And of course she could not forget the last time she had waltzed—on the deserted path south of the lake, her eyes firmly closed. His grace was dancing with Lady Underwood, she could see out of the corner of her eye.
The music drew to an end, but Fleur was given no chance to seat herself behind the pianoforte, as she had planned. Sir Philip Shaw was bowing over her hand.
“Ah, but Miss Hamilton is faint from her exertions at the pianoforte,” Matthew said with a smile. “I was about to take her into the hall, Shaw, for some air.”
“What a lucky devil you are, Brocklehurst,” Sir Philip said, looking Fleur up and down with lazy eyes. “I don’t suppose Ican remind you of a prior acquaintance too, Miss Hamilton, can I?”
Fleur set her hand on Matthew’s arm and lifted her chin.
He took her into the hall and up to the high gallery beneath the dome. He must have found out the staircase during the daytime hours. She had never been up there before.
They seemed much higher up than the gallery had looked from below. And yet the dome still seemed to soar high above. But they were not there to sightsee.
He held her against the inner wall with his body and kissed her: her face, her throat, her breasts through the fabric of her dress. He fondled her breasts with his hands, pushed one knee between her legs. He opened his mouth over hers, prodded at her closed lips with his tongue.
She stood quiet and passive.
“You have never given me a chance, Isabella,” he said. “You have disliked me just because my mother and my sister have always treated you rather shabbily, and perhaps because my father was too lazy to intervene. And because I did not notice you when you were a girl. But I was never openly unkind to you. Was I?”
“Not until recent years,” she said quietly.
“When have I been unkind?” he asked. “Oh, I suppose you will throw Booth in my teeth again. I was doing you a kindness if you only knew it, Isabella. He is not the man for you.”
“And you are?”
“Yes,” he said, “and I am. I love you, Isabella. I worship you. And I could teach you to love me if you would give me the chance, if you would not close your mind to me.”
“Perhaps I could have liked you,” she said, “and respected you too if you had shown me some respect, Matthew. But you have always been like this, grabbing me and protesting your love for me. In the past, of course, I was always free to fight you. Now I am no longer free. I cannot create a scene in this house by screaming, as I would like to do. I am a servant andyou are a guest. And I cannot demand that you leave me alone. I have no particular wish to hang. But if you loved me, you would not play this cruel game with me. And you would not force on me attentions that you know to be unwelcome.”
“It is because you will not give me a chance,” he said.
But he looked behind him at that moment and covered her mouth loosely with his hand. There was the sound of footsteps below, and both of them could see his grace crossing the hall slowly, looking about him. It seemed that he was down there many minutes before he walked on to the long gallery and through the doors.
“Looking for you?” Lord Brocklehurst asked, turning back to Fleur and removing his hand. “He is something of a watchdog for you, is he not, Isabella? Rather strange for a duke with a lowly governess, wouldn’t you say? Do you grant him what you deny me? Have a care if you do. If I find it to be true, you will hang by the neck until you are dead. You have my promise on it.”
“Words of love indeed,” she said.
He kissed her fiercely, cutting the inner flesh of her mouth against her teeth.
“Words of a jealous and frustrated lover,” he said. “I love you, Isabella.”
She would have gone to her room when he finally brought her down from the gallery. Her mouth felt swollen, her hair disheveled. She felt dirty. But he had a hand on her elbow. And she had agreed to play at a dance for the evening, however long the evening lasted.
She was relieved to find on her return to the drawing room that Mr. Walter Penny hailed her with some eagerness. He wished to dance with a reluctant Miss Dobbin.
Fleur seated herself at the pianoforte and resumed her playing. She wondered just how late it was. It felt as if dawn must surely be lighting the windows. But it was not.
THE DANCING HAD BEEN A GOOD IDEA, THE DUKE of Ridgeway thought. Most of the guests appeared to be enjoying themselves, and it was certainly preferable to another evening of charades. The music was lively. Miss Dobbin was competent and Fleur Hamilton good. And the latter had not seemed to resent at all being asked to play.
It would have been a good evening if everyone had stayed in the drawing room to enjoy the dancing and one another’s company. But as always seemed to happen during balls and dances, however informal, couples inevitably disappeared.
He would not worry his head over Mayberry’s having withdrawn with Mrs. Grantsham, though it angered him that people could behave with such impropriety in other people’s homes and under the knowing eyes of other people’s servants. But he would worry about Sybil and Thomas, and about Fleur and Brocklehurst too.
Sybil and Thomas had been gone for half an hour. And he was torn between the desire to stay in the drawing room to talk and smile with his guests and dance with the ladies and his need to pursue them and bring them back before gossip settled irrevocably about them.
But perhaps that had already happened. They were certainly making no great secret of their preference for eachother. And was that his chief concern—gossip? Was he willing to watch all the signs of the resumption of an affair between his wife and his brother provided they were discreet?
And then Fleur Hamilton left the room with Brocklehurst, and his mental battle was intensified. He had promised her that she was safe on his property and under his protection. But was she being harassed? She had been smiling when she left the room, and there had been no evidence that she was being coerced. Perhaps she was glorying in the chance of mingling with the company, dancing with one of them, being singled out for even more marked attention.
