“Oh, yes,” the other said. “And has danced every set.”
“I thought perhaps you had left her at home with your children,” the duke said. “Are they all well?”
“If tearing a nursery to ribbons and wearing a poor nurse to a shadow and murdering our ears every living moment of the day with whoops and shrieks is a sign that they are well,” Mr. Chamberlain said, “then I would have to say they are in the best of health, Adam.”
The duke grinned. “I remember last year,” he said, “that when your other sister took them for a month, you were like the proverbial fish out of water.”
His neighbor smiled sheepishly. “Yes, well,” he said, “I suppose our ancestors rather missed the Vikings, too, when their raids finally ceased. Where did you find your governess?”
The duke had a flashing image of Fleur standing quietly in the shadows outside the Drury Lane Theater.
“In London,” he said. “Houghton hired her. He is worth his weight in gold. I am pleased with her. I think she is good for Pamela.”
“I know it,” Mr. Chamberlain said. “She brought your daughter visiting when her grace was indisposed, and did not even blanch when I told her the dogs were probably jumping all over the children. Of course, at that moment she had not yet seen the dogs to know that they resemble young horses more than they do their peers.”
“She took Pamela?” the duke said. “I am glad.”
“And so am I.” Mr. Chamberlain grinned. “You can send her anytime, Adam. You don’t even have to send Lady Pamela along to chaperone unless you insist.”
“Ah,” the duke said. “It is like that, is it?”
“Emily says I need a new wife,” his neighbor said. “I am not at all sure she is right, and I am certainly not sure I could findany woman saintly enough or insane enough to take on my trio and me into the bargain. But I am considering the idea. It is an interesting one.”
“I would not take kindly to losing a good governess,” his grace said.
“Ah, but for friendship’s sake you would make the sacrifice,” his friend said. “Excuse me. The orchestra sounds as if it means business, and I have asked her to dance again.”
“For the third time, Duncan?” The duke raised his eyebrows.
“Counting, are you?” his neighbor asked. “This is no London ball, Adam. I think Miss Hamilton’s reputation will survive three dances with one partner. And this is to be a waltz.”
The duke stayed where he was and helped himself to some food. No lady was noticeably without a partner. He would take a rest.
Fleur Hamilton and Duncan Chamberlain. Duncan was handsome enough—slim still, his dark hair graying only at the temples. They made a good-looking pair. He wondered how she felt about her partner. But she had accepted a third dance with him. And she was smiling up at him with that sparkle that looked so much more genuine than Sybil’s.
How would she receive a marriage proposal from Duncan? he wondered. Would she tell him the whole truth? Or find some other way to explain her loss of virginity?
The duke turned away. He regretted more than he could say the fact that he had not questioned her on that night before doing business with her. He should have realized from her appearance and from the quiet way she had solicited—or not solicited—a customer that she was no experienced whore. He certainly should have guessed the truth from the way she had stood in that room, not moving until he had told her what to do, and then removing her clothes quietly and neatly with no attempt to make his temperature rise as she did so.
He might have saved her before her character and future were in shreds.
But he did not stay turned away. He found himself watching them as they danced—no, watching her—and marveling that she could possibly be the same woman as the thin, lusterless whore whose services he had solicited and used only a little more than a month before.
God, he thought. If only he had realized. If only he had not been so thick-skulled. It was no wonder that she shrank from the mere sight of him and shuddered uncontrollably at his touch.
God! He turned away again, in search of a drink.
FLEUR WAS ENJOYING HERSELF IMMENSELY. There was something unutterably romantic about the outdoors at night, colored lanterns swaying in the trees and reflecting off dark water, beautifully dressed people talking and laughing gaily, music setting toes to tapping and hips to swaying.
She had decided earlier that she was going to enjoy the ball, and she was doing so. Life had been such a nightmare for six weeks, and still and for always the threat would hang over her head that it could be so again, and even worse. But for now she had been given this precious gift of peace—perhaps not forever, perhaps for only a week or a day. But she would not think of forever. She would think only of this night.
She had hoped to dance—Mr. Chamberlain had, after all, more or less asked her in advance. But she had not expected to dance every set of the evening, and with a variety of partners. Even some of the visiting guests danced with her and learned that she was the governess of the house.
Mr. Chamberlain danced with her four times in all, and he talked to her whenever the figures of the dance did not separate them. His conversation was light, amusing, as befitted the occasion. He raised her hand to his lips after the fourth time,told her with a smile that he must restrain himself from dancing with her again and depriving all the other gentlemen of the loveliest lady of all—words spoken with a wink—and led her a little away from the dancing area to where the Duke of Ridgeway was standing and talking with an older lady.
Fleur wished he had taken her anywhere else. The one blight on the evening, the one detail that had threatened all night to ruin her joy, was the constant presence of his grace. She had not once looked at him, and yet she had found that at every moment she knew where he was and with whom he danced or talked.
He looked somewhat different from all the other gentlemen, dressed in black evening clothes and snowy white linen that sparkled in the lantern light. And of course his height and his coloring emphasized the darkness that was him.
