Lady Pamela jumped down from her lap and pushed untidy strands of hair away from her flushed and puffed face.
“I am going to find Nanny,” she said. “I am going to tell her to put my pink dress on me and my straw bonnet.”
“Ask her, Pamela,” his grace said. “It is better than telling.”
He got to his feet as his daughter whisked herself from the room, and looked down at Fleur. “I’m sorry,” he said, “that you had to cope with that alone. Nanny sent Houghton running for me with the news that Pamela was screaming and you half-throttling her. I have been greatly at fault in hoping that she would forget her desire to meet the ladies.”
Fleur said nothing but gathered up the ruined remains of the handkerchief.
“I will make the arrangements for this afternoon,” he said. “If it is any consolation to you, Miss Hamilton, I would say that your pupil is becoming attached to you.”
But she did not want to go on the picnic, she thought in some alarm as he left the schoolroom. She would do almost anything to get out of going—except break a promise to Lady Pamela. And so she was stuck with having to go.
She looked back with considerable nostalgia to the first two weeks of her life at Willoughby, when she had been happy despite the disapproval of the duchess and Mrs. Clement.
How she wished that the Duke of Ridgeway had not turned out to be who he was. But of course, she had realized before now, she would not have her post at all if he had not. She would be in London, living in her bare little room, a seasoned whore by now.
She supposed that, after all, she owed him some gratitude.
And if it were true that Lady Pamela was developing something of an attachment to her—though she was not at all convinced that it was so—then it was equally true that she was developing an attachment to the child. Petulant and stubborn as she could be, Lady Pamela had very real feelings and needs. And she needed Fleur, however little she might admit it. It was good to be needed.
It seemed that she had to prepare for a picnic that afternoon.
THERE IT IS,” THE DARK-HAIRED, HANDSOME GENTLEMAN said to his companion, leaning close to the carriage window as it crossed the bridge and left the lime grove behind and the house came into sight. “Impressive, wouldn’t you say?”
The fair-haired gentleman traveling with him followed his gaze. “Very,” he said. “I can see why it is so frequently admired. And it was all yours for a few months, Kent.”
“An amusing experience,” Lord Thomas Kent said, “suddenly to be everyone’s property just because I was the owner of it all. Almost as if the property owned me instead of the other way around. I thought never to see it again.”
“You can be sure,” Lord Brocklehurst said, “that when your brother told you never to return he spoke in the heat of the moment. He will receive you with open arms.”
Lord Thomas looked amused. “I wonder,” he said. “But I am not sorry you persuaded me into coming, Bradshaw. It will be priceless to see their faces—Ridgeway’s, all the servants’. And it will be interesting to see my sister-in-law once more. They were not married when I left, you know.”
“Magnificent!” Lord Brocklehurst said as the carriage drew to a halt and he gazed up at massive Corinthian columns and the great pediment, which hid the dome from that vantagepoint. “Quite magnificent. It was good of you to persuade me to accompany you here.”
Lord Thomas laughed. “Since it was you who talked me into returning,” he said, “it seemed only right that you be witness to the touching reunion.”
The look on the butler’s face as he came out onto the horseshoe steps to greet the unexpected visitors must have been everything Lord Thomas could have wished for. His wooden butler’s expression deserted him for the whole of three seconds as he watched his grace’s younger brother descend from the carriage and look up at him with a grin.
“Jarvis!” he said. “So you did get the promotion after all. Are you going to stand there and gawk, or are you going to send someone down to carry our trunks into the house? Is my brother close at hand?”
Jarvis had himself under control. He bowed stiffly from the waist. “His grace is at the ruins with her grace and their guests, my lord,” he said. “I shall have the carriage and your bags seen to if you would care to come inside.”
“I certainly have no intention of standing outside here until permitted to enter by his august grace,” Lord Thomas said with a laugh, turning back to Lord Brocklehurst and ushering him up the steps. “Drinks in the saloon, if you please, Jarvis. What the devil are they doing at the ruins?”
“They are picnicking, as I understand, my lord,” Jarvis said, directing the guests with a bow into the saloon.
“How long have they been gone?” Lord Thomas asked, looking about him. “Nothing has changed, I see.”
“About one hour, my lord,” the butler said.
“An hour?” Lord Thomas frowned. “I’ll have time to do the honors and show off all the state rooms to you, then, Bradshaw—after we have refreshed ourselves with a drink and a change of clothes, that is. Have my old room made up for me, Jarvis, and have the housekeeper prepare another room for Lord Brocklehurst. Is it still Mrs. Laycock?”
Jarvis bowed.
“Take yourself off, then,” Lord Thomas said. “The drinks first, though.
“So,” he said, “we are to kick our heels here for a few hours and feel the suspense mount. I wonder if Ridgeway would be choking on his chicken bone and his wine if he knew I was standing in the middle of his saloon at this very moment.” He laughed.
