by Mary Balogh
“Matilda,” the earl’s mother said reproachfully, “be fair. Anastasia cannot help either her age or her upbringing. She must feel that she is facing the enemy here from every side when in reality we are her family. Have you ever known any other family, Anastasia? On your mother’s side, perhaps?”
“No, ma’am,” Anna said. “I am sorry. You are Cousin—?”
“Althea,” she said, smiling.
“No, Cousin Althea,” Anna said. “I knew nothing of my identity until yesterday. I have always been Anna Snow.”
“Then this must be overwhelming,” the lady said. “Perhaps you would like to return home with Alex and Lizzie and me for a few days since this is a large house and you cannot remain here alone.”
“You would be very welcome, Cousin Anastasia,” the earl told her.
“No,” the duchess said. “She must absolutely remain here, Althea. I will be arranging for a modiste and a hairdresser to be here early tomorrow. And her belongings, for what they are worth, are being fetched here from the Pulteney. You are quite right, though, that she cannot stay here alone without a companion or chaperone. Perhaps Matilda—”
“Oh, I would be delighted to remain here for a few days with Cousin Anastasia, if she will permit it,” the earl’s sister said, her smile as warm as her mother’s. “May I, Anastasia? I promise not to overwhelm you with a litany of all that must be changed in you before you are indistinguishable from all the rest of us. Rather, I would like to find out about your life as it was before yesterday. I would like to find out about you. What do you say?”
Anna closed her eyes for a moment. “Oh yes, please,” she said, “if you will, Cousin Elizabeth. If it is no great trouble to you. But will not my half brother return here?”
“If he does,” the duchess said, “he will be redirected to Archer House.”
“I am surprised,” the earl said, “that you are not out searching for him, Netherby. I would do it myself, but under the circumstances I would expect to be the very last person he would wish to see. Perhaps the obligation you feel toward him is more irksome now that he is no longer Riverdale.”
Elizabeth turned her head to regard her brother reproachfully. The Duke of Netherby appeared quite unruffled, Anna saw, but she was not surprised to see that he had his quizzing glass to his eye. What an affectation that was. She would be very surprised to learn that he suffered from poor vision. Yet the glass somehow made him appear doubly dangerous.
“Had you been paying greater attention, Riverdale, though really, why should you?” he said softly, “you might have noticed that I never run about searching for lost puppies when it is altogether probable I will end up chasing my own tail instead and looking foolish. Nor do I interfere with very young blades sowing wild oats. I am no one’s maiden aunt. As for seeking out a young man who thinks it a rollicking good lark to have lost everything he ever believed to be his, including the legitimacy of his birth, no, it will not happen. It will be time enough to find him when he has stopped laughing, as he will.”
Anna felt chilled by the bored hauteur of his voice, and by his words. The Earl of Riverdale did not reply, but it occurred to Anna, even from this brief exchange, that there was no love lost between the two men.
“Please do not distress yourself, Cousin,” the earl said, regarding Anna steadily. “You must put young Harry, and Camille and Abigail too, from your mind, at least for a while. They are all deeply upset and not inclined to look kindly upon you, even though they are well aware that you are quite blameless and indeed more sinned against than sinning. It will be some time before they can be induced to recognize any relationship to you. Give them that time if you will.”
Both his words and the look on his face were kind, but the words hurt anyway.
“Alexander is quite right,” the dowager said. “Turn right around, Anastasia.” Anna turned. “You do not have much of a figure, but at least you are slender. And stays will do wonders for your bosom. I do not suppose you have ever worn stays?”
Anna could feel heat in her cheeks. Goodness, there were men present. “No, Grandmama,” she said.
“It will all be taken care of, starting tomorrow,” the duchess said briskly. “We must decide too what tutors will be necessary—a dancing master, certainly, and a teacher of etiquette, and perhaps others too. In the meantime, you must not even think of venturing from the house, Anastasia. Elizabeth will keep you company indoors. Now, have a seat—you have been standing long enough. Matilda, pull on the bell rope for the tea tray, if you will.”
Anna sat at almost the same moment as the Duke of Netherby got to his feet and strolled across the room to stand before her chair. Everyone fell silent, as everyone always seemed to do whenever he as much as raised a finger or an eyebrow. He regarded her in silence for a few moments with those keen, sleepy eyes.
“Anna,” he said, startling her with the use of the name by which she knew herself, “the sun is shining and the fresh air and Hyde Park beckon. If you accompany me there, there is a risk that the ton may catch a glimpse of an apparent governess with me and draw its own conclusions as to your identity. The ton may then proceed to fall into a collective swoon of shock, or it may scurry off to report the sighting to those less fortunate, or it may simply go on its way and about its own business. Knowing all this, would you care to come with me?”
Anna bit her lip to stop herself from laughing nervously, so unexpectedly bizarre were his words.
“Is this wise, Netherby?” Uncle Thomas asked. “Louise has just been pointing out—”
The Duke of Netherby neither turned his head nor replied. “Anna?” he said softly.
He was like some alien creature. She was not frightened of him. Never that. In fact, she had just been amused by him. But . . . well, far more than any of the other people in the room, he seemed to epitomize a universe so different from her own that there could be no possibility of any meaningful communication. Why would he wish to walk with her, to risk being seen with her—an apparent governess?
But . . . fresh air? And a temporary escape from this room and all the other people in it?
“Thank you,” she said. “That would be pleasant.”
“Mother,” Aunt Matilda said. “Anastasia must not be allowed to do this. Louise is quite right. Oh, this is not welldone of you, Avery.”
“If you must go, someone ought to go with you as a chaperone, Anastasia,” the earl suggested. “Lizzie, perhaps you would be willing?”
“Ah, but you see, Cousin Elizabeth,” the duke said softly, his eyes still upon Anna’s, “you are not invited.”
The lady in question smiled at the back of his head, merriment in her eyes, Anna noticed.
“My granddaughter does not need a chaperone when she steps out with the Duke of Netherby,” the dowager countess said. “His father married my daughter, did he not? And Avery is quite right. We cannot keep Anastasia indoors here until she is ready. She may never be ready.”
Seven
Five minutes later, having donned her cloak, bonnet, and gloves—the same ones as yesterday—Lady Anastasia Westcott stood on the pavement outside Westcott House. No doubt this was her best outfit, Avery thought, her only best one. It would be interesting to see her everyday clothes—or perhaps not.
She had looked in need of rescuing. Not that he would have rushed into the breach if there were not something about her that piqued his interest. Perhaps it was the way she had not taken fright yesterday when she set foot inside Archer House and encountered . . . him. He knew he intimidated most people. Or perhaps it was the quiet, dignified little speech she had delivered in the rose salon after Brumford had finished with all his disclosures. Or perhaps it was the answer she had given a short while ago when the dowager countess described her as looking like a lowly governess.
He offered his arm and was left with it cocked in midair when she did not take it. He raised his eyebr
ows.
“I do not need any assistance, thank you,” she said.
Well.
“I suppose,” he said, lowering his arm, “orphan boys are not taught to offer an arm to orphan girls when they walk together on the street, and orphan girls are not taught to accept male gallantries when they are offered. It is not part of your school curriculum?”
“Of course not,” she said in all seriousness. “How absurd.”
“I suspect you are about to encounter a whole world of absurdity,” he said, “unless after the first or second time you lose heart or nerve or temper and scurry back to your schoolroom.”
“If I return to Bath,” she said, “it will be because I have chosen to do so after careful, rational consideration.”
“In the meanwhile,” he said, “your grandmother and aunts and uncles—uncle, singular—and cousins will work ceaselessly, day and night, to wipe clean the slate that has been your life for the past twenty-five years and transform you into their image of what Lady Anastasia Westcott ought to be. They will do it because of course it is more desirable for you to be a lady than an orphan and rich rather than destitute and elegant rather than dowdy—and because you are a Westcott and one of them.”
“I was not destitute,” she said.
“I will not take much of a hand in the education of Lady Anastasia Westcott,” he told her, “partly because my connection to the Westcott family is purely an honorary one and mainly because it would be a crashing bore and I avoid boredom as I would the plague.”
“I am surprised, then,” she said, “that you came to Westcott House today. I am even more surprised that you invited me to walk with you instead of escaping alone.”
“Ah,” he said softly, “but I suspect you are not boring, Anna. And yes, I did invite you to walk, did I not? I did not invite you to stand thus with me on the pavement outside your house, snapping at me and calling me absurd and very probably being peered down upon by a number of your relatives. Allow me to contribute my mite to your education, then, even against all my better instincts. When a gentleman walks with a lady, Anna, he offers his arm for her support and expects her to take it. If she does not, he is first humiliated beyond bearing—he might even consider going home and shooting himself—and then shocked by the realization that perhaps she is not a lady after all. Either way, actually, he may end up shooting himself.”
“Are you always so absurd?” she asked him.
He regarded her for a few silent moments while he curled one hand about the handle of his quizzing glass. If he raised it, she would probably laugh with incredulous scorn. He cocked his elbow again instead.
“This is really quite an easy lesson,” he said. “It will not stretch your intellect to the breaking point. Give me your hand. No, the right.”
He took it in his right hand, drew it through his arm, and set her hand, palm down, on the cuff of his coat. If it were possible for her arm to stretch out of its socket, she would have remained standing where she was, he was sure, a safe distance away. But it was not, and she was compelled to come a few steps closer. Every muscle in her arm and hand stiffened.
Something was absurd, but he kept the observation to himself.
“We now proceed to walk,” he said. “It is the gentleman’s job to match his pace and his step to the lady’s. Men do not have all the power in this world, you see, despite what women often believe.”
Her muscles remained stiff for a while and she looked more than ever like someone’s governess or even someone’s maid dressed in her Sunday best. She would not be mistaken for either today, however. Not when she was seen on his arm. News in London traveled faster than wildfire or the wind. It traveled by the servant underground and the gossip circuit aboveground, and the Westcott story was sensational indeed.
Avery was an admirer of women and a connoisseur of all things feminine. He admired beauty and elegance and charm in ladies and flirted with them and even bedded a few of them when appropriate. He admired beauty and voluptuous curves and sensuality and sexual skills in women of a different class and flirted with them and entertained and bedded them as he desired—though with some discrimination. He liked women enormously. Becoming acquainted with them, escorting them about, flattering them, bedding them were among life’s more enjoyable experiences. He could not recall, however, admiring many women for qualities of character. It amused him to discover that there were such qualities about Lady Anastasia Westcott.
I am lower even than that, ma’am, she had said in answer to her grandmother’s remark about resembling a lowly governess. Or higher, depending upon one’s perspective. I have the great privilege of being teacher to a school of orphans, whose minds are inferior to no one’s.
He had had to turn to the window to hide his amusement, for she had not spoken in either anger or defiance. She had spoken what to her was the simple truth. She and her fellow orphans were every bit as good as the ton, she had been saying—the whole lot of it, himself included. He admired such poise and conviction. It would be a vast shame if her relatives had their way and she were made to change beyond recognition. He doubted, though, that she would allow it to happen except upon her own terms. It would be interesting to see what sort of person would emerge from the education of Lady Anastasia Westcott. He hoped she would remain interesting.
They passed two people on South Audley Street, a maid carrying a heavy bag and a gentleman Avery vaguely recognized. The maid kept her eyes lowered as she hurried past. The gentleman looked startled, recovered himself, touched the brim of his hat, and did not even wait to be fully past them before his head swiveled for a longer, closer look. He would have a tale to tell when he got wherever he was going.
“I am concerned about my half brother,” Anna said as they turned toward Hyde Park Corner, speaking for the first time since they had started walking. “Are you concerned? He could be anywhere by now. He could be in grave danger or just very, very unhappy. I know he is no blood relative of yours, but he is your ward. Is it not irresponsible to say you will leave him be until he stops laughing?”
“I always know where Harry is likely to be found,” he told her. “This occasion is no exception.” It had not taken him long last night to locate the boy, deep in his cups and sprawled in a low armchair in the scarlet visitors’ parlor of a rather seedy brothel, surrounded by cronies as inebriated as he and painted whores with improbably colored hair. Avery had not shown himself. One glance had assured him that Harry was in no condition to avail himself of the main services the whores were there to provide and thus was safe from the pox.
“Are you so all-seeing, then?” she asked him. “And so all-powerful that you can rescue him from whatever depths he may have sunk to?”
Avery thought about it. “I am,” he said.
He had made himself all-powerful. It had not been easy. He had had an exceedingly unpromising start to life when he had been born resembling his mother rather than his father. His father had been a robust, imposing, manly figure, who had stalked and frowned and barked his way through life, commanding terror in inferiors and respect in his peers. His mother had been a tiny, blue-eyed, dainty, sweet-natured, golden-haired beauty. Avery did not remember that she feared his father, or that his father had ever barked at her or been displeased with her. Indeed, it was altogether probable that theirs had been a love match. She had died when Avery was nine of some feminine complaint that had never been explained to him, though it was not pregnancy. By that time it was obvious that he had inherited most of his mother’s traits and virtually none of his father’s. His father had always treated him with casual affection, but Avery had once overheard him remarking that he would have been well enough if he had been a girl but was not what any red-blooded man would desire of his heir.
Avery had been sent away to school at the age of eleven and might as well have been consigned to purgatory. He had been horribly bullied. He had been small, puny, golden h
aired, blue eyed, meek, gentle, cringing, and terrified. And he had known nothing would change, for his nurse had once explained feet to him—the sort of feet that were attached to the ends of one’s legs and had five toes apiece. The size of a boy’s feet, she had said, was a sure predictor of the size of his person when one grew up. Avery’s feet had been small, dainty, and slender.
He had been beaten up quite badly by a boy a year younger than himself on the playing fields one day when he had tried to catch a ball but had slapped his hands together instead while the ball bounced off one of his small feet and made him hop in pain. He had escaped sexual assault from the prefect to whose service he had been assigned only after he had burst into tears and the older boy had looked at him in disgust and complained that he was ugly when he cried, not to mention ungrateful and cowardly and girly. Both incidents had happened during his first week at school.
By the end of the second week he had learned very little from his books and his masters and tutors, but he had learned a number of other things, most notably that if he could do nothing to change his prospective height and body type and hair and eye color, he could change everything else, including his attitude. He joined the boxing club and the fencing club and the archery club and the rowing club and the athletics club and every other club that offered the chance of building his body and honing it and making of it something less pathetic.
It did not work well at the beginning, of course. In his very first bout in the boxing ring he pranced about on his little feet, his small fists at the ready, and was put down and out by the only punch thrown by his opponent. That opponent had, of course, been chosen deliberately to provide maximum enjoyment to the spectators who had gathered around in larger-than-usual numbers. The fencing instructor told him after his first lesson that if his foil was too heavy for him to hold aloft for longer than a minute at a stretch, he was wasting everyone’s time by continuing—perhaps he ought to join a knitting club instead. The rowing instructor told him he would be a champion if only a race required rowing in a circle because he needed both hands to wield one oar. At his first footrace, every other runner, even the one dubbed Fat Frank, had crossed the finish line almost before he had left the starting line.