she would have had only water with which to wash herself and her hair at that time. The sun made a shining burnished-gold halo of her hair now. And there was soft warm flesh at her small waist.
She shuddered convulsively and pulled blindly away from him. She made a guttural noise in her throat, similar to the one he remembered her making when he had penetrated her body. She lifted a trembling hand across her mouth and kept it there. She closed her eyes.
He could think of nothing to say and could not move.
She opened her eyes and removed the hand. She opened her mouth as if to speak, bit down on her lower lip, and turned her head aside. And she stooped hastily down to scoop up the puppy, which had come scampering through the bottom of the fence.
“I must take her back to her pen,” she said.
“Yes.”
He stood aside and watched her go, her golden head bent to the puppy, her walk hasty and self-conscious. And he felt a great weight of depression on his spirits.
But why? A governess—a whore turned governess—shuddered and almost vomited at his touch. There was a lady guest at the house—a baronet’s widow—who would welcome his touch and even his presence in her bed, a woman who found his disfigurement arousing and who would perhaps not even blanch if he came to her naked and she saw the other, far worse scars.
What was there to be depressed about? Perhaps he should encourage Lady Underwood. Perhaps she would be a balm to his wounded self-esteem. Perhaps he should make her his mistress for the duration of her stay, have his fill of a woman who wanted him.
