Lord Thomas continued to smile.
“I left a message that you were to go to her when you returned from fishing this morning,” his grace said. “Did you go?”
“She is ill,” Lord Thomas said. “I am sure she needed to be quiet.”
“Yes,” the duke said. “It seems hardly worth the effort of visiting her if she is not well enough to be bedded, I suppose.”
His brother shrugged.
“I hope she finally realizes the truth about you,” his grace said, “though she will not hear it from my lips. Perhaps after all the pain she will finally be free of you and be able to makesomething meaningful of her life. Hindsight is easy. I can see now that I should have insisted that she listen at the start.”
Lord Thomas shrugged once more and spurred his horse ahead to ride beside Miss Woodward and Sir Ambrose Marvell.
Just before dinner that evening a note was delivered to the duke to explain that Lord Brocklehurst and Sir Hector Chesterton were to extend their visit with Sir Cecil Hayward to include dinner and an evening of cards.
And so one rather unpleasant day was almost behind him, his grace thought, though the main order of business would have to be postponed until the following morning. He left a message with Lord Brocklehurst’s valet that his grace would be pleased if his lordship would join him for an early-morning ride the next day.
IT WAS VERY LATE. She should have been in bed long before, Fleur knew, especially since she would have to be up even before daylight. But she did not believe she would sleep anyway. She counted her money once more and cursed herself again for buying those silk stockings when they had been a pure extravagance.
She was not sure she had enough. She was not at all sure. But if there was just enough for the ticket, she would not worry about food. She could go without food for a few days. She had done it before.
She could, of course, try to borrow a small sum from Ned Driscoll. But she would probably never see him again to repay the debt, and perhaps she would never have the money with which to do so.
Besides, Ned was already making a sacrifice for her. He had agreed to take her in the gig before dawn into Wollaston to catch the stage. He had been very unwilling to do so, and she was quite sure that if she had offered him money—if she had had money to offer—he would have refused quite adamantly.
But she had had only her persuasive powers and her knowledge that he had a soft spot for her.
Perhaps he would be dismissed for helping her. But she could not think of that. She could not take yet one more burden on her mind. There was no other way of getting to Wollaston on time beyond stealing a horse. She had never stolen anything.
She looked again at the small bundle of clothing that she had tied inside her old gray cloak and wondered if taking the clothes she had bought with his grace’s money in London was theft. But the thought of putting on the old silk dress and gray cloak made her shudder.
She was leaving Willoughby Hall. That much she had decided in the course of the day. She had felt rather like a bear chained to a post all day long—indeed, she had felt much the same for almost three months. She could take no more. If she stayed even one day longer she would lose a part of herself, of her innermost being, and when all was said and done, that was all that was left to her.
She was going to the only place she could go and maintain her pride and integrity. She was going home—to Heron House. By doing so, of course, she was only going to certain destruction. But there were some things worse, she had discovered in the course of three months, than the prospect of facing charges that she could not defend herself against. There were some things worse than the fear of the ultimate punishment.
If she were hanged, she would lose her life. If she remained as she was, she would lose herself.
He could help her, he had said. He would help her. As Matthew had done? He would save her from imprisonment and death in exchange for certain favors? He had denied it vehemently and she had believed him—almost.
But how could she believe him? How could he help her? And why would he wish to do so? To him she was only awhore whom he had pitied—perhaps. Or a whore he hoped to entice into a more lasting relationship.
She wanted to believe him. She wanted to trust him. But how could she? She had been alone for so long. Even Daniel, who was gentle and godly, would not have been able to help her in her predicament. He would have had a crisis of conscience if she had asked for his help after admitting to him that she had killed Hobson—even though it had been in self-defense.
She wanted so badly to believe him. She sat on the edge of her bed and closed her eyes. And she realized what had been happening to her over the past weeks. He had been turning—so gradually that she had scarcely noticed the transition—from her nightmare into her dream.
Because she had come to know him as a man worthy of respect, liking, and perhaps even …? No. No.
Because he had planned it that way? Gradual seduction by patient steps, more skilled than Matthew?
She dropped her head forward until her chin rested on her chest. She did not know what to believe, but she did know that she must go away from him as much as she must go away for other reasons. He was a married man and perhaps an evil man.
She had an image of him standing in Mr. Chamberlain’s garden, talking with Miss Chamberlain, Lady Pamela sitting up on his shoulder shrieking excitedly into his ear.
She had been his prisoner all day. Jeremy had been outside the library that morning and outside the schoolroom all afternoon. He had escorted her downstairs for dinner and back to her room after she had sat with Mrs. Laycock for a couple of hours.
Had she been his prisoner? Or had he been merely protecting her? Jeremy had told her that Matthew had come upstairs during the afternoon and had been very annoyed to be told that Miss Hamilton had been ordered by his grace to work with her pupil all afternoon without interruption.
But she had felt like a prisoner. Like a prey to both of them. Like a chained bear to their hounds.
