The Secret Pearl

by Mary Balogh

  Miss Fleur Hamilton, he had discovered the day before with something less than pleased surprise, was a startlingly beautiful woman.

  In one way only was she as he remembered her. She was like a marble statue: cool, remote, unresponsive. She had spoken scarcely a word to him during their first encounter, though she had watched him every moment while he took his pleasure of her, he recalled. She had spoken not a word the day before. She had not even curtsied to him.

  She had only shrunk from him, naked terror and revulsion in her eyes, when he had offered her his arm to go down the stairs. Why would he have offered his arm to a servant, anyway?

  Don’t touch me. His lips thinned. She could probably teach Sybil a thing or two about cringing.

  He continued his progress toward her, and he knew before he came up to her that she had became aware of his approach, though she gave no visible sign and did not look his way.

  “Good morning, Miss Hamilton,” he said quietly, stopping when he was still several feet away from her.

  She looked back at him with that steady, direct look he remembered.

  “Do you like the early morning too?” he asked. “I always find it the loveliest time to be outdoors.”

  “I will not be your mistress,” she said in a steady, low voice.

  “Won’t you?” he said. “Pardon me, but did I ask?”

  “It is so very clear,” she said. “I understood perfectly as soon as I saw you yesterday. I will not be your mistress.”

  “I understood that you had been employed as my daughter’s governess,” he said. “I expect you to devote all your energies to that task, ma’am.”

  “It is disgusting,” she said. “You are a married man. You have brought me here to live beneath the same roof as your wife and daughter. You expect me to spend several hours a day teaching your daughter. And you expect me also to be your whore here under such conditions. Is that why you paid me so well and fed me? So that I would be beholden to you? I will go back to the gutter where I belong, but I will not allow you to touch me again. You disgust me.”

  He was angry with the girl. Furious. How dared she? Accusing him of bringing her here to his ancestral home to teach Pamela so that he could sport with her among the groves and in the attics.

  “Let me make one thing clear, Miss Hamilton,” he said quietly, his hands clasped behind his back. “I instructed my secretary to employ you because you were desperately in need of employment other than that in which you had chosen to engage. I was satisfied from his report that you had been employed in a suitable capacity. You are my servant, ma’am, well paid and well looked after, I believe you will agree. I am not in the habit of consorting with my servants. I am certainly not in the habit of sleeping with them. When I need a whore, I employ one who offers her services for the purpose, and I pay her accordingly. Have I made myself clear?”

  She flushed and said nothing.

  His eyes narrowed. “I seem to recall having to tell you once before that when I ask a question I require an answer,” he said. “Answer me.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. She looked at him steadily, her chin up. “Yes, your grace.”

  He inclined his head to her. “You may continue your walk,” he said. “Good day to you, ma’am.”

  He strode back the way he had come, the morning ruined by the heat of his temper and the turmoil of his feelings. But he was thankful for his years in the army, which had taught him the discipline of releasing his temper only through words.

  He had wanted to take the woman by the arms and shake her until her head flopped on her neck. He had wanted to hurt her, to leave bruises.

  He branched off from the terrace to cross a lawn that would take him to the lake. And he deliberately slowed both his steps and his mind. His experiences as an officer had taught him to do the latter, to think with icy logic rather than with white-hot fury.

  If she had believed what she said—and she obviously had—then he must admit to himself that she had shown remarkable courage. He supposed that it would not be easy for a woman in a lowly and precarious situation to spit in the eye of a duke. And that was what she had done, figuratively speaking.

  She had shown a moral outrage at what she thought he had planned. A whore with morals? But why not? There were any number of respectable women who entirely lacked them.

  She had told him that he was disgusting. Was it just the behavior she had imagined him capable of? Or was it his person she had found repulsive?

  He did not doubt that it was at least partly the latter. He had unclothed himself completely in front of her, something he had not done with any woman before—not since acquiring his wounds, anyway. And he had stood before her, fully visible to her all the time he had been coupling with her.

  He had done it deliberately, he realized now, a release from all the pain and self-consciousness and degradation he had lived with for six years. He had wanted one woman to see him, a woman who could not afford to show revulsion or to refuse him.

  And she had passed the test, courageous Fleur, whose eyes had not wavered from his despite the fact that for her it had been a far more momentous occasion than he had realized until it was too late.

  Well, so she found him disgusting. Was it so surprising? And did it matter? She was his servant, one of countless many. He had given her employment because she needed it and would never have made a success of being a whore. He had done his part to atone both for his sin of infidelity and for his part in setting the girl on the road to degradation and ruin.

  It did not matter. He had done his part and he would forget about her. If she did not do well as Pamela’s governess, then he would have her removed to one of his other estates as some other kind of servant.

  He stood gazing down at the lake, willing his land, his home, to perform its old magic on his soul.

  LADY PAMELA BACKED UP A FEW YARDS FROM HER puppy and went down on her knees while it tried to run toward her. She laughed helplessly as it tripped on the long grass and rolled over before getting to its feet and resuming its chase.

  She picked up the puppy and fell over onto her back. She held it close enough so that it could lick her face, and continued to giggle.

  Fleur did not have the heart to remind her pupil that they had come outdoors to paint and that she had had to do some pleading with Mrs. Clement in order to be allowed to bring the child out-of-doors at all. They had been granted only an hour. Lady Pamela so rarely seemed to enjoy herself—except with the Chamberlain children and except on the previous afternoon, when her father came home.

  Fleur shuddered.

  “You see?” she said when the giggles had abated. “We can see the pavilion on the island and reflected in the lake and framed by trees. You were right. It will make a very pretty picture.”

  “Ouch!” Lady Pamela giggled again. “Don’t bite, Tiny.”

  “Or perhaps for today you would like to paint Tiny rolling in the grass,” Fleur suggested.

  “Yes.” The child looked at her, bright-eyed. “Is she not funny, Miss Hamilton? Isn’t Papa wonderful?”

  “Very definitely,” a voice said from behind Fleur. “But what is this? A blank piece of paper and dry brushes? Grass in your hair, Pamela? And all over your dress? Whatever will Nanny say?”

  “She will scold,” Lady Pamela said. “Papa, come and feel Tiny’s funny nose. It’s all cold.”

  The Duke of Ridgeway passed Fleur and knelt down beside his daughter.

  Fleur stood where she was before the easel and felt turned to ice. She had hoped not to see him for a long, long time after that morning—particularly after that morning. She had felt utterly humiliated.

  He had been furious. Every word he had spoken had been like the lash of a whip. She had been forcefully reminded of the fact that he had been an infantry officer with His Grace of Wellington’s armies for several years. And she had believed that he spoke the truth.

  He had given her this post because he pitied her, not because he desired her.

&n
bsp; And her first words to him had been, “I will not be your mistress.” Words spoken to the Duke of Ridgeway! Her employer. They did not bear remembering.

  He got to his feet and turned to her while Pamela played on.

  “You brought her here to paint?” he asked.

  “Yes, your grace.”

  “And have not insisted that she do so?”

  “She is very excited about her puppy this afternoon, your grace,” she said.

  “Was it not agreed yesterday,” he asked, “that the puppy was not to interfere with lessons?”

  “Yes, your grace.” She looked into the dark depths of his eyes and firmly quelled the terror that his height, the breadth of his shoulders, his black hair and hawkish features threatened to turn to panic. And she looked at the disfiguring scar, reminding her of the other marks on his body, which were far worse than just scars. “Sometimes with young children, lesson plans ought not to be rigidly adhered to. We have talked this afternoon about the puppy’s teeth and the reason for their small size and impermanence—as with Lady Pamela’s. We have talked about the shape of the dog’s head and of how it will change as it grows. I have explained how your grooms will train the dog so that eventually it can live in the house. We have—”

  “I was not about to dismiss you, ma’am,” he said, “though it was a good answer. What was the purpose of the painting lesson?”

  “I was going to describe Corinthian columns and pediments,” she said, glancing out to the pavilion, “and point out how everything is reversed in a reflection. But your daughter is five years old, your grace. Mainly I planned to allow her to enjoy the fresh air and to experiment with using her paints.”

  Her chin rose stubbornly. Let him reprimand her if he chose. The child had far too little spontaneity in her life.

  “Another good answer,” he said. “Do you specialize in them?”

  There was no reply to such a question.

  “I suppose you have noticed,” he said, “that the temple is an exact replica in miniature of the central block of the house?”

  “Except for the horseshoe steps,” she said, turning to gaze across the lake below them. “Is it the same inside too?”

  “Very like,” he said, “even to the painting on the inside of the dome. But there is no gallery in the temple. It was built to be picturesque, as was everything else in the park, but it is used as a music pavilion during fêtes and garden parties. And will be used by the orchestra at the ball in three days’ time. You have been told that you may attend?”

  “Yes, your grace,” she said.

  He turned to talk to his daughter. “Let’s walk down to the water’s edge,” he said. “The pavilion looks more imposing from there. And the bridge can be seen off in the distance, and something of the cascades. Carry the puppy, Pamela. She will never walk so far.”

  “But it is time for us to go home,” Fleur said.

  Dark eyes were turned on her. One lifted eyebrow. “Who says so?” he said.

  Fleur felt herself flush. “Mrs. Clement will be expecting us, your grace,” she said.

  “Nanny?” he said. “Then Nanny will just have to wait, won’t she?”

  Pamela went clattering down the slope to the lake without taking the path that curved around to it at a less steep gradient. The duke held out a hand to help Fleur down.

  And she was in that tunnel again, darkness and cold air rushing at her. All she saw was the hand, the long beautiful fingers that had slid down between her thighs and pushed them wide and that had then opened her firmly, readying her for penetration.

  He lowered his hand and turned from her. “Just take it slowly,” he said, “unless you are planning to take a swim.”

  And somehow she brought herself out of the tunnel and forced her legs to move so that she could follow him down the slope to the path below, where the puppy was bounding in circles, happy to be on firmer ground.

  Another hour passed before they returned to the house. They strolled by the lake and climbed the bank again at another place. The duke described the various prospects to Fleur in a far more knowledgeable manner than Mrs. Laycock had done. The park had been laid out by William Kent—“No relation,” the duke added—for his grace’s grandfather, replacing the straight avenues and the large flat parterre gardens that had preceded it.

  “I believe my grandmother was outraged,” he said. “She was a very proper eighteenth-century lady. She believed that the larger one’s formal garden, the greater one’s consequence.”

  He carried the puppy for much of the way, smoothing the soft down over its nose with one finger as it nestled against his chest and fell asleep. And he handed the dog to Fleur before chasing a shrieking Pamela across one wide lawn and wrestling her to the grass, where she lay laughing and flailing her arms and legs.

  Both father and daughter looked somewhat rumpled by the time they stepped onto the terrace before the house.

  “Will Mama’s guests be here soon, Papa?” Lady Pamela asked.

  “The day after tomorrow, unless any of them are delayed,” he said.

  “Will I be able to see the ladies?” she asked.

  “Do you want to?”

  “May I?” she begged. “Mama will say no, I know she will.”

  “Perhaps Mama is in the right of it,” he said, releasing her hand and reaching for the puppy, which Fleur was carrying. “They will not be ladies you would wish to meet, Pamela.”

  “But …” she said.

  “Time to go in,” he said, looking up into Fleur’s eyes, his own hard as his hand brushed against hers beneath the puppy’s stomach, and she snatched it away and took a hasty step backward. “I shall return Tiny to the stables.”

  “Oh,” Fleur said. “We have forgotten the easel and paints. I will have to run back for them.”

  “I shall send a servant,” the duke said impatiently. “Don’t trouble yourself, ma’am.”

  Fleur took Lady Pamela by the hand and led her up to the nursery. The child was tired and incredibly dirty and disheveled, facts which Mrs. Clement did not fail to notice and comment upon.

  Fleur stood at the window of her room ten minutes later, her ears ringing from the scathing reprimand she had received. It seemed that her grace was to be told of her terrible insubordination in keeping Lady Pamela from the house more than an hour longer than she had been permitted and in returning her looking like a scarecrow and in such a state of exhaustion that she would doubtless be ill the next day.

  Fleur stood close to the window and looked out across the lawns, which gave such a misleading impression of peace. She had thought them peaceful. She had thought them heaven. She had been beginning to relax and to feel more happy than she had felt since early childhood.

  Should she leave before she was dismissed?

  But where would she go and what would she do? Although she had everything she could possibly need at Willoughby Hall, she had not yet been paid. All the money she had was the few coins that remained from the advance that had been given her to buy some clothes. She did not even have enough with which to return to London.

  The thought of London made her shudder. There was only one future facing her there.

  She was still almost numb with the nightmare of what had happened. This employment had been given to her by the man who filled all her nightmares with terror. It had been no fortunate chance, after all. He had given her employment because he pitied her—or so he said. She did not know whether to trust him or not.

  And suddenly she had found today that all her other terrors had been renewed too. Had there been any pursuit? Was there still? Would she hang if she were caught? Even though it had been an accident? Even though she had been defending herself? Was one hanged regardless of circumstances if one killed another human being? Surely not.

  But Matthew had been the only witness. And Matthew was a baron and a justice of the peace. It would be his word against hers. And he had looked up from Hobson’s dead body and called her a murderer.

 
She would hang. They would tie her hands and her feet and place a bag over her head and a rope about her neck.

  She turned sharply from the window.

  She would not think of it. Or of Daniel, she thought determinedly. She would not. But his gentle smile and his blue eyes and his soft blond hair were there before her anyway, and his tall, slender body dressed in its dark, smart clerical garb.

  He had never kissed her. Only her hand, once. She had always wanted him to, but he had refused the only time she had asked him. He wanted her pure on their wedding day, he had told her with that sweet smile.

  A kiss would have made her impure? She closed her eyes and dragged at the pins that held her hair primly at the back of her head.

  He would be revolted at the knowledge of what she had done. He would look at her sorrowfully. Would he forgive her? Doubtless he would, as Jesus forgave the woman taken in adultery. But she did not want his forgiveness. She wanted his love and his sheltering arms. She wanted peace.

  But there could be no peace, although for two weeks she had persuaded herself that there could. She had murdered a man and could never go home. She would hang if she were caught. And she had done what she had done—with his grace, the Duke of Ridgeway. And was now caught in his home rather like a bird in a cage.

  She dragged her brush ruthlessly through her snarled hair. No matter how long she remained in this house, no matter how often she saw him, she would never be able to feel anything else but the blackest terror and the most nauseated revulsion whenever she set eyes on him.

  No matter how elegantly he might dress, she would always see him as she had seen him in that room at the Bull and Horn—tall and muscled and naked, the triangle of dark hair across his chest and down to his navel, the dreadful purple wounds, the terrifying arousal that had penetrated her and hurt her so searingly and violated her so irrevocably.