The Secret Pearl

by Mary Balogh

  “I will be pleased to, your grace,” she said.

  He treats his employees more like family than servants, Mr. Chamberlain had said of the duke the night before. Her grace had summoned. He had asked.

  “You may wish to dance when you are not playing,” he said. “I am sure there will be several gentlemen who will be pleased if you do.”

  “No,” she said. “Thank you, but no, your grace.”

  “And yet,” he said, “you appeared to enjoy dancing during the ball a few evenings ago.”

  “That was quite different,” she said.

  “Allow me to escort you to the drawing room,” he said. He did not offer her his arm.

  The drawing room looked somehow larger and more magnificent with the carpet rolled up and the white-and-gold chairs, upholstered in painted silk, moved back against the walls. The pianoforte too had been moved into one corner.

  It was one of the most beautiful rooms in the house, Fleur thought, looking about her, unself-conscious because none of the guests were yet present. The walls were a pale blue, the coved ceiling blue, white, and gold. Great sheets of mirror made the room seem larger than it was and multiplied the effect of the crystal chandelier.

  “The paintings are from Europe,” his grace said, seeing her interest, “though I have tried to gather works of our own artists in some of the other rooms. These are by Philipp Hackert and Angelica Kauffmann. Would you like to look through the music?”

  She settled herself at the pianoforte and looked through the pile that someone must have been assigned to bring from the music room. All of it was music suitable for dancing. Many of the pieces were waltz tunes.

  During the next two hours she grew increasingly more relaxed in the task she had taken on. Except for Sir Philip Shaw, who came up to the pianoforte and kissed her hand on his arrival in the drawing room, everyone else took remarkably little notice of her, calling to her only when they wanted a particular tune or type of dance. The waltz was an overwhelming favorite. Miss Dobbin appeared to have forgotten that she was to play for part of the evening, and Fleur willed her to continue to forget.

  But the time inevitably came when she looked up between dances to find that Matthew was leading Miss Dobbin her way.

  “Miss Hamilton,” she said, “how well you play. I am wishing now that I had played first so that I would not have to follow you.”

  Fleur protested that she really did not have to play at all, but Miss Dobbin insisted that dancing was not her favorite activity and she had done enough of it during the ball and the last couple of hours to last her for the next month.

  “Besides, Miss Hamilton,” Matthew said with a bow, “how am I to dance with you if you are to sit at the pianoforte all night?”

  “I am not here to dance, my lord,” she said, “but to provide accompaniment.”

  “Ah, but you will dance,” he said, smiling at her. “Please, ma’am? Because it is I who ask?”

  What would he do if she refused? Fleur wondered. Turn to the company and denounce her in a loud voice? Expose her as a murderer and a jewel thief? She thought not. He would embarrass himself by such an exhibition, and that would not serve his purpose at all.

  But of course it was an academic question. The truth was that she would not put it to the test, and Matthew must know her well enough to know that she would not.

  “A waltz, if you please, Miss Dobbin?” he asked, holding out a hand for Fleur’s.

  Matthew waltzed tolerably well. But of course she could not give herself up to an enjoyment of the dance. She was a servant in this house, and her cheeks burned at the impropriety of her dancing with the company in the drawing room despite the permission his grace had granted her earlier. She looked about nervously to see how the duchess was reacting at sight of her, but her grace was absent from the room.

  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 I can 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 and you 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 pl
aying. 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 each other. 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.

  But there had been her terror the first evening she had set eyes on Brocklehurst. There was the fact that both of them claimed only a slight acquaintance, and yet he had called her Isabella. There was the fact that he was the owner of Heron House and she had lived at a place called “Her—.”

  He watched the gentlemen take their partners for a quadrille, made sure that no lady who appeared eager to dance was without a partner, and slipped from the room.

  There was no one in the great hall. The footmen had been withdrawn for the night. And yet he heard voices as he entered it. From behind one of the pillars? From the arches leading to the staircases? He strolled about quietly, but there was no one to be seen. And the voices had ceased. Perhaps he had imagined them. The doors into the salon and the long gallery were closed.

  But of course, he thought at last, standing in the middle of the hall and resisting the urge to look up. The old hiding place, which he and Thomas had used countless times as boys, lying flat to observe new arrivals, snickering over the conversations of the footmen when they had thought themselves alone, making owl noises in an attempt to frighten the same footmen.

  It would be Thomas and Sybil. Should he look up? Call to them? Climb the stairs to confront them? Give them time to come down of their own accord and return to the dancing?

  The confrontation would have to be made. But he would prefer to postpone it to a time when he did not have to return to entertain the guests immediately after.

  And what of Fleur Hamilton and Brocklehurst? They had been in the long gallery the last time they had been together—that night with its ghastly aftermath. He crossed the hall to the gallery, opened the door, and stepped inside.

  One set of candles halfway along the long gallery was lit. The room was almost in darkness, heavy shadows spreading outward from the central source of light.

  They were at the far end, in close embrace. They had not heard him come in. And he had to make the instant decision of whether to leave as quietly as he had come or make his presence known. She was not struggling. Perhaps she would resent his intrusion on a romantic moment. Or perhaps she needed him.

  He walked slowly along the gallery, making no attempt to hide in the shadows or dull the sound of his footsteps. And when he was a little more than halfway along, they broke apart and turned to look at him.

  Sybil and Thomas.

  The duchess turned sharply away to stare out of a window into darkness. Lord Thomas met his brother’s eyes in the near-darkness and smiled.

  “I was seized with the urge to renew my acquaintance with our ancestors,” he said. “But alas, this is not quite the time of day to come picture-gazing. I shall have to do it again in the daylight.”

  “Yes,” the duke said. “I will be wanting a word with you in the morning, too, Thomas. But not now. Now there are ladies in the drawing room who would appreciate your offer to partner them in a dance. Sybil and I will see you there shortly.”

  Lord Thomas turned to look at the back of the duchess’s head. “Do you wish to return with me, Sybil?” he asked. “Or with Adam?”

  “She will return with me,” his grace said quietly.

  The duchess said nothing.

  Lord Thomas shrugged. “Oh, well,” he said, “I know that when you drop your voice that low, Adam, fisticuffs are not far in the future if I argue. And we must not present bloody noses to your guests, must we?” He touched the duchess on one shoulder. “You will be all right, Sybil?”

  Again she said nothing. He shrugged once more and made his way alone along the gallery.

  The duke waited a long time, until he heard the door close finally as his brother left.

  “Well, Sybil,” he said quietly.

  She turned to him. The faint light from the candles was gleaming off her blond hair. Her face was shadowed. “Well, Adam,” she said, her sweet voice shaking a little. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “What do you want me to do about it?” he asked. “How far has it gone? I suppose you love him again—but then, you never stopped, did you? Are you lovers?”

  She laughed shortly. “Would you divorce me if I said yes?” she asked. “Would you, Adam? It would make a wonderful scandal, wouldn’t it?” Her voice was shaking almost out of control.

  “No,” he said. “I would never divorce you, Sybil. I think you know that. But you made me certain promises when we married. You owe it to both of us and to Pamela and all those dependent on us to keep those promises, I believe. Thomas is irrevocably in your past. You made it irrevocable when you married me.”

  “What choice did I have?” she cried passionately. “What choice did I have? I would have been ruined forever, and you had sent him away never to return. And you kept coming and urging me to accept your protection before Papa discovered the truth. I had no choice at all. You are an evil man, Adam.”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “But you have not been exactly the ideal mate either, Sybil. We must just make the best of what we have done with our lives.”

  “Do you blame me,” she said, looking at him with deep revulsion, “for not wanting you to touch me? They would have been kinder to you, those people, if they had left you to die. You are only half a man.”

  “We had better return to our guests,” he said.

  “And you talk about my keeping my promises,” she said, her voice petulant as it frequently was during their arguments. “Can you honestly tell me that you have kept yours, Adam? Can you tell me that you have never been unfaithful to me?”

  He looked at her without answering.

  “Do you think,” she said, “that I do not know the reason for your frequent journeys to London? Do you think I do not know why you suddenly decided this time that Pamela needed a governess? Don’t talk to me of marriage vows. If I have given in to my love for Thomas, it is because I have been driven to it by your debaucheries and your cruelty.” She felt about her for a handkerchief and finally took the one he held out to her.

  “Now, that,” he said, “is a good deal of nonsense, as you are very well aware. Dry your eyes, Sybil, and blow your nose. We have been away from our guests for
long enough.”

  She turned in silence and began to walk along the gallery. When they reached the doors, he opened them, took the handkerchief from her hand, and drew her arm through his. Distasteful and hypocritical as it might seem, he thought, looking down at her beautiful face, the blue eyes lowered, and at her silver-blond hair, there were appearances to consider.

  And she, of course, realized it too. She sparkled again as soon as they stepped inside the drawing room. Almost everyone was dancing. Fleur Hamilton was playing the pianoforte.

  FLEUR WAS THE LAST to leave the drawing room. The dancers had all drifted away to bed, and a few servants had come in to roll out the carpet and set the room to rights again. She sorted through the music and decided to return it to the music room before going to bed herself.

  It was very late. She felt tired. But she did not want to go to bed. She preferred her thoughts when she was somewhat in control of them. She did not want the nightmares that so frequently disturbed her sleep.

  She set the branch of candles she had brought with her on top of the pianoforte in the music room and put the music away neatly. And she reached out a hand for the candles again.

  But the pianoforte, so much larger and more mellow in tone than the one in the drawing room, drew her like a magnet. She ran her fingers lightly over the keys, not depressing them. And she played a scale, slowly and softly. She seated herself on the stool.

  She played Bach, a crisp, fast sonata, her eyes closed. She played rather loudly. Perhaps if she concentrated hard enough, played briskly enough, she could drown out her thoughts.

  Perhaps she could drown out Matthew.

  But inevitably the music came to an end. She must open her eyes and go upstairs to her bed and accept whatever the remainder of the night had to offer her. She sighed. Last evening with Mr. Chamberlain seemed such a long time in the past already.

  “I wish I had enough command of the keyboard to be able to work out my frustrations in that manner,” a voice said from behind her.