by Mary Balogh
Specifically, she was the bastard.
“Miss Snow?” Brumford had taken a step forward and was actually . . . bowing again.
She turned her attention upon him. “Yes,” she said. “Mr. Brumford?”
“You are expected,” Brumford said while Avery replaced his snuffbox in his pocket and raised his glass to his eye as Horrocks shut the door. “The butler will show you to a place in the rose salon.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Horrocks’s back was almost visibly bristling with disapproval and indignation as he led the woman away. But Avery scarcely noticed. His glass was trained fully upon the solicitor, whose face was shining with perspiration, as well it might, by thunder. He turned unwilling eyes the glass’s way.
“What the devil have you done?” Avery asked, his voice soft.
“All will be made clear shortly, Your Grace,” Brumford assured him as one bead of moisture trickled down his forehead, spread through his eyebrow, and dripped onto his cheek.
“Have a care,” Avery said. “You would not enjoy my displeasure.”
He lowered his glass and strolled off to the rose salon, where an unnatural silence seemed to have fallen. Everyone was seated, the family members on the three rows of chairs before the table, the . . . woman behind and apart from them, just inside the door and to one side of it. But the fact that she was seated at all in company with a roomful of aristocrats, only two of whom lacked some sort of title—and even one of those was heir to an earldom—was astonishing enough to plunge the room into an uncomfortable and outraged silence. No one was looking back at her, and Avery doubted anyone had spoken to her, but that they were all aware of her to the exclusion of all else was patently obvious.
Who could she be but the bastard?
Every head turned toward him as he entered the room. All must be wondering why such a person was in his house at all, let alone in one of the salons, and why he was not doing something to rectify the situation. The Countess of Riverdale looked unnaturally pale, as though she had come to the same conclusion as Avery had. He ignored the remaining unoccupied chair and strolled to one side of the room, where he propped a shoulder against the rose-colored brocaded wall before taking his snuffbox from his pocket again and availing himself of a pinch of its contents. It was a newly adjusted blend and very nearly perfect.
Much as he always avoided exerting himself unnecessarily, he might well find it necessary to wring Brumford’s neck after this morning was over.
The silence had become loud. Avery looked unhurriedly about him. Harry appeared irritable. He had had another late night, by the look of him, surrounded, no doubt, by the usual hangers-on, who laughed at his every attempt at wit and drank deep at his expense. Camille, on one side of him and clad in deep, hideous mourning, looked prunish. She would probably be even more so after she married Uxbury, who had probably been laid in a crib of prunes at his birth and absorbed them through his pores. Abigail, on Harry’s other side, looked even worse in black, poor girl. It positively sapped her of all her youthful animation and prettiness. Harry, unlike his mother and sisters, was paying homage to his late parent with a mere armband. Sensible boy.
The duchess, Avery’s stepmother, sat behind them. She looked distinguished in black, though she would not need to wear it much longer, since Riverdale had been only her brother, not her husband or father. What a ghastly invention mourning clothes were. Jessica sat beside his stepmother in a dress that was refreshingly white. Her grandmother, the dowager countess, was on her other side, so swaddled in black that her face looked like a ghost’s. Lady Matilda Westcott, her eldest child, the one who had dutifully remained at home and unmarried to be a prop to her parent in old age, looked no better. Beside her was the youngest of her siblings, Mildred, Lady Molenor, with Thomas, Baron Molenor, her husband. Alexander Westcott sat in the third row, between his mother and Elizabeth, his sister.
What the devil was Brumford up to? Why was this business not being conducted privately as the countess had specifically directed? Avery was inclined even now to stride from the room to hurl the solicitor bodily out through the door, preferably without opening it first. But that woman would remain behind on her chair by the door and so would too many questions for the matter to be hushed up. Fate, it seemed, must be allowed to run its course.
He ought to have exerted himself yesterday, Avery thought, after reading Brumford’s letter.
She continued to sit alone close to the door, looking perfectly in command of herself. She had removed her cloak. It was draped over the back of her chair. She had removed the bonnet and gloves too—they were beneath her chair. Her cheap blue high-waisted dress covered her from neck to wrists to ankles. She had a slender, neat figure, Avery noticed as his eyes rested upon her, not a thin one as he had thought at first. Nevertheless, it was a figure totally unremarkable to a connoisseur of feminine figures. He had noticed when she was standing that she was on the small side of average in height. Her hair was a midbrown and looked as if it must be perfectly straight. It was scraped back from her face and twisted into a heavy knot at the back of her neck. Her hands were clasped loosely in her lap. Her feet in their sensible, unattractive shoes were set neatly side by side on the floor. The woman looked about as alluring as a doorknob.
She was remarkably calm. There was nothing bold about her demeanor, but nor was there anything shrinking. She did not keep her eyes lowered, as one might have expected. She was looking about her with what seemed to be mild interest, her eyes resting for a few moments upon each person in turn.
Her attention turned last upon him. She did not look hastily away when her eyes met his and she realized she was the object of his scrutiny. Neither did she hold his gaze. Her eyes moved over him, and he found himself wondering what she saw.
What he saw surprised him just a little. For when he withdrew his attention from all that was unappealing in her appearance—and that was almost everything—and concentrated instead upon her face, he realized that it was quite startlingly beautiful, like the Madonna in a medieval painting his mind could not immediately identify. It was neither a smiling nor an animated face. It was not set off by enticing curls or beckoning fan or peeping dimples or come-hither eyes. It was a face that simply spoke for itself. It was an oval face with regular features and those wide, steady gray eyes. That was all. There was nothing specific to account for the impression of beauty it gave.
She had finished inspecting him and was looking into his eyes again. He pocketed his snuffbox and raised both his quizzing glass and his eyebrows, but by that time she had looked unhurriedly away to watch Brumford make his self-important entrance. One of his boots was squeaking.
There was a stirring of interest from the family gathered there. The countess, though, Avery saw, looked as though she had been carved of marble.
* * *
Throughout her life Anna had cultivated one quality of character above all others, and that was dignity. She always tried to instill the importance of it in her fellow orphans too whenever they were under her care.
As an orphan one had so very little. Almost nothing at all, in fact, except life itself. Often one did not even have identity. One might know the name by which one had been christened—if one had been christened—or one might not. For everything else except life itself one was dependent upon the charity of others. It might be said, of course, that the same held true of all children, but most had families who cared for them and whose love was unconditional. They had a defined identity within that family.
It would be so very easy as an orphan to become abject and cringing, a nothing and a nobody, or else bold, demanding, and angry, asserting rights that did not exist. Anna had seen both types and could understand and sympathize with both. But she had chosen a different path for herself. She had chosen to believe that she was no better than anyone—and there were orphans who occasionally lorded it over others when they were sent g
ifts or were taken out for the day, for example. She had also chosen to believe that she was no worse than anyone, that she was no one’s inferior, that she belonged on this earth as surely as anyone else did.
It was an attitude and a quality of character that had never stood her in greater stead than it had today. For she had been in the clutches of terror from the moment the carriage stopped outside this grand house in its stately London square—she did not know its name—and Miss Knox, taking a firm stand on the pavement, had told her to climb the steps alone to the front door and rap the knocker. As soon as the door opened, Anna had been aware of the carriage moving off with Miss Knox inside it.
Anna had soon realized that the man who had opened the door was a servant, but it had not been apparent to her at the time. He had probably not expected her to step right inside past him without a word. It was probably not done in polite circles—and it certainly seemed she had stepped into polite circles. And then there had been the other two men in the large tiled hall in which she had found herself. One was stout and pompous looking and no more disconcerting than some of the governors of the orphanage who sometimes made an official visit and patted a few orphans on the head and laughed too heartily. The other one . . .
Well, Anna had still not been able to categorize the other man to her satisfaction. She guessed, though, that he was someone very grand indeed, perhaps even a lord. It was a distinct possibility if this house—this mansion—was his. He had filled her with a knee-weakening terror when he had spoken to her in a light, bored, cultured voice and suggested that she had come to the wrong door, even the wrong house. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to turn tail and scurry out through the still-open door.
She was very glad she had not done so. Where would she have gone? What would she have done? She was glad she had stood her ground, remembering that she was everyone’s equal and that she had been summoned here and brought in a carriage.
She sat now in the room to which the butler had brought her and wished she could melt into her chair and through the floor and reemerge in her classroom in Bath. Thirteen heads had turned at her entry—she had counted them since—and all thirteen persons had looked identically astonished, especially when the butler had indicated a chair just inside the door and instructed her to be seated. Only one of them had spoken, though—a plumpish lady seated at one end of the second row of chairs.
“Horrocks,” she had said in a commanding, haughty voice, “you will oblige me by taking this . . . person elsewhere immediately.”
The butler had bowed to her. “Mr. Brumford directed me in the hearing of His Grace to escort her here, Your Grace,” he had said.
His Grace. Your Grace.
No one had said another word, either to Anna or to one another. They had sat instead in a stiff, disapproving silence that seemed louder than the conversation that had been in progress when Anna stepped into the room.
She had consciously practiced dignity and sat with an apparently calm, relaxed demeanor despite the fact that her stomach felt as though it had clenched itself into a tiny ball and was about to squeeze out what little breakfast she had eaten before leaving the hotel. She had even removed her cloak and arranged it neatly over the back of the chair without getting to her feet. She had set her bonnet and her gloves and reticule on the floor beneath the chair.
She had forced herself to look, not downward at her hands as she desperately wanted to do, but about her at the room and the people in it. If she looked down, she might never be able to bring herself to look up again. After a few minutes the man from the hall—His Grace?—who had tried to get her to leave, stepped into the room, and everyone turned to look at him in mute appeal, probably in the hope that he would get rid of her. He did not say anything. He did not sit down either. He went instead to stand on the other side of the room and propped one shoulder against the wall. He would have been reprimanded for that at the orphanage. Walls were not to be leaned against.
It was a large, square, high-ceilinged room. The walls were covered in deep pink brocade. Landscape paintings in heavy gilded frames were hung upon them. The ceiling was coved and framed by a gilded frieze. There was a scene painted directly onto the ceiling. It was something from the Bible or mythology, Anna guessed, though she did not gaze upward long enough to identify exactly what it was. There was a patterned carpet underfoot, its colors predominantly rose. The furnishings were solid and elegant.
But it was at the people she looked most closely. Sitting in the row closest to the table were three young people and a more mature lady. The ladies were dressed in deep mourning. The young man—he was actually a boy more than a man—was wearing a dark green coat over white linen, but there was a black band on his sleeve. A brother and his sisters and mother? There was something about them that suggested a familial connection.
The six people in the row behind them were also in black, except for one young girl who wore white. The lady who had told the butler to remove Anna sat with regal dignity, her spine not quite touching the straight back of her chair. What sort of lady was addressed as Your Grace? Anna did not know. The only one of their number who turned a head to look back toward Anna after that first shocked glance from all of them was the younger of the two ladies who sat in the back row. She was not wearing mourning. She had what looked like a good-natured face, though she did not smile. The man next to her was broad shouldered and looked tall and well formed and very handsome, though Anna had not seen him on his feet or full faced after that first brief glance he had given her.
And then there was the man from the hall—the one who was standing against the wall. Anna almost did not look directly at him, though she had been very aware of him from the moment he walked into the room. She looked at him at last simply because she would not give in to cowardice. As she had sensed, he was gazing steadily back, a jeweled snuffbox in one hand, a fine linen handkerchief in the other. Almost—oh, almost she looked away. But she did not do so. Dignity, she reminded herself. He is no better than I.
He was of barely average height and slight of build. She was surprised at that. He had seemed far larger when she first set eyes upon him. He was as elegant as the handsome gentleman in the back row, but while the other man was quietly immaculate, he was . . . not. There was something exquisite about the folds of his very white neckcloth, about the close cut of his dark blue coat and the even closer fit of his gray pantaloons. There were silver tassels on his supple, shining boots, heavy rings on at least four of his fingers, which even from this distance she could see were perfectly manicured. There were chains and fobs at his waist, a silver stud in his neckcloth. His posture as he leaned against the wall was . . . graceful. His hair was fair—no, it was actually golden—and had been cut in such a way that it hugged his head neatly and yet seemed to wave softly about it at the same time, like a halo.
His face would have looked like that of an angel if it were not for his eyes. They were very blue, granted, but his eyelids drooped over them and gave him a slightly sleepy appearance. Except that he did not look sleepy at all but very keenly alert, and while Anna’s eyes had roamed over him because she would not look away as she was sure he expected her to do, his had been roaming over her. Doubtless he was gaining a very different impression of her than she was of him.
He looked . . . beautiful. And graceful. And exquisite. And languid. They were all feminine qualities, yet he did not even for one moment give the impression of effeminacy. Quite the opposite, in fact. He looked a bit like an exotic wild animal, waiting to spring with perfectly timed grace and lethal intent upon its prey.
He looked dangerous.
All because he had regarded her as though she were a worm beneath his boot and had tried to get her cast out of the house?
No, she did not think it was just that.
But there was no time to ponder the matter further. Someone was coming through the door and passing her chair—Mr. Brumford,
the solicitor. She was about to discover why she was here.
So, she suspected, were all these people.
Four
Josiah Brumford spread his papers before him, laid his hands flat on top of them, and cleared his throat. If anyone had dropped a pin, Avery thought, everyone would have jumped a foot in the air even though there was carpet underfoot.
“Your Graces,” the solicitor began, inclining his head to Avery and the duchess. Fortunately, he did not then proceed to list all the other titles in the room. “I thank you for your hospitality and for providing me with this opportunity to address those gathered here on a matter of considerable concern to all. My services were engaged a few weeks ago to search for a certain young lady with a view to making a monetary settlement upon her from the estate of the late Earl of Riverdale.”
“Mr. Brumford!” the countess protested, her voice as cold as ice.
Avery raised his quizzing glass to observe the perspiration beaded upon the solicitor’s brow.
“Bear with me for a few minutes, if you will, ma’am,” Brumford said. “You requested that the matter be kept confidential, and wild horses would not have induced me to divulge this information to anyone else but you and His Grace had not unexpected circumstances compelled me to call this meeting.”
Abigail had turned her head to look inquiringly at her mother beside her. Everyone else continued to face forward. Avery lowered his glass.
Brumford cleared his throat again. “I sent my most experienced and trusted investigator to Bath,” he said, “in order to find a young woman who had been left at an orphanage there more than twenty years ago and supported thereafter by the late Earl of Riverdale. Until his death, that is.”
The very woman who was now seated behind everyone else, beside the door, if Avery was not very much mistaken. He turned his head to look at her, but her eyes were fixed upon Brumford.