“Your hair really ought to have been cut short, Anastasia,” Aunt Louise said, “though it does admittedly look less severe than it usually does. You are right, Mildred. She does look well enough, even if she could have looked so much more fashionable.”
“No jewelry and no hair plumes or anything else in your hair, Anastasia?” Anna’s grandmother asked. “I ought to have expected it and taken you to my own jeweler. I shall do so before your next ball.”
“Sometimes, Mother-in-Law,” Uncle Thomas said with a kindly smile for Anna, “a lady is a jewel in herself.” He raised the glass of sherry he was holding.
“I think you look perfectly lovely just as you are, Anna,” Elizabeth said. “Would you not agree, Alex?”
Thus appealed to, Cousin Alexander regarded Anna gravely and inclined his head. “I do indeed,” he said—but what else could he have said?
The Duke of Netherby’s fingers were curled about the handle of his quizzing glass, but he had not yet raised it to his eye. He had also refrained from comment. Unlike Alexander and the other gentlemen present, all of whom were clad in what Anna understood to be fashionable and elegant black evening clothes, he was dressed in a dull gold tailed evening coat with paler gold knee breeches, very white stockings and linen, and a white waistcoat heavily embroidered with gold thread. His neckcloth frothed beneath his chin in snowy, intricate folds and lace foamed at his wrists. His jewelry was gold, inlaid with amethysts. There were gold buckles on his dancing shoes. He looked, Anna guessed, somewhat old-fashioned and quite startlingly gorgeous. The fact that he was smaller and slighter than any of the other gentlemen was of no matter. He reduced them all to insignificance.
The judgment of her family having been passed upon her appearance, he stepped forward at last and took it upon himself to introduce Anna to the only two people she did not know—Colonel Morgan and Mr. Abelard she had met at the theater. The other two gentlemen, who made numbers even so that there would be an equal number of ladies and gentlemen at dinner, were Sir Hedley Thompson, the dowager countess’s cousin, and Mr. Rodney Thompson, his son. More relatives, Anna thought as they bowed to her.
The butler announced dinner soon after, and the duke offered Anna his arm. Now she was confused. This was not the strict order of precedence Mrs. Gray had explained to her so painstakingly and she had memorized. It seemed that he read her thoughts.
“Sometimes,” he said, for her ears only, “precedence gives place to occasion, Anna. This is the evening of your come-out, so to speak. You are the guest of honor.” His eyes regarded her from beneath lazy lids. “You have been very clever, though I doubt you realize it. You will undershine every other lady tonight.”
She was amused rather than offended. “And that is clever?” she asked.
“Indeed,” he said. “It is rather like pitching one’s voice low in a din and thus making oneself more clearly heard than everyone who is shrieking. It is a skill you know as a teacher.”
So the remark that she would undershine everyone was in a sense a compliment, was it?
“And you,” she said, “will certainly outshine every other gentleman.”
“Ah,” he said as he seated her to the right of his place at the head of the table, “one can but try.”
Oh, Anna realized in sudden surprise, she had missed him.
Fourteen
Good God, he had missed her, Avery thought. It was not a comfortable realization, the more so as he could not for the life of him understand it. Her grandmother and aunts were quite right about her appearance. Her gown was too prim and plain, her hair too sleek despite the curling tendrils, her person too bare of jewels. He had spoken the brutal truth when he had told her she would undershine everyone else at the ball. He had also meant it when he said she had been clever, though he was perfectly well aware that it had been unintentional on her part.
She looked nothing short of gorgeous.
And he was nothing short of . . . puzzled.
He could not recall when he had last hosted an evening event. Arranging dinner parties, soirees, concerts, and the like required just too much exertion, though admittedly Edwin Goddard would have done all the real work as he had for this. Avery looked along the length of the dining table to where his stepmother was seated at the foot, and was half surprised that it was large enough to seat this many. He did a quick count—fourteen persons in all, himself included. And perfectly balanced numbers, seven ladies and seven gentlemen. How very punctilious of Edwin and the duchess. Such attention to detail would have been enough to give him a headache.