“The bigger room on the left is yours, miss,” the older woman said. “The other one is mine. Dinner will be fetched up soon. I shall go and wash my hands.”
She disappeared into the bedchamber to the right, taking her bag with her. Anna carried hers into the other room. It was at least three times larger than her room at the orphanage. The bed looked wide enough to accommodate four or five sleepers lying comfortably abreast. There was water in the jug on the washstand. She poured some into the bowl and washed her hands and face and combed her hair. She ran her hands down her dress, which was sadly wrinkled after two days of sitting.
By the time she stepped back into the sitting room, two servants had come to set the table with a crisp white cloth and gleaming china, glass, and cutlery, and to deposit several covered tureens of something hot and steaming and delicious smelling. At least, Anna assumed it would smell delicious if only she were hungry and not so desperately tired.
She wished with all her heart that she was back at home.
*
Having a superlatively efficient secretary, Avery, Duke of Netherby, mused, was both a good thing and occasionally a bothersome one. On the one hand, one came to rely upon him to conduct all the troublesome and trivial business of one’s life, leaving oneself free simply to live and enjoy it. On the other hand, there was the odd occasion when one found oneself forced into something tedious that might have been avoided if one had been left to one’s own devices. It did not happen often, admittedly, for Edwin Goddard was well acquainted with what might be expected to bore his employer. This, however, was one of those infrequent occasions.
“Edwin,” Avery said with a pained sigh late one afternoon as he appeared in the doorway of the secretary’s office. “What is this, pray?”
He held aloft between a thumb and forefinger a card Goddard had left on the library desk with two other memos, one reminding His Grace of a ball he would wish to attend tonight because the Honorable Miss Edwards was to be there, and the other informing him that a pair of new boots for which he had been fitted last week was awaiting his pleasure at Hoby’s whenever he chose to go and try them on to make sure they fit like the glove that was always said to be so comfortable upon one’s foot. If it were really so, Avery mused, then it was strange that men persisted in wearing boots rather than gloves. But his thoughts had digressed.
“Mr. Josiah Brumford has requested an hour of your time here tomorrow morning, Your Grace,” Goddard explained. “Since he is the Earl of Riverdale’s solicitor and his lordship is your ward, I assumed you would be happy to grant his request. I have given instructions that the rose salon be prepared for ten o’clock.”
“Happy,” His Grace repeated faintly. “My dear Edwin, what a very peculiar choice of word. You have indeed mentioned here that this, ah, audience is to be granted in the rose salon at the time you stated. I can read. But you omitted a reason for the choice of room. The rose salon seems rather a large chamber for just one solicitor and my humble self to rattle about in. He is not bringing along with him any large sort of retinue, is he? The other Brumford, perhaps, or some of the ‘& Sons’? Or the whole lot of them? That would be too, too much, I am moved to inform you.”
“Mr. Brumford mentioned in his letter, Your Grace,” Goddard said, “that he has taken the liberty of requesting the attendance too of more persons, including the earl and the countess, his mother, and other members of his family.”
“Has he indeed?” Avery’s fingers curled about the handle of his quizzing glass as he strolled toward his secretary’s desk, dropped the memo upon it, and held out his hand. Goddard eyed it for a moment and then rummaged through a neat pile of papers on one corner of his desk in order to produce Brumford’s letter. It was as pompous as the man who had penned it, but it did indeed request the honor of addressing His Grace of Netherby at Archer House at ten o’clock tomorrow morning upon a matter of grave importance. It also begged His Grace’s pardon for having taken the liberty of inviting his ward and his lordship’s mother and sisters as well as other close family members, including Mr. Alexander Westcott, Mrs. Westcott, his mother, and Lady Overfield, his sister.
Avery returned the letter to his secretary without comment. Three weeks had passed since Brumford had stridden from Westcott House like a crusader bent upon the mission of sending forth his most trusted investigator to run one bastard orphan to earth in order to press riches upon her in return for her written promise never to appeal to Harry for more. Had not the arrangement been that Brumford report privately to Avery when the woman was found in order to discuss the exact sum to be settled upon her?