“Oh, it’s to Mr. Cunningham, is it?” John said, looking at it. “If you had not already sealed it, Miss Snow, I would have had you give him my regards. I always liked him as an art teacher. He knew just what help and encouragement to offer without ever telling us what to paint or how to do it. And he never said anything was rubbish. Neither did you. I was lucky in my teachers.”
“Thank you, John,” Anna said, noting that Elizabeth had lifted her head and was smiling with genuine amusement. “I shall pass on your regards to Joel next time.”
“I do like your Bertha and your John,” Elizabeth said after he had left. “They are quite refreshing.”
“I believe John is the despair of Mr. Lifford,” Anna said.
“But he is such a very handsome lad,” Elizabeth said, a twinkle in her eye.
Anna seated herself in the armchair beside the fireplace. She did not pick up her book. What was the point? She knew she would not be able to read a word. How long would he be? Would he come at all?
How had he done that? He must have been six or seven feet in the air, and he had remained there while he kicked out with both feet, just as though the laws of nature did not apply to him. She would never have believed it if she had not seen it with her own eyes. And how had he been able to anticipate every blow that had rained down upon him and been able to defend himself against each one? Nobody could be that fast of either eye or arm—yet he was.
He did not have either a broad chest or bulging muscles. Yet everything about him, she had seen after he had stripped down, had been taut and perfect. Everything about him was in proportion to everything else. She had always thought him beautiful. This morning she had seen the full extent of that beauty and it had awed her even as she had been terrified for his safety.
She remembered suddenly his foolish claim to have felled Viscount Uxbury with three fingertips. He had not been speaking foolishly after all, she supposed. It had really happened.
He was a dangerous man indeed.
There was the sound of a carriage and horses from the street, and Elizabeth looked up from her letter.
“It is Avery,” she said, “in a barouche. That is unusual for him. He goes almost everywhere on foot. Oh goodness, I feel almost afraid of him. Anna, are you quite sure you wish to marry him?”
“Yes,” Anna said, suddenly breathless. “I am sure, Lizzie.”
The sound of the door knocker came from below.
Eighteen
Avery was later arriving at Westcott House than he had intended, but his errands had been delayed by the earliness of the hour. It seemed that people did not begin work at the crack of dawn or even soon after. However, here he was now, wondering, as he often did when he was about to see Anna, if a certain spell that appeared to have been cast over him would have been dispelled since the last time and he would see her as the perfectly ordinary young woman she surely was. Under the circumstances, it would be just as well if that was not about to happen.
John the Friendly Footman entertained him as they climbed the stairs by informing him that Miss Snow would be happy to see him as she had just finished writing a long letter to his erstwhile art teacher in Bath and was probably at loose ends—the footman’s own words—as Lady Overfield had not yet finished hers. John thought, though, that Lady Overfield was writing more than one letter and that accounted for the fact that she was still at it. It did not matter, though, it seemed, as the post would not be picked up until one o’clock and she would surely be finished by then.
Avery thought about how servants in other houses effaced themselves into virtual invisibility and thereby deprived employers and guests of a great deal of wit and wisdom and good cheer.
“His Grace, the Duke of Netherby,” John announced, all prideful formality after he had tapped on the drawing room door and flung it open—and then he ruined the effect by grinning at Avery.
Anna was sitting by the fireplace, all prim and pretty in sprigged muslin. Elizabeth was seated at a table by the window, surrounded by paper and inkpot and blotter and quill pens. But she was getting to her feet and smiling.
“Avery,” she said as he bowed to her. “Anna has been expecting you. I have just finished my letters and will take them down to set on the tray to go out with today’s post. Then there are one or two things I need to do in my room.”
He turned to open the door for her, and she came very close to winking at him.
“I shall not be gone for too, too long,” she said. “I take my responsibility as Anna’s chaperone very seriously, you know.”
He closed the door behind her and went to stand before Anna’s chair. She had not said anything yet beyond a murmured greeting. She was looking a little pale, perhaps a little tense, with her feet planted side by side on the floor, her hands clasped in her lap, her posture very correct even though that chair had surely been made to be lounged in. He had heard all about the plans for their wedding from his stepmother, and when he had called on Edwin Goddard this morning to see if there was anything in the post that needed his personal attention—fortunately there had not been—he had known without even asking that his secretary was just waiting for the word before springing into action. Between the two of them, with a little encouragement from other assorted Westcotts, the duchess and Goddard would doubtless produce a wedding to end all weddings. The duchess had even made a passing mention of St. Paul’s Cathedral, paving the way, perhaps, for a definite suggestion within the next day or two.