Chapter 4
FLEUR’S LIFE WAS BY NO MEANS ARDUOUS DURING her first two weeks at Willoughby.
She had been instructed to take her orders from Mrs. Clement, and Mrs. Clement, it seemed, did not approve of schooling for her young charge any more than the duchess did.
The new governess was lucky if she was granted an hour morning and afternoon with her pupil.
She was somewhat uneasy, perhaps a little worried that she would be dismissed as a servant of little use or that the duke and Mr. Houghton would come home and find that she was not after all earning her keep.
But she tried to take the advice of Mrs. Laycock, who told her to relax and do her best, and who assured her that when his grace finally arrived home—and he would surely come when he heard about the party that her grace had organized—all would be set to rights.
In the meanwhile Fleur became familiar with and comfortable in her new home.
There were long hours of quiet and peace in which to allow the old fears to die and the old wounds to heal.
Sometimes a whole day would pass without her feeling that old urge to look anxiously over her shoulder for a pursuer.
And sometimes she could sleep for a whole stretch without seeing that hawkish and scarred face bending over her and telling her what she was while making her into just that.
She was eating well and had put back on some of the weight she had lost. Her hair seemed thicker again and shinier. The worst of the shadows had disappeared from beneath her eyes. There was color in her cheeks. There was energy in her muscles. She was beginning to feel young again.
Mrs. Laycock found the time over those two weeks to stroll over much of the vast park with her. And always Fleur found out more from the quiet conversation of the housekeeper about her new home and the family for whom she worked.
“It was laid out years ago to give the impression of natural beauty,” Mrs. Laycock said of the park.
“The lake was dug and the cascades created and every tree planted in order to give a pleasing prospect from almost every vantage point. A little silly, I call it, Miss Hamilton, when nature does very nicely on its own without the help of men to make their fortunes out of landscaping the gardens of the rich. I would prefer to see flat formal gardens with a good show of flowers myself. But that is only my opinion.”
Fleur loved the park and its rolling and seemingly endless lawns and groves of trees. She loved the winding avenues and stone temples and other follies. She felt that she could wander there forever and never tire of the views or the sense of peace that it all brought her.
His grace, she discovered from Mrs. Laycock, had fought with the English army in Spain and at the Battle of Waterloo, even though he had always been the heir to the late duke, and had already succeeded to his title when he left for Belgium.
“He never shirked any duty,” the housekeeper said. “There were those, of course, who said that his duty was to remain here safe and alive in order to take over his responsibilities. But he went.”
“And he came back safely,” Fleur said.
Mrs. Laycock sighed. “It was a dreadful time,” she said.
“He was so happy before he went back to fight again when that monster escaped from Elba. He had just become betrothed to her grace—the Honorable Miss Sybil Desford she was then—and was as happy as the day was long. They had been intended for each other for years before that, but it was only during those months that he really had stars in his eyes for her.”
“But he came back to her,” Fleur said. “All ended happily.”
“We thought he was dead,” Mrs. Laycock said.
“News came that he had been killed in battle, and his man came home all broken up—he had been with his grace for years. I don’t like to remember that time, Miss Hamilton.
First the old duke and then our boy. Boy!
” She chuckled. “Just listen to me. He is past his thirtieth birthday already.”
They sat on a wrought-iron seat beside the path they were strolling along and looked down through trees to a crescent-shaped lake with an island and a domed pavilion in its center.
“Lord Thomas assumed the title,” Mrs. Laycock continued. “His grace’s half-brother, that is. They look alike, but as different they are as chalk is from cheese. There are those who prefer Lord Thomas because of his sunny nature and his smiles. He betrothed himself to her grace—to Miss Desford.”
“All so quickly?” Fleur asked. “But surely the mistake was discovered very soon?”
“It was a whole year,” the housekeeper said with a sigh.
“His grace was taken for dead and stripped on the battlefield. Those French, or those Belgians, behaved just like barbarians, Miss Hamilton. But one decent couple discovered that he was still breathing and took him to their cottage to nurse him back to health. He was dreadfully wounded.” She shook her head.
“He was unconscious or in a fever for weeks,” she continued. “And then he could not remember much. He did not know who he was for months, and then apparently he had trouble convincing anyone that he was who he said he was. He was naked, poor gentleman, when he was found.”
“So for a whole year he was thought to be dead?” Fleur asked.
“I’ll never forget the day he came home,” Mrs. Laycock said. “Still limping and sadly disfigured, poor gentleman. I’ll never forget it.”
“What happened to Lord Thomas?” Fleur asked when her companion stared quietly down to the lake.
“He left,” Mrs. Laycock said. “Just disappeared about three months after his grace came home. There are those who said there was not room for the both of them in the one house and that his grace ordered him to leave. And there are those who say other things. I do not know the rights of it. But he has never come back.”
“And the duchess married his grace after all,” Fleur said. “The story has a happily-ever-after ending.”
“Yes.” Mrs. Laycock got to her feet and brushed at the folds of her black dress.
“She married him. Though such a wailing she put up when she came here with her papa and discovered that Lord Thomas had gone, that I had a hard time of it to quiet the servants’ talk, Miss Hamilton.
And his grace so happy to be home only three months before that and catching her up in his arms and twirling her about when she stepped from her carriage for all the world to see. ”
They strolled on, each wrapped in private thought. It was strange that the duke spent so much time from home if he loved it so much, Fleur thought, and if he loved the duchess so much and had such a strong sense of responsibility.
But not all of Fleur’s time was spare time, of course.
She did have about two hours each day with her pupil, a small, thin, dark-haired child who might one day grow up to be handsome if her frequently petulant look did not become habitual.
She did not resemble her mother in any way at all. She must be all her father.
The child was difficult. She did not want to look at books, she did not want to listen to stories, she did not want to pick up a needle, and when she painted she often did so carelessly, wasting both paper and paint and becoming mulish when Fleur insisted that she clear away the mess she had made.
Fleur tried to be patient. Lady Pamela was, after all, little more than a baby, and she must know, as children usually did, that her mother and her nurse were on her side. Fleur tried to entice the child into wanting to learn.
There was an old harpsichord in the schoolroom. Fleur sat at it and played one afternoon when Lady Pamela had refused to cooperate in any of the planned activities, and she continued to play when she was aware of the child standing still to one side of the stool.
“I want to play,” Lady Pamela demanded when Fleur’s fingers finally fell still.
Fleur smiled. “Have you had any instruction?” she asked.
“No,” Lady Pamela said. “I want to play. Get up.”
“Please,” Fleur said.
“Get up!” the child said. “I want to play.” “Please,” Fleur said again.
“You are a servant,” Lady Pamela said haughtily. “Get up or I will tell Nanny.”
“I will gladly get up,” Fleur said, “if you will ask me rather than tell me.”
The child flounced off in order to scold and slap a shabby doll she had brought to the schoolroom with her.
Fleur sighed inwardly and resumed her quiet playing. It all reminded her of so much. Cousin Caroline and Amelia, haughty and imperious because they were suddenly Lady Brocklehurst of Heron House and the Honorable Miss Amelia Bradshaw after the death of her parents.
And they had treated her just so because they were obliged to offer her a home in the house where she had always lived. Amelia had taken her lovely Chinese bedchamber and relegated her to a plainer room at the back of the house.
She had a few good days with her pupil. Lady Pamela had been excited one morning because her mother was to take her visiting in the afternoon, but word came to the nursery at luncheon time that her grace was feverish and had been told by the doctor to rest during the afternoon.
Fleur, who was taking her luncheon upstairs, saw the look of intense disappointment on her pupil’s face and the tears that formed in her eyes and her trembling, pouting lip.
The child saw far too little of her mother.
But Fleur knew that the chief disappointment would be in not seeing the Chamberlain children and their dogs after all.
Lady Pamela also saw very little of other children.
“Would it be possible for me to take Lady Pamela to visit the children?” she asked Mrs. Clement when the child could not hear her.