“Oh dear,” Anna said as the tray was carried in and set on a low table before her and Elizabeth put her work away in her bag. “Will there be enough hours in the morning?”
“Absolutely not,” Elizabeth said, taking her cup and saucer from Anna’s hand. “Let us go shopping.”
Anna looked at her, the teapot suspended above her cup.
“I promised not to give you either instruction or unsolicited advice,” Elizabeth said, mischief in her smile. “But I will break my own rule this once. Whenever a lady is overwhelmed by obligation, Anna, she goes shopping.”
“I am not supposed to venture out of the house for at least the next ten years,” Anna said, smiling back. “Let us go shopping.”
An hour later Anna was curled up on one side of the huge, comfortable bed, no longer smiling. What she ought to do, she thought, and what she wanted to do more than anything else in life, was get up very early in the morning, or even now, and flee home to Bath before Miss Ford and the board of governors could appoint another teacher in her place. She would renounce her fortune—was it possible?—and go back to being Anna Snow.
But Bertha would be horribly disappointed. Besides, one could never really go back, could one? If she did return to Bath, she would take with her the knowledge of who she was and what she perhaps ought to have done about it if only she had the courage to face the unknown. For it was only cowardice that urged her to run away.
He had kissed her.
There—she could block the memory no longer.
He had held her against him while she fought back tears after that dreadfully sad meeting with Harry, and instead of accepting the gesture as the simple offer of comfort it had been, she had felt the shock of the contact with every last corner of her body and mind and spirit—especially with her body. And then she had tipped back her head without drawing firmly away from him at the same time, and she had said something—she could not for the life of her remember what. And he had kissed her.
She could feel it all again now. His body, his lips—no, it had been more than his lips. They had been parted. It was his mouth she had felt, soft, hot with moisture. There was an unfamiliar ache and throbbing between her thighs and up inside her at the memory, and she hid her face in the pillow and moaned with distress. It had been horrible, horrible. Or had it? She had nothing with which to compare it.
She would do her best to forget it. It had clearly not been intended to mean anything. He had lifted his head after a while and suggested bringing her home if she was ready. He had both looked and sounded his usual bored self. He had offered comfort but enough was enough, that look and that tone of voice had suggested, and thank heaven for her habitual sense of dignity.
He had not said a word on the way back to Westcott House. He had taken his leave of her with a careless bow in the hall and stepped back out onto the street without a backward glance.
She could not even begin to explain what it was about him that was so devastatingly attractive—or repellent. She truly did not know if she was attracted or repelled. She was both. He did not have the solid manliness of Joel—or the elegant presence of the Earl of Riverdale. He was all affectation and boredom. But there was . . . that aura.
Oh, she would give anything in the world to have seen him deal with that sergeant who had recruited Harry!
But the thought sent her head beneath the pillow, which she held over her ears as though to shut out the sound of her thoughts.
* * *
Avery stayed far away from Westcott House for the next several days. He spent long hours in his own very private space in the attic of Archer House, meditating, working his way through long series of stylized moves, holding some of the more impossible positions for minutes at a time, his eyes closed or unfocused, emptying his mind, emptying himself. He practiced more vigorous moves until the sweat poured down his face and body. He busied himself purchasing an ensign’s commission in the 95th Rifles foot regiment for Harry while the boy took himself off to Hampshire to bid farewell to his mother and sisters. He took Jessica to a few galleries and museums for some culture and to the Tower of London because on a previous visit her governess had refused to let her see the more gruesome exhibits. And of course he then ended up taking her to Gunter’s for an ice because that also had been forbidden on the former excursion. Jess’s governess, Avery concluded, was invaluable in many ways. She had taught his sister a great deal, both academic and social. She was also a joyless mortal.
He spent two nights reacquainting himself with the sort of woman who would make the top five of his top one hundred list of favorite types if there were such a thing—he amused himself with the mental image of Edwin Goddard drawing up such a document. On both occasions he found himself disinclined to return for a repeat performance. Could one have too much of beauty and sensuality and sex? What an alarming possibility. Good God, he was only thirty-one. It was far too soon for senility and gout and eccentricity.
He stayed away from Westcott House, but he could not escape hearing about everything that was happening there, for his stepmother, who had complained only a week or so ago of so many social obligations that she needed at least forty-eight hours in every day, had happily forgotten about most of them in her crusade to bring her newfound niece up to snuff. It was an impossible task, of course, she proclaimed every evening when she returned home for dinner, but it simply must be accomplished if the whole family was not to be shamed. But whatever was the queen going to think?
Madame Lavalle and her assistants were working night and day in the sewing room at Westcott House, it seemed, but her hands were severely tied, poor woman, by the fact that Anastasia flatly refused to have anything added to her new garments that would make them pretty and feminine and fashionable. When Madame had sneaked a very modest flounce onto the hem of an otherwise starkly plain ball gown, she had been made to remove it. Anastasia’s new maid had arrived—one of the orphans from Bath whom she treated more as a friend than as a lowly servant. The girl showed no inclination to take a firm line with her new mistress. Mrs. Gray, the genteel lady suggested by the duchess’s sister, had arrived as well to teach Anastasia about the ton and the rules of precedence and correct etiquette and how not to freeze with terror when faced with the queen and other related topics. But more often than not one found the woman in a huddle with Anastasia and Cousin Elizabeth, laughing about something or other all of them found amusing.