The Secret Pearl

by Mary Balogh

  “After I have been to Wroxford I will,” she said. “I have been thinking, Daniel, and I think Miriam’s suggestion is the very best thing for me. I will be happy in Miss Galen’s cottage and I will enjoy teaching at Miriam’s school. I will begin a new life, but I must go to Wroxford first. I was hoping that you would come with me. Won’t you?”

  He had been standing behind his desk since his housekeeper had shown her into his study. He came around it now. “Go with you?” he said. “Have you lost all sense of propriety, Isabella? It is not even very proper for you to be here alone with me when Miriam is busy at the school. It would take us two days to go to Wroxford and back.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I thought you would not wish to see me go alone.”

  “I don’t.” His tone was exasperated and he grasped her hands and squeezed them. “You must forget this madness. You are about to be released from one scandal. I don’t want even the breath of another to smear your character. I want you to be my wife. Perhaps Lord Brocklehurst will consent now to our marrying. If not, then I want to continue with our earlier plan. I will marry you by special license. Will you, Isabella?”

  Her eyes were on their clasped hands. “No, Daniel,” she said. “That is out of the question now.”

  “Because of the scandal?” he said. “But that is all over now. It was not so long ago that you were pleased at the idea of marrying me. You told me that you loved me.”

  “I can’t marry you, Daniel,” she said. “Too much has happened.”

  He released her hands and turned away from her in order to shuffle a pile of papers on his desk. “I have been meaning to ask you about the Duke of Ridgeway,” he said, “and the strange fact of his following you here after going to extraordinary lengths to clear you of the charges against you. What is it all about, Isabella?”

  “He is a kind man who cares for his employees,” she said. “I would say he is loved as well as respected by his servants.”

  “And by you?” he asked. “Do you love as well as respect him?” He had turned again. His blue eyes looked directly into hers.

  “Of course not,” she said. Her eyes wavered and held on his.

  “And what are his feelings for you?” he asked. “He is a married man, is he not?”

  “I have told you,” Fleur said. “He is a caring employer. He takes his responsibilities seriously.”

  “He has nothing to do with your reluctance to marry me, then?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I will say no more on the matter, then,” he said a little stiffly. “But I am pleased that you are home and safe, Isabella. And I am pleased that you will be working with Miriam. She needs help and I know she values your friendship, as I do.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She stood looking at him for a long moment. “Daniel, I would like to tell you the full truth.”

  “It is often as well,” he said. “It is good to unburden the conscience.”

  “When I was in London,” she said, “I was starving and I could find no employment at all. The time came when I had been two days without food.”

  He stood looking gravely at her.

  “It seemed to me at the time,” she said, “and I believe I was right, that I had three possible ways of surviving. I could beg or I could steal or I could …” She swallowed awkwardly. “Or I could offer my body for sale.”

  He did not help her. They stood in silence for a few moments.

  “I sold my body,” she said. “Once. I would have done so again and again if I had not been offered the governess’s post that took me into Dorsetshire.”

  “You are a whore,” he said very softly.

  She covered her lips with one shaking hand and then lowered the hand again. “Present tense?” she said. “Is that something that is always present tense?”

  “Isabella.” He turned away and leaned both arms on the desk. “There must have been some alternative.”

  “Thieves in London are very well-trained from infancy,” she said. “I don’t believe I could have competed. Should I have died, Daniel? Should I have starved to death rather than become a whore?”

  “Oh, dear God,” he said. “Dear God.”

  And in the silence that followed, Fleur knew that his words had not been just an exclamation.

  He lifted his head at last, though he did not turn around. “Are you sorry?” he asked. “Have you repented, Isabella?”

  “Yes and no,” she said steadily after a pause. “I am more sorry than I can say that it happened, Daniel, but I am not sorry that I did it. I know that I would do it again if it were my only means of survival. I suppose I am not the stuff that martyrs are made of.”

  His head dropped again. “But how can you expect God’s forgiveness if you do not truly repent?” he said.

  “I think perhaps God understands,” she said. “If he does not, then I suppose I have a quarrel with him.”

  He said nothing for a long while.

  “So you see,” she said, “I cannot marry you or anyone else, Daniel. For though I am not sorry for what I did, I do know that I am a fallen woman, and I am prepared to live with the consequences of that fact. I am going to Wroxford. By the time I return, you will doubtless have decided whether I am worthy to work with Miriam in the school.” She crossed the room quietly to the door.

  His voice stopped her. “Isabella,” he said, “don’t go there. It is not fitting, a lady alone.”

  “But I am no real lady, am I?” she said. “Don’t worry about me, Daniel. I will be back within a couple of days.”

  She let herself quietly out of the room and out of the house. She did not, as she had planned to do, walk along the village street to the school to call upon Miriam and the children. She untethered the horse that she had ridden from the house, mounted unassisted into the sidesaddle, and turned in the direction of home.

  And she remembered her love for Daniel as if it were a thing of the distant past. A sweet memory that lingered in the mind but was incapable of being rekindled.

  THE DUKE OF RIDGEWAY had left his carriage at the village inn and ridden over to Heron House. He did not have anything of value to report. The landlord of the inn and his customers had all known Hobson. None of them knew where he was from or where he had been taken for burial. One man had declared that he was from London, but a chorus of voices disagreed with some scorn. Hobson, it seemed, had not had a cockney accent.

  The talk about the valet had led inevitably to talk about Fleur and her strange and unexpected return. No one, it seemed, believed her to be guilty. Hobson, his grace gathered, had been known as a nasty customer, and Brocklehurst himself was not highly regarded.

  The announcement that would soon be made and the dropping of all charges against her would clearly only confirm what people already knew.

  He wished he could have found the information Fleur wanted. He would have liked to do that, to know that she could go and see the grave and finally put behind her the nightmare of the past months. He would like to think back on her and know that she was at least at peace with herself and the world.

  She was not at home, the butler at Heron House told him. And he did not know if she really was from home or if she had denied him. Either way, there was no real point in pressing the issue, he supposed. He had nothing to tell her and therefore no business seeing her. He should leave without further ado.

  “Kindly tell Miss Bradshaw that I was unable to find the information she wanted,” he told the butler, deciding that he would not wait.

  He would go to London. That was probably where Brocklehurst had gone. It should be an easy matter to track him down and make sure that he had not delayed in putting everything right. And he would try to see to it that some settlement was made on Fleur until her twenty-fifth birthday. He would also see Brocklehurst’s coachman so that he could send back to her details of the location of Hobson’s grave.

  And then it would be home to Willoughby, Fleur Bradshaw set firmly out of his mind and out of his
life. He would devote his energies to being a good father. And perhaps some sort of peaceful relationship could be established with Sybil. He would try, anyway.

  His mind was made up. But all his resolutions wavered as he was riding away from the house and met Fleur at a bend in the driveway. She was wearing a black velvet riding habit and hat, a color which looked quite stunning against the vivid redgold of her hair.

  “Oh,” she said, “you startled me.”

  “Good morning, Fleur,” he said. “I have just been to call on you. I’m afraid I have no good news, but I hope to be able to send some to you. I am going to London and plan to talk with your cousin’s coachman.”

  “It is Wroxford,” she said. “My maid let it slip last night. Apparently all the servants have been instructed to keep their mouths shut around me.”

  “Wroxford?” he said. “Where is that?”

  “About thirty miles away,” she said. “Daniel says I am foolish to want to go there, and I suppose he is right. But I must go.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I can understand that.” He watched the skill with which she restrained her frisky horse and watched the animation in her face. So vivid and so beautiful—and so unlike the way she had looked when he first saw her. “He and Miss Booth are to go with you?”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “Miriam has her school. She already took a day off yesterday for me. And Daniel cannot come. It would be improper.”

  “But he would let you go alone?” he said. “Is not that far more improper?”

  “But to be fair,” she said, smiling, “he is not letting me do anything or stopping me from doing anything. He has no right.”

  “And you are going?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  Her horse was snorting and tossing its head and pawing the ground, impatient to be on its way.

  “Has he had a gallop this morning?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “But I was about to give him one.”

  “Come along, then,” he said, and he led the way through the beech trees that lined the driveway to open tree-dotted parkland. He looked back to Fleur, who had followed him. “Perhaps you can keep up this time, since you have had your choice of horse and I do not have Hannibal with me.”

  She smiled at him and gave her horse the signal it had been waiting for.

  He should not have done it, the duke thought. He should not have grabbed for himself this one final half-hour of sheer pleasure with her. And sheer pleasure it was, as it had been the last time they rode together. Fleur Bradshaw, it seemed, came fully alive when on horseback. She laughed across at him as her horse overtook his own, and was smiling when he passed her again as they circled up behind the stables and the house.

  He should have said good-bye to her when they were on the driveway, and continued on his way. On his way out of her life.

  He should not even have come. He should have sent Houghton. He should not be feeding a forbidden love.

  But he would never see her again. Soon he would be gone, and he would not think of her or pine for her. He had a life to get on with and other people whose happiness to look to even if he could not expect any great happiness for himself.

  One final half-hour. Surely he could be excused for stealing that much for himself.

  Fleur overtook him once more and gradually reduced her horse’s speed and turned it in the direction of home.

  “That should satisfy you,” she said, leaning forward to pat her horse’s neck.

  The duke dismounted and handed his reins to a waiting groom. He stretched up his arms to lift Fleur to the ground, and waited while the groom led both horses away. His hands were still at her waist.

  “You are leaving for Dorsetshire now?” she asked.

  “London first,” he said. “I have some business to do there before returning home.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Will you give my love to Lady Pamela and tell her that I miss her?”

  “Yes,” he said. Her hands were on his arms. “Fleur.”

  She smiled at his neckcloth. “Good-bye,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”

  I love you, he wanted to tell her. I’ll always love you, though I must leave you.

  “I’m coming to Wroxford with you,” he said. “If we leave within the hour, we can probably reach there by tonight. Tomorrow you can see what you wish to see and we can be back here by tomorrow night. I’ll return to the village for my carriage.”

  “No,” she said. She was looking full into his eyes, her own wide and startled. “We could not do that, your grace, you and I alone.”

  “And you cannot do it alone, either,” he said. “There are such people as highwaymen out on our roads. And you must stop for meals and take a room for the night. It is out of the question for you to do those things alone.”

  She stared at him. Her hands were still on his arms, his at her waist. “Why?” she almost whispered, leaning toward him. “You have a home and a wife and a daughter to go back to. Why delay on my account?”

  “Fleur …” he said. But he stopped and broke eye contact with her. He looked over her head to the stables, where the groom who had taken their horses was trying to look engrossed in his task of removing her sidesaddle. “I am coming with you. Go and change and pack a bag. I shall be here in one hour’s time or less.”

  She said nothing else, but watched him as he strode away from her, untethered his horse, and swung himself into the saddle.

  “One hour,” he said to her as he took his horse past her and turned its head for the driveway.

  He had stolen half an hour and convinced himself that it was no serious sin against his responsibilities to his family and dependents.

  Now he was stealing two days. He was not so sure he would be able to quiet his conscience this time.

  Except that she needed him. For some reason that only she could understand fully, she needed to see the grave of the man she had accidentally killed. That grave was thirty miles away. She needed his escort.

  And except that he loved her.

  IT WAS A VERY comfortable carriage, Fleur thought, relaxing back against soft green cushions and noticing that the springs made a mockery of the rough roads over which they passed. What a difference from the journey she had made by the stage just a few days before.

  And yet she was not relaxed, either. The Duke of Ridgeway sat beside her, both of them silent, just a small space separating their shoulders.

  Why had he come? Why was he taking such an interest in her affairs? And why had she let him come? She might have said no. She might have argued the point more vigorously.

  “Why?” she asked, as she had more than an hour before outside the stables. “Why are you here in Wiltshire? Why are you taking me to Wroxford?”

  He did not look at her, but out of the window. She thought for a while that he would not answer.

  “You know that you did not murder your cousin’s valet,” he said, “that in large measure you are not responsible for his death. And yet you have to see your involvement with him to its conclusion. You have to make this journey, a thing that very few people except you would understand. I feel something similar with you.”

  She said nothing more for a while. She understood his answer. It made sense to her.

  “I don’t understand,” she said at last. “I have never understood it, though in your case I find it particularly difficult to understand. The duchess is very beautiful. You have a daughter who thrives on your love and a home that must be one of the loveliest in all England. Why do men like you need women for casual and sordid relations? I don’t understand.”

  He continued to look out of the window. “I can’t answer for other men,” he said, “only for myself. I will not say much about my marriage, Fleur, because I owe my wife privacy, if not myself. I will only say that it is a difficult and an unhappy marriage and has been from the start. Sometimes it is difficult not to feel certain cravings. But I was faithful to my marriage until that one occasion with you.”

  F
leur looked at his profile, at the scarred side of his face. Cravings? Did he not have a normal marriage?

  “I don’t know why it happened on that occasion,” he said. “I had not planned it and you did nothing to entice me. You stood still and quiet in the shadows. I could not even see you clearly. Perhaps …” He stopped talking, and Fleur thought that he would not continue. But he did after a while. “Perhaps something in me recognized you. I don’t know.”

  “Recognized?” The word came out as a whisper.

  “My pearl beyond price,” he said quietly.

  Fleur watched him swallow.

  “And then I was angry,” he said, “because having made the decision to be unfaithful, I wanted a night of forgetfulness. I wanted to be able to blame you afterward. But you did nothing, only allowed me to use you. It was a dreadful experience for you, Fleur, and it was quite unpleasant for me. I got what I deserved, I suppose.”

  “Why did you send Mr. Houghton to find me?” she asked. “Was it just guilt?”

  He turned and looked at her for the first time. “For a long time I told myself that that was the reason,” he said. “I suppose that with my head I am still telling myself that. Don’t probe any further, Fleur.”

  They stared at each other for a long while before she looked down at her hand, which was lying palm-down on the seat between them. No, she would probe no further. She did not want to know the truth. It was too strange, the fate that had brought them together, and too cruel.

  She could feel his eyes on her hand too. And he set his own beside it, that beautiful long-fingered hand that had once terrified her and that still disturbed her and made her feel breathless. Their little fingers almost touched.

  They sat like that, still and silent, for a long while before he moved his little finger to stroke lightly over hers. And she spread hers and bent it so that their two fingers twined together.

  Their eyes watched their hands. They touched at only the one point. They said nothing.