Anna doubted Avery had noticed any of it.
“It is a pretty church,” he said, looking across the village green. “Many country churches are. I wonder if there is a bell in that tower. I would wager there is.” Then he turned to look at her and, seeing her expression, said, “Anna, Anna, no one is going to eat you. I will not allow it.” He took her hand in a firm grasp.
“If they do not wish to see me,” she said, “we will just leave, Avery. At least I have come.”
“It sounds to me,” he said, “as though you are about to say you will be content.”
“Yes,” she admitted.
He squeezed her hand to the point of pain as the carriage turned sharply about the green.
And then they were drawing up outside what must be the vicarage beside the church, and an elderly gentleman with white, bushy hair and eyebrows and no hat was stepping out through the . . . oh, through the lych-gate from the churchyard and turning their way, an amiable smile of welcome on his face. As Avery descended from the carriage and turned to hand Anna down, the vicarage door opened and an elderly lady, tiny and birdlike, gray hair more than half hidden beneath a lacy cap, stood there looking out with placid curiosity. Not many grand carriages passed through Wensbury, Anna guessed, and even fewer stopped outside the church.
“Good morning, sir, ma’am,” the gentleman said. “May I be of assistance to you?”
“The Reverend Isaiah Snow?” Avery asked.
“I have that pleasure, sir,” the gentleman said as the lady came along the garden path toward the gate. “And vicar of the church here for the past fifty years. Some of my younger parishioners believe I must be almost as old as the church. And this is my good wife. How may we be of service to you? Is it the lych-gate that caused you to stop? It is a fine example of its type, and has always been kept in good repair. Or the church, perhaps? It dates back to Norman times.”
“Is that a bell tower?” Avery asked, his quizzing glass in his hand.
“It is indeed,” the Reverend Snow said. “And there are four faithful bell ringers in the village who duly waken all sleepyheads on a Sunday and ring them to morning service.”
“Isaiah,” his wife said, “perhaps the lady would care to step into the house for a glass of lemonade while you show the gentleman the church. You have started him on his favorite subject, sir, and will not get away from him within the hour, I predict.”
“Allow me to introduce myself,” Avery said, while Anna’s hand turned cold in his warm clasp. “Avery Archer, Duke of Netherby.”
“Ah,” the vicar said, “I knew when I saw the crest on the door of the carriage that you must be somebody of importance, sir. We are honored that you have seen fit to stop here.”
“And may I present my wife, the duchess,” Avery continued, “formerly Lady Anastasia Westcott, though she has been known through most of her life as Anna Snow.”
The lady’s hands crept up to cover her cheeks and her face grew as pale as her name. She swayed, and it seemed to Anna that she would surely fall. But she clutched at the fence before it could happen.
“Anna?” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “Little Anna? But you died twenty years ago. Of typhoid.”
“My dear God,” the vicar said, and it did not sound like a blasphemy. “Oh my dear God, he lied to us, Alma, and we believed him. But look and see and tell me if I am right. Could this not be our Anna standing before us here?”
His wife merely moaned and clung to the fence.
“Gramma?” Anna said. She did not know where the name came from—it just came. “Oh, Gramma, I did not die.”
Twenty-one
Avery always felt more relaxed in the country than he did in London. It was as if he took off an armor he unconsciously donned for society and allowed himself to be the person he had always wanted to be. He had never blamed his parents for the child he had been. He had never even really blamed the boys and masters at school for spotting the weak one among them and pouncing upon him to make sport of him. Everyone had his own path to follow in life. And they all—the negative forces in his life, and the positive too—had had a hand in directing him to his own path. He would have things no different. He rather liked his life. He liked himself. But he liked his country life best of all.