by Mary Balogh
“Anna,” he said once with a noticeable shudder, “you are acquiring the rosy complexion of a country wench. You actually look healthy. I am not sure I dare take you back to London. Perhaps rosier lips would be a slight improvement.” And, after kissing her thoroughly and regarding her with the old, lazy eyes, “Yes, that definitely helps. I shall have to keep on doing it.”
“Absurd,” she said, smiling at him.
“Quite so.”
He made love to her each night, slowly and quietly, for the house was not very large. It was wonderful beyond words.
On the evening before they left, after several days of hesitating, her grandparents agreed that they would come to Morland Abbey for a few weeks during the summer—Avery had mentioned a month or two or ten. Anna’s grandfather had been threatening to retire for at least the past five years, her grandmother reported, and there was a perfectly delightful young man of their acquaintance, a curate at a church in Bristol, who would be only too eager to step into a living of his own. It would not take much effort to persuade him to come as a locum tenens for a few weeks.
“Perhaps, Isaiah,” she added, “you will see when we return that the parish has not collapsed without you.”
“Perhaps, Alma,” he said, smiling fondly at her, “that is what I am afraid of.”
He would send his own carriage, Avery told them, and would brook no protest, and sufficient servants to ensure their safety and comfort during the journey. He would make all the arrangements for horses and refreshments and accommodations. All they would need do was come.
“It will mean the world to Anna,” he told them. “And it will give me great delight. There are some remnants of the old abbey remaining, including the cloister. They will interest you, sir.”
There were tears shed the following morning before Avery handed Anna into the plainer of his two carriages, which had returned from the inn where the rest of their entourage awaited them. But there were smiles too. They would all see one another again soon.
“So different from the last time I was torn from them,” she said, sitting back in her seat as the carriage made its way out of the village.
“Do you remember?” he asked, taking her hand.
“Not with my head,” she said. “But with my heart, yes. I can remember crying and crying. I can remember my father’s voice, gruff and impatient, telling me to be a big girl. I believe I was very fortunate not to have to grow up with him as Harry and Camille and Abigail did.”
“That is one way of looking at it,” he said. “Yes, indeed, my Anna, you were fortunate to grow up in an orphanage.”
She turned her head to smile at him. “It was not so very bad,” she said. “It shaped me into the person I am now, and boastful as it may sound, I like myself as I am.”
“Hmm.” He looked rather arrested for a moment. “Yes, I do too. I even like that bonnet, though every finer feeling ought to revolt at the very sight of it.”
It was the straw bonnet she had worn to her wedding—and every day since.
“And so we return to London,” she said. “I can face it now.”
“London can wait a day or two longer,” he said. “We are going to Bath.”
“Bath?” She raised her eyebrows.
“I want to see that orphanage of yours,” he said. “And I want to meet that . . . friend of yours.”
“Joel?”
“Joel, yes,” he agreed. “And we will pay our respects to Mrs. Kingsley and Camille and Abigail.”
She stared at him, her heart thumping uncomfortably. “But will they receive us?” she asked him. “Will they receive me?”
He handed her a large linen handkerchief and she realized that two tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“The Duke of Netherby is received everywhere,” he said quite in his old manner. “He is a man of enormous consequence. The Duchess of Netherby will be received with him. Besides, Anna, there is the family connection, and Mrs. Kingsley at least will be curious to meet you.”
“She is the former countess’s mother,” she reminded him.
“Yes,” he agreed, taking the handkerchief from her hand and drying her cheeks and eyes with it.
* * *
Mrs. Kingsley owned a house on the Royal Crescent, the most prestigious address in Bath, curving in graceful, classical lines at the top of a hill with a panoramic view down over the town and the countryside beyond. Kingsley had been a wealthy man—hence the marriage between his daughter and the late Earl of Riverdale. Avery sent his card up with the butler early in the afternoon of the day following his arrival with Anna, and they were shown up to the drawing room a few minutes later and announced with formal dignity.
Avery had met Mrs. Kingsley once or twice before. She was a tall, white-haired, formidable lady. She came toward them across the room, greeted Avery cordially while shaking his hand, and then turned to look steadily at Anna.
“Duchess,” she said in chilly acknowledgment of his introduction. “It would be unjust to blame the sins of the father upon the child. You are welcome to my home.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Anna said, and Avery, turning to look at her, was not surprised to see her calm and dignified, her hands clasped before her. He would wager, though, that if he could see through her gloves he would find that her knuckles were white. She had toyed with both her breakfast and her luncheon after eating heartily for the past week.
Camille and Abigail were both present, and both were on their feet. Neither made any move toward the door, however. Camille was looking thinner and paler, Avery thought, while Abigail looked merely pale. He bowed to them and strolled closer.
“When passing through Bath,” he said, possessing himself of the handle of his quizzing glass, “one feels the desire to call upon one’s cousins by marriage.”
“Not even that, Avery,” Camille remarked.
“Ah,” he said, “but your father and my stepmother were brother and sister. That surely makes us cousins of sorts. And never tell Jessica there is no connection between you. Not only would she weep an ocean; she would also throw a horrid tantrum and strain my nerves to the breaking point. How are you, Camille? And you, Abigail?”
“Well,” Camille said curtly.
“Yes, well,” Abigail said. “And much obliged to you for calling on us, Avery. I trust you left Aunt Louise and Jessica in good health?”
“I did,” he said, “but in high dudgeon too over the fact that Anna and I chose to marry quietly and secretly rather than be subjected to all the delights of a Wedding with a capital W. Will you greet my wife? She will be very unhappy if you will not, and then I will be unhappy too. It is a dead bore to be unhappy.”
Abigail looked at her and greeted her with a little curtsy. Camille looked gravely at her as they all seated themselves.
“I had a letter from Jessica a few days ago,” Abigail said, “though the announcement in the London papers had already been brought to Grandmama’s attention. I wish you happiness, Your Gr—” She stopped briefly and frowned. “I wish you well, Anastasia. I wrote back to Jessica to suggest that perhaps it is time to let go of bitterness. I ought to take my own advice.”
“Thank you, Abigail,” Anna said. “We have just spent a week in the village of Wensbury with my maternal grandparents, whom Avery discovered for me. They thought I was dead. My father wrote to them not long after he brought me to the orphanage here to inform them that I had died of typhoid.”
“Oh,” Abigail said.
Camille frowned at the hands clasped in her lap.
“Mr. Kingsley was very set upon marrying Viola to the Earl of Riverdale’s heir,” Mrs. Kingsley remarked. “His head was quite turned at the prospect of having a future countess for a daughter. And she was willing. He was a handsome young man. I was opposed from the start. I did not like him. I considered him selfish, and I saw that his charm concealed a lac
k of character. I kept my peace for years after my misgivings were brushed aside, but no longer. He was a wicked man.”
“I am pleased,” Camille said stiffly without looking up, “that you have rediscovered your grandparents and they you.”
“Thank you, Camille,” Anna said. “Have you heard from Harry? Is he safe?”
Harry had arrived safely in Portugal after being one of the few passengers on the ship not to be seasick and had apparently sent a brief, very enthusiastic letter to his sisters—as he had done to Avery. He was looking forward to his first battle and the chance to have a go at Napoleon Bonaparte’s armies.
They stayed for half an hour while the ladies made stilted, polite conversation. They said their farewells with thanks and good wishes on both sides. And Avery, thankful it was over, took Anna’s hand through his arm and started downhill with her in the direction of the abbey and the Pump Room and the main part of the town, on foot as they had come because the hill straight up was too steep for a carriage.
“Tell me, Anna,” he asked, “was it an error in judgment on my part to bring you here?”
For a moment she rested the side of her bonnet against his shoulder.
“No,” she said, “for they did receive me and they were civil and I could see for myself that they are in good hands with their grandmother. And perhaps now they will hate me less, though the fact that I have married you has surely not endeared me to them. Is it true that time heals all wounds, Avery?”
“I really have no idea,” he said with all honesty. “But for argument’s sake I will state quite dogmatically that yes, of course time heals all ills.”
“Thank you.” She smiled ruefully at him.
Twenty-two
“It was civil of them to call.” Camille was the first to break the silence.
“I thought so,” her grandmother agreed. “It is what I would expect of Netherby, of course. It must have taken considerable courage, though, for his duchess to accompany him. I was surprised to find her so modestly attired, though it is clear she has the finest of dressmakers. I could detect no trace of vulgarity in her, and her manners are excellent.”
“I still do not understand why Avery married her,” Abigail said. “He has a reputation for having an eye for only the most acclaimed of beauties.”
“That, I believe, Abby,” Camille said, “is the very point. Did you see the way he looked at her?”
Abigail sighed. “I thought perhaps Cousin Alexander would marry her,” she said, “in order to reunite the title and fortune. But Avery married her instead. He would not have done it just out of pity, would he, and certainly not out of avarice.”
“Certainly not,” Camille said. “Oh, we have been around and around these arguments in the few days since Grandmama read the announcement until I am mortally sick of the subject. I believe he married her for love, Abby, astonishing as it seems.”
“Poor Jess,” Abigail said. “She does so resent Anna on our behalf, though she is perfectly well aware that nothing in this whole dreary situation is our half sister’s fault. And now Anna is her sister-in-law as well as her cousin.”
“She must learn to adjust,” Camille said, getting restlessly to her feet and crossing to the window, from which she looked across to sloping parkland and the view below, “just as you advised her to do, Abby. I wonder if she—the duchess, I mean—will take Avery to see the orphanage. Do you think they will find out if she does?”
“That I have been there?” her grandmother asked. “That I have agreed to fund a large bookcase for the classroom and books to fill it? It is the sort of thing a number of citizens of Bath do out of a spirit of charity. I see no reason why the Duchess of Netherby would be informed or why she would find it remarkable if she were.”
“That I have been there, Grandmama,” Camille said, turning from the window.
“You?” Her grandmother was all astonishment. “You have been to the orphanage, Camille? When, pray? To my knowledge you have left the house only twice since you came here, both times to take a walk with Abigail, and both times with a heavy veil over your bonnet to cover your face just as though you were in some sort of disgrace and were afraid of being recognized.”
“The first time we walked past,” Camille told her. “The second time I went inside and asked to speak to the manager. Abby would not come with me. She walked up and down the street until I came out.”
“I did not have your courage, Cam,” Abigail said.
“And?” their grandmother asked, frowning.
“Miss Ford, the matron, was gracious enough to show me some of the rooms,” Camille said, “after I had explained who I was. She still misses . . . Anna Snow. So does everyone else, apparently. She was quiet and unassuming, but—how exactly did Miss Ford phrase it?—her real value to them all loomed far larger when it was no longer there. The replacement teacher has not worked out well. She has threatened several times to leave, and I understood that Miss Ford hopes she will before she is dismissed.”
“Cam,” Abigail said, her face unhappy, “I still think you—”
But Camille held up one hand to stop her. “I have offered to take the teacher’s place if there should be a vacancy, Grandmama,” she said, “even if only for a short while until someone better qualified and more experienced can be found.”
“What?” Her grandmother’s hand crept up to the pearls at her neck. “Camille? There is really no need of this.”
“There is,” Camille said. “I must somehow put myself in her place—Anna Snow’s, that is—even if only for a short while and even though I can never know what it feels like to be a child there. I must stop hating her. Perhaps I can do it if I take her place.”
Abigail spread her hands over her face.
“It would seem to me,” Mrs. Kingsley said, “that hating—or loving—are a matter of willpower, Camille. You do not need to put yourself through this humiliation.”
“Willpower does not appear to work,” her granddaughter said. “It works on the mind but not on the heart.”
“Well,” her grandmother said briskly, “perhaps the schoolteacher will not leave her post and perhaps the matron will not have the courage to sack her or will have someone else in mind before she does. And perhaps one day you will come to the Pump Room with me for the morning promenade and meet some gentleman to take your mind off Viscount Uxbury. Abigail has accompanied me twice and has drawn interest both times. Not many people here will refine too much upon your change of status. You are, after all, my granddaughters and I am held in the highest esteem in Bath society.”
“We will see,” Camille said, returning to her chair. “But it was civil of them to come. And to ask about Harry.”
“Harry is her brother, Cam,” Abigail said, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief before putting it away. “And we are her sisters.”
* * *
Miss Ford did not mention Camille’s visit to the orphanage. She did, however, mention the fact that Mrs. Kingsley, a prominent citizen of Bath, had shown a welcome interest in the home recently and was to fund the purchase of a large bookcase for the schoolroom and books of all kinds to fill it. The matron mentioned it only because the Duke and Duchess of Netherby made the identical offer. Anna did not believe she had made the connection between Mrs. Kingsley and herself. It had long been Anna’s dream when she taught there of having books for all the children to read regardless of age or interest or reading ability. However, when she had sent a large draft of money to the home soon after inheriting her fortune, she had not specified on what it ought to be spent, and Miss Ford, with the approval of the board, had purchased some much-needed new beds and other furniture for the dormitories and new windows for the dining room.
The kitchen was old, from the ovens to the fireplace to the larder to the worktables and the uneven floor, and the laundry equipment was even older. Everything had been repaired and fixed s
o many times, the cook explained to the duke after she had recovered a little from her speechless awe, that by now there were repairs and patches upon repairs and patches. It would delight him and his duchess, Avery assured her and Miss Ford, to renew everything if they could stand the inconvenience of having workmen belowstairs for as many days as it would take for the work to be done.
He looked as he had during their stay at the vicarage. All his chains and rings and fobs had been left at the Royal York Hotel, where they were staying, along with his quizzing glass and snuffbox. His neckcloth was neatly tied but without any of its accustomed artistry. His eyes were wide-open, his manner that of a refined, kindly gentleman. It amused Anna how he could change at will. It touched her too that he had not come here with an air of affected boredom or condescension. When Winifred Hamlin plucked up her courage to step up to him and inform him that she had prayed for Miss Snow when she left for London and her prayers had been answered, he looked at her with a smile that crinkled his eyes at the corners.
“Without your prayers, then,” he said, “I might never have met your Miss Snow and married her and made her my duchess. My life would have been all the poorer for the lack. I will remember that I have you to thank for my happiness, young lady.”
“Oh, not me,” Winifred assured him, pointing piously upward.
It happened in the schoolroom, where Miss Ford had summoned all the children, school for the day having been dismissed. And they had all come pouring in, even the toddlers in the care of some of the older girls, and gazed in wonder and awe at their Miss Snow, who was now as close to being a princess as it was possible to get without actually being one. Most of them were still in high spirits after a visit from Bertha Reed earlier in the day.
Anna introduced her husband, and he bowed and smiled while the children applauded and cheered.
“Miss Snow,” Olga Norton said, waving her hand high in the air when the noise died down a bit. “Miss Nunce told us you were wrong to teach us to dream because dreams don’t come true for nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand people, especially people like us. She said you were a bad influence.”
