Read The Secret Pearl for Free Online Page B

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. Sybilalways 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