She bit down on her lip and stared at him.
“Fleur.” His hands gentled. “Fleur, I did not take you against your will that one time. I would never take you against your will. And I would never again take you with your will, either. I am a married man who has had one lapse in fidelity in five and a half years of marriage. I will not have you afraid for your safety with me.”
She was drawing blood from the inside of her upper lip.
He looked into her face, into her tense, horror-filled eyes, made an impatient sound, and drew her into his arms. He held her hard against him until she stopped shuddering and sagged forward. And she turned her head and set it against his steadily beating heart, and closed her eyes.
“You must not fear for your safety with me.” His voice was low against her ear. Those fingers were stroking lightly over the back of her neck. “You are the very last person on thisearth whom I would want to hurt, Fleur. My God, tell me you no longer believe what you just believed.”
“I don’t.” She pushed wearily away from him. Had the day really been quite as long as it had seemed?
“Well, then.” He released his hold on her and took a step to one side, looking down at her uncertainly. “Good night.”
“Good night, your grace.”
She stepped inside her room and closed the door. She set her forehead against it and took several deep, steadying breaths. She had nothing to fear. He had been alone with her and could have taken her with ease. He could have muffled her screams so that even Mrs. Clement would not have heard. He had not taken her.
He would never do so against her will, he had said, or even with her will.
She had nothing to fear. Yet she could feel his arms straining her against his hard-muscled body. And she could feel his fingers against the back of her neck. She could hear his heart beating, and she could feel herself sagging against him, surrendering to his warmth and his strength. To the illusion of comfort.
She thought very deliberately about who he was and what he had done to her—about his powerful male body and his scars. About his hands.
And she felt fear. Fear because when he had finally touched her, she had forgotten her repulsion—as she had when she had waltzed with him and when she had ridden with him.
HIS MASTER WAS IN A BAD MOOD AGAIN, PETER Houghton noticed as he entered his office the following morning—five minutes late, as ill fortune would have it. The duke was standing looking out of the window, his bearing military, one hand drumming a tattoo on the sill.
It must be true, then, what was being said belowstairs about her grace and Lord Thomas, though everyone knew that all was not right with his grace’s marriage anyway. And then, of course, there was that report about the duke’s ladybird strolling in the long gallery with Lord Brocklehurst after midnight the night before.
Though Houghton had wondered since his return to Willoughby Hall if the governess was after all his master’s ladybird. He liked the woman, despite a predisposition not to do so. She was always quietly courteous belowstairs and did not put on airs at Mrs. Laycock’s table, even though every word and gesture marked her as a lady born and bred.
“Where the devil have you been?” his grace said, confirming his secretary’s suspicions.
“Helping Mrs. Laycock with a small problem in balancing her housekeeping books, your grace,” he said.
“How would you welcome a holiday?” the duke asked.
Houghton looked at him suspiciously. Was he about to behanded a permanent holiday? For being five minutes late at his desk?
“You are to go into Wiltshire for me,” the duke said. “To Heron House. I am not sure quite where it is. You will, no doubt, find out.”
“To Lord Brocklehurst’s, your grace?” His secretary frowned.
“The same,” his grace said. “I want whatever you can find out about an Isabella who lived there until quite recently.”
“Isabella?” Houghton looked inquiringly. “Last name, your grace?”
“Unknown,” the duke said. “And you are to be invisible and mute while finding the answers. Do you understand?”
“Just Isabella, your grace?” Houghton said. “Do you have no other description?”
“Let us say she looks remarkably like Miss Hamilton,” his grace said.
Peter Houghton stared at him.
“I can rely on your discretion, Houghton?” his grace asked. “You are going on a long-overdue and well-earned holiday?”
“To visit my cousin Tom,” his secretary said, his face impassive, “and his wife, whom I have not yet met. And their new son, to whom I am to be godfather.”
