“Of course you do not,” Avery said agreeably, glancing once at the boy through his glass before turning away. “But there is nothing left for you here, Harry.” Except a good dose of lice and fleas and other vermin from the company in which he found himself.
Avery strolled away without looking back, and after a minute or two Harry fell into step beside him.
“Damn you, Avery,” he said, “I want to be a soldier.”
“Then a soldier you shall be,” Avery said. “If you are still of the same mind after a good bath and a good sleep and a good breakfast. But perhaps as an officer, Harry? You are an earl’s son, after all, even if through no fault of your own or your mother’s you were born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
“I cannot afford a commission,” Harry growled.
“Probably not,” Avery said—it was not the time to remind the boy that his newfound half sister had offered to divide her fortune with her siblings. “But I can, you see. And I will, since you are my stepmother’s nephew and Jessica’s cousin and my ward. If you still wish it after you wake up sober, that is.”
Life had grown remarkably tiresome, he thought as he tried not to smell Harry. And decidedly odd. Had he really told Lady Anastasia Westcott, alias Anna Snow, yesterday afternoon that he might well fall in love with her? If he were to list the top one hundred types of women most likely to attract him, in descending order, she would be number one hundred and one.
And had he offered her the choice of walking on or being kissed?
He was not in the habit of kissing unmarried maidens, and he was in absolutely no doubt that she was both.
Nine
Anna awoke the following morning feeling exhausted. The past few days had been so far outside any of her past experiences that she could find no place in which to rest her soul. Even her bed—wide and comfortable, with deep, downy pillows and soft, warm covers—felt too vast and too luxurious.
She threw back the covers, swung her legs over the side of the bed, got to her feet, and stretched. And there was no end in sight to all the strangeness. Yesterday she had made the decision to stay, at least for a while. She had written to Miss Ford to resign from her teaching position and to Bertha Reed inviting her to come and be her maid—she had even enclosed money for the stagecoach from what Mr. Brumford had given her until some more regular arrangement could be made.
She stepped into her dressing room and selected one of her two day dresses—she could not wear her Sunday dress for a third day in a row. Someone had been in her dressing room recently. There was water in the jug on the washstand, and it was still warm. She poured some into the bowl, stripped off her nightgown, and washed herself all over before dressing and brushing her hair and twisting it into its usual knot at the back of her neck. She drew a few deep breaths and let herself out of the room. She would come back later to make her bed.
A manservant who was standing in the hall looked a little startled to see her, but bowed and led her to what he described as the breakfast parlor, which was smaller than the dining room where she and Elizabeth had eaten last evening. He drew a chair out from the table and pushed it back in as she seated herself. He would go and inform Mr. Lifford, he told her, that my lady was ready for her breakfast.
Her breakfast arrived ten minutes later to an accompaniment of apologies from the butler for having kept my lady waiting. Anna had finished eating and drunk two cups of coffee—a rare luxury—before Elizabeth joined her.
“My maid came to inform me that you were up and at breakfast already,” she said, setting a light hand upon Anna’s shoulder and bending to kiss her on the cheek. “And goodness, she was right. I am the one who is usually accused of being an early riser.”
“But I was alarmed at how late I was,” Anna said, feeling warmed to the toes by the casual gesture of affection.
“Gracious!” Elizabeth said, and they both laughed.
But the time to relax soon came to an end. There was the dreaded meeting with the housekeeper to face soon after breakfast, though it turned out to be not as intimidating as Anna had expected, perhaps because Elizabeth remained with her. Mrs. Eddy gave them a tour of the house, and Anna was awed almost speechless by the vastness and splendor of it all. She did speak, though, when she saw the large portrait over the mantel in the library and the housekeeper casually named the subject of it as the late Earl of Riverdale.
Her father? Anna stepped closer.
“Is it a good likeness?” she asked. Her heart was beating rather heavily.
“It is, my lady,” Mrs. Eddy said.