“Well,” Mr. Chamberlain said, ignoring the outstretched hand of a small girl with a hair bow almost as large as her head and pinching her cheek instead, “dancing and chanting in a circle is quite beneath my dignity, I am afraid. Miss Hamilton and I are going to leave you to it, Emily. We will all have tea after this. Ma’am?” He held out an arm for Fleur’s.
“There are limits to the depths to which I will sink,” he said,strolling with her toward the rose arbor at the side of the house. “‘Ring around the rosy’ is definitely below that limit.”
“I do believe your son is having a wonderful time,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed. “One is seven only once, I suppose. Tomorrow he will be his normal boisterous self again. The hysteria will have passed.”
Fleur chuckled.
They were inside the arbor, surrounded by the heady smell of roses. He released her arm, cupped her face with his hands, and kissed her briefly and warmly on the lips.
“I have missed you,” he said.
She smiled.
“If you were not a governess,” he said, “and did not have daily duties to perform, I would probably have haunted Willoughby Hall in the days since our theater visit.” He touched her lips with his thumbs.
She looked into his eyes and knew with regret that there were limits for her too beyond which she dare not go.
“Don’t,” she said as he drew breath to speak again. She lowered her eyes to his chin. “Please, don’t.”
“What I am about to say is not welcome to you?” he asked.
She hesitated. “I cannot,” she said.
“Because of inclination?” he said. “It is something about me? Or my children?”
She shook her head and bit her lip.
“There is some obstacle?” he asked.
Her eyes dropped to his neckcloth. Yes. There were the charges of theft and murder hanging over her head. There was the loss of her virginity. There was the profession she had sampled briefly before becoming a governess.
She nodded.
“Insurmountable?” he asked.
“Yes.” She looked up into his eyes again and knew a great sadness of regret. “Quite insurmountable, sir.”
“Well, then.” He smiled, lowered his hands to her arms, andleaned forward to kiss her firmly once more. He patted her arms. “Enough of that. This arbor was my wife’s pride and joy. Did Emily tell you that? I love to sit here to read—when the children are safely indoors at their lessons or games, that is. Shall we wander indoors for tea?”
“Yes. Thank you,” Fleur said.
All her delight in the afternoon was gone. She had not realized that he was quite so close to a declaration, but she had sensed it coming there in the rose arbor. And she felt that she had hurt him and feared that despite what she had said, he would think that it was some lack in himself that had made her draw back from him.
It was almost no surprise when they came from the arbor onto the back lawn again to see the Duke of Ridgeway, his daughter sitting up on one of his shoulders, talking with Miss Chamberlain.
“Ah,” he said, turning and smiling and looking at them both with keen eyes. “Duncan? Miss Hamilton?”
“I might have known you would be wise enough to avoid the games and clever enough to arrive just in time for tea,” Mr. Chamberlain said. He extended his right hand. “Welcome to Timmy’s birthday party, Adam.”
“I won second in the girls’ race, Papa,” Lady Pamela was shrieking, “and we would have won the three-legged race if William had not fallen down.”
Fleur turned away with Miss Chamberlain to shepherd the children back to the house for tea.
THEDUKE OFRIDGEWAYrode back to Willoughby Hall sometime later, one arm about his daughter, who rode before him, and listened with half an ear to her excited chatter. He wished that Fleur were riding beside them, but pushed the thought from his mind. It was as well that she was returning home in his carriage.
She really was good for Pamela. He always had been capable of arousing these moods of childhood excitement in her and he had always tried, when he was at home, to take her to visit other children as often as possible. But of course he was away from home for long stretches and always felt guilty about abandoning her. He could not possibly love her more if she really were his, he thought.
