Free The Secret Pearl by Mary Balogh

know what your working hours are,” Emily Chamberlain said, “but I suppose you must have some time to yourself. Do call here at any time, Miss Hamilton. I would enjoy your company.”
    “One of the dogs bit Randall’s bottom when he was climbing over a chair,” Lady Pamela told Fleur as the carriage jerked into motion. “Their nurse said it was because we had made the dog overexcited.” She giggled. “But it was ever so funny.”
    Fleur laughed with her but resisted the urge to hug the child. It was too early for that yet.
    True to his promise, Mr. Chamberlain brought his sister andhis children to call several days later. While Miss Chamberlain sat drinking tea with the duchess, he brought his children upstairs, only to find that Lady Pamela was in the middle of an arithmetic lesson in the schoolroom.
    “I do beg your pardon,” he said when Fleur answered the door to his knock. “May I invite your eternal wrath, Miss Hamilton, and beg that Lady Pamela be released early from classes in order to play with my trio? I am sure she will work twice as hard tomorrow, won’t you, Pamela?”
    “Yes,” she cried eagerly, jumping to her feet.
    “She is also an accomplished little liar,” he said quietly to Fleur with a smile, “as are all children. Can I persuade you to step outside so they may romp and shriek and argue without murdering our ears?”
    “What a splendid idea,” Fleur said, and led the way downstairs and out through a door at the back of the house to lawns that led back to a distant tree line. She hesitated when he offered his arm while they walked. The children had run on ahead with a ball, which one of the Chamberlain children had been clutching. Was it proper? She was a servant. He was a visitor.
    She took his arm.
    “If we stroll slowly enough,” he said, “the children will get far enough ahead that we will not feel obliged to listen for naughty words or unkind insults. The very best way to deal with children, Miss Hamilton, as I have found from personal experience, is to become blind, deaf, and dumb. And, of course, to have a competent nurse and a long-suffering resident sister. Tell me about yourself. What has brought you here?”
    Fleur felt guilty about the lies and half-truths she felt forced to tell.
    “You will be at the ball?” he asked when taking his leave of her some time later and turning to summon his three children. “I hope to dance with you there, Miss Hamilton.”
    She hoped so too. As she led Pamela by the hand back upstairs to the nursery, and endured the icy glares of Mrs. Clement when she observed the child’s flushed cheeks and somewhat disheveled hair, Fleur hoped so profoundly. She returned to the schoolroom to put away the books they had abandoned earlier, and twirled about, the arithmetic book clasped to her bosom.
    It was so good to feel young and happy and full of hope again. And to have had an attractive gentleman ask her to dance with him at the ball.
    Not that she would be seduced by expectations for the future, of course. Nothing but the very mildest of flirtations was at all possible for her. Certainly marriage was completely out of the question. But she would settle for a mild flirtation. It would be quite enough.
    And finally, it seemed, his grace was to come home. Lady Pamela brought her the news one afternoon, rushing through the schoolroom door, when she usually dragged her feet and frequently looked sullen as well.
    “Papa is coming home,” she announced triumphantly. “Mama has just had a letter from him. He should be here any day. He should be here before any of Mama’s guests arrive.”
    The duchess was expecting close to twenty guests within the week, the day before the ball.
    Fleur smiled. “How lovely for you,” she said. “You will be very happy to see your father.”
    “No, I won’t,” the girl said. “I shall be cross with him.”
    “Indeed?” Fleur said. “Why is that?”
    “Because he has been gone forever,” the child said.