“You look very smart, Harry,” the duchess said with hearty good cheer, getting to her feet as she looked him over. “Goodbye, my boy. I will not ask you to make us all proud of you. I know you will.”
“Thank you, Aunt Louise,” he said, shaking hands with her. “I will. I promise.”
Predictably, Jessica dashed into his arms, wailing horribly.
“You will be ruining Harry’s new uniform, Jessica,” her mother said after a few moments, and Jess hopped back and rubbed her hand over the slightly damp patch below one of his shoulders.
“I will n-never accept that you are no longer the Earl of Riverdale,” she told him, “and I will n-never forgive Uncle Humphrey, though one is not s-supposed to speak ill of the d-dead. Nor will I forgive the f-family he hid away while he was alive. They were n-never his real family. You were and A-Abby and Camille and Aunt Viola. But I promised Mama that I would not m-make a scene, and I will not even though she is here and Mama would not send her away. Harry, it hurts my heart to see you g-go and to know you are g-going into such d-danger.”
“I’ll come through safely,” he said, grinning at her. “I am not easily got rid of, Jess. And you will be all grown-up when I return. You almost are now. You will have so many beaux I won’t be able to forge a way through them, and you will have lost interest in a mere cousin anyway.”
“I will never lose interest in you, Harry,” she declared passionately. “I only wish we were not related. But then I suppose I would not even know you, would I? How perplexing a thing life is. Oh, I w-wish you were not g-going. I wish—”
She shook her head and spread her hands over her face, and Harry turned his attention toward Anna, who was standing quietly some distance away.
“Anastasia,” he said.
“Harry.” She smiled at him. “I had to come. You are my brother. But I did not come to burden you with more emotion when I am sure you are already oppressed with it. I came merely to say that I honor and admire you and look forward to the day when I can say it again.”
“Thank you,” he said. Nothing more, though he did not look either angry or resentful that she had come—or happy for that matter.
And then he turned to stride out of the room. Avery went with him as far as the outer doors, but Harry had already made it clear that he wished to leave the house alone. They shook hands, and he was gone. Avery raised his eyebrows when he realized that he felt something suspiciously like a lump in his throat.
He would have walked past the drawing room on his way back upstairs and gone about his own business if he had not heard raised voices from within—or, rather, one raised voice. He hesitated, sighed, and opened the door.
“. . . will always hate you,” Jessica was yelling. “And I don’t care that I am being unfair. I don’t care—do you hear me? I care about Abby and Camille. I care about Harry. I want everything to be back—”
“Jessica.” The duchess, who almost never raised her voice, raised it slightly now. “You will return to the schoolroom immediately. I will deal with you there later. When we have a guest in the house, we always exercise good manners.”
“I don’t care—”
“I shall take my leave, Aunt,” Anna said in that soft voice of hers that was nevertheless clearly audible. “Please do not be angry with Jessica. The fault is mine for coming here this morning.”
“And you will not take the blame for me,” Jessica cried, wheeling on her, fury in her eyes.
“Jess.” Avery spoke even more quietly than Anna, but his sister turned toward him and fell silent. “To the schoolroom. I daresay you are missing a lesson in geography or mathematics or something equally fascinating.”
She left without a word.
“I do apologize, Anastasia,” the duchess said.
“Please do not.” Anna held up one hand. “And please do not scold Jessica too harshly. All of . . . this has been a terrible shock to her. I understand that her cousins are very dear to her.”
“She adores them,” the duchess admitted. “Are you missing a dancing lesson or an etiquette lesson or a fitting?”
“Merely my weekly meeting with the housekeeper,” Anna said. “It can wait. But I will not take any more of your time, Aunt Louise. I will collect Bertha from the kitchen and be on my way.”
“Elizabeth—?” the duchess asked.
“She went to the lending library with her mother,” Anna explained. “They wanted me to go too, but I chose to come here instead to see Harry one last time—at least I hope, oh, I do hope it was not really the last time. But it was a self-indulgence I ought to have resisted, I fear. Good day to you, Aunt, and to you, Avery.”
She moved purposefully toward the door and looked ready to mow him down, Avery thought, if he did not step out of her way.
“Anastasia!” His stepmother’s voice sounded pained. “You are not by chance intending to descend to the kitchens in person to retrieve your maid, are you?”
“I daresay the girl is awash in tea and bread and butter and gossip,” Avery said. “Allow her to finish and find her own way home when she learns that she has been abandoned. I will escort you, Anna.”
She was still finding him tedious, it seemed. She raised her eyebrows. “Was that a question?” she asked.
He thought over exactly what he had said. “No,” he said. “If memory serves me correctly, it was a statement.”