Chapter 3
PETER HOUGHTON, SORTING THROUGH THE DUKE of Ridgeway’s post and setting aside invitations that he thought his master might wish to accept, knew that the duke was in a bad mood as soon as he entered the house and even before he came into the study.
There was a certain tone to his voice, even when one could not hear the exact words, that betrayed his mood.
And his grace was limping slightly, the secretary saw, getting to his feet as the duke entered the room and sinking back into his chair again when the latter waved an impatient hand. Normally his grace went to great pains not to limp.
“Anything of importance?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the pile of mail.
“An invitation to dine with his majesty,” Houghton said.
“Prinny? Make my excuses,” the duke said.
“It is a royal summons to dinner and cards,” the secretary said with a cough.
“Yes, I understand,” the duke said. “Make my excuses. Is there anything from my wife?”
“Nothing, your grace,” Houghton said, looking down at the pile.
“We will be leaving for Willoughby,” his grace said curtly. “Let me see. I have promised to accompany the Denningtons to the opera tomorrow evening in order to escort their niece. There is nothing else that cannot be canceled, is there? We will leave the day after tomorrow.”
“Yes, your grace.” Peter Houghton smiled to himself as his employer strode from the room. It was two weeks to the day since the ladybird had been sent on her way by the stage. The duke had shown great fortitude in waiting that long before finding an excuse to go in pursuit.
The Duke of Ridgeway took the stairs two at a time, as he usually did, despite the fact that his leg and side were aching. He rubbed absently at his left eye and cheek. It was the damp weather. The old wounds always acted up when the weather turned for the worse.
Confound Sybil! She had consistently refused to accompany him to London since the time four years before when he had been forced to confront her and put an end to the wildest of her indiscretions.
And yet it seemed that almost every time he had settled in London alone for a few months of peace, she had decided to organize a large country party, inviting every disreputable member of the ton, male and female, who could be persuaded to leave London for Dorsetshire.
Very rarely did she think it necessary to inform him of her plans.
He was left to find out—if he found out at all—by accident.
On one occasion two years before he had not known until he returned home to find that all the guests had been and left again except for one straggler.
And that straggler had been kind enough to do the chambermaids a favor by vacating his own guest bedchamber in order to share that of the duchess.
The duke had sent that particular gentleman on his way within an hour of his return, and the man seemed to have taken to heart the advice not to show his face either at Willoughby or in London for at least the next ten years.
And he had given his duchess a tongue-lashing about propriety before the servants and those dependent upon them that had finally turned her pale and reduced her to tears.
Sybil always looked more beautiful than usual when in tears.
And she had accused him of hard-heartedness, neglect, tyranny—all the old charges.
This time his grace had learned of Sybil’s party from Sir Hector Chesterton at White’s. The man had seemed pleased by his invitation as he creaked inside his stays and wheezed for breath.
“There’s nothing much to do in town these days, old chap,” he had said, “except ogle the young things. And their mamas cling to them like leeches so that all one can do is ogle. Decent of Sybil to invite me.”
“Yes.” The duke had smiled arctically. “She likes to surround herself with company.”
And so he must return to Willoughby himself, many weeks before he had planned to do so.
He pulled the bell rope in his dressing room and shrugged out of his coat while he waited for his valet to arrive.
For the sake of his servants and for Pamela’s sake, he must return.
It would not be fair to allow them all to be witnesses to the debaucheries of Sybil and her friends.
God! He pulled at his neckcloth and tossed it aside.
He had loved her. Once upon a time, an eternity ago, he had loved her.
Sweet, fragile, blond and beautiful Sybil.
He had dreamed of her, ached for her all the time he was in Belgium waiting for the battle that had become the Battle of Waterloo.
He had lived on the memory of her bright smiles, her sweet protestations of love, her shy acceptance of his marriage proposal, her warm maiden’s kisses.
God! He pulled at the top button of his shirt and watched it sail across the room and tinkle against the china bowl on the washstand.
“Get someone to sew these infernal buttons on firmly,” he barked at his valet, who had the misfortune to come through the door at that moment.
But his valet had been with him from boyhood, and accompanied him to war and been his personal servant in Spain and in Belgium. He was made of stern stuff.
“The leg and side are aching, are they, sir?” he said cheerfully. “I thought they would in this weather. Lie down and let me massage them.”
“How will that keep the buttons on my shirts, confound you?” the duke said.
“It will, sir, take my word on it,” the valet said. “Lie down, now.”
“I want my riding clothes,” the duke said. “I am going for a gallop in the park.”
“After I massage you,” his man said like a nurse talking to a child. “Going back to Willoughby, are we, sir?”
“Houghton has been spreading the glad tidings, has he?” his grace said, stretching out obediently on a couch in the dressing room and allowing his valet to remove his clothing and set to work with his strong and expert hands, which never failed to ease the aching. “Will you be glad to be home, Sidney?”
“That I will,” his man said firmly. “And you too, sir, if you will but admit it. Willoughby was always your favorite place in the whole world.”
Yes. It had been. He had grown up with a conscious awareness that it would all be his one day.
And his love for Willoughby was deeply ingrained in him.
It had stayed with him during his years at school and university and during his years in the army.
He had insisted on buying his commission in an infantry regiment despite the fact that he was the elder son and heir and despite the opposition of his father and just about everyone who knew him.
But Willoughby had remained in his blood. It was what he had fought for—Willoughby, his home, England in miniature.
And yet now he hated to go back there. Because Sybil was there. Because life could never be what he had grown up dreaming that it would be.
And yet he must go. And something deep in him was perversely glad that he must. Willoughby in the late spring and summertime—he closed his eyes and felt that deep surge of longing that he always felt for his home when he was away from it and allowed himself to think of it.
And there was Pamela. Sybil did not care a great deal for her despite her protective attitude, despite the fact that she hated to allow him near the child. She spent almost no time with their daughter. Pamela needed him. She needed more than a nurse.
She had more than a nurse. She had a governess.
Fleur.
He had put her from his mind after salving his conscience by finding her employment. And Houghton had assured him that she seemed qualified to be a governess. Houghton would have interviewed the girl thoroughly.
He did not want to think of her. He did not want to see her again. He did not want to be reminded. He had only ever been unfaithful to Sybil that once, though there was precious little to be unfaithful to.
Why had he had Fleur sent to Willoughby? He had other properties. He could have sent her to one of them in some servant’s capacity.
Why Willoughby? To be in the same house as his wife. As himself. To teach his daughter.
A whore teaching Pamela.
“That’s enough, confound it,” he said, opening his eyes. “Are you trying to put me to sleep?”
“That I was, sir,” Sidney said, smiling cheerfully. “There is less of your temper to contend with when you are asleep, sir.”
“Damn your impudence,” the duke said, sitting up and rubbing at his eye again. “Fetch my riding clothes.”
FLEUR DID NOT MEET either her new charge or the duchess during the day of her arrival at Willoughby Hall. They had apparently gone visiting during the afternoon, taking the child’s nurse with them.
“Mrs. Clement was her grace’s own childhood nurse,” Mrs. Laycock explained.
“They are very close. I am afraid she will resent you as much as the duchess will, Miss Hamilton. You must just keep in mind that it is his grace who pays your salary.” She spoke briskly, so that Fleur got the impression that she was not the only servant who must keep such a fact in mind.
His grace was, apparently, from home. It was likely that he was in London for the Season if the Mr. Houghton who had interviewed her was his personal secretary. Mrs. Laycock did not know when he was to be expected home.
“Though he will be here, no doubt, if he gets wind of the fact that her grace is planning another party,” that lady said, “and a grand ball.” Her tone was disapproving, though she said no more on the topic.
She would take advantage of the absence of her grace, she said, to show Fleur something of the house abovestairs.