Avery handed the shilling to the sergeant. “You may take this back,” he said, “and you may tear up that paper. It is worthless. It would not stand up in court.”
One element of the crowd cheered while another booed.
“’e don’t want it torn up,” the sergeant pointed out. “You ’eard wot ’e said. Take yourself off, guv. ’e belongs to the king now, and I am the king’s hagent. Take yourself off before I pop you a good one and make you cry and wet yourself.”
Wild cheering from the ever-growing crowd. It was a challenge almost worth accepting, but one really must not indulge in the temptation to show off. Avery sighed and lowered his glass.
“But you see,” he said, “the boy is my ward. His signature, and what he believes to be his wishes, mean nothing without my permission. My permission is not granted.”
“And ’oo might I be haddressing?” the sergeant asked.
“He is the Duke of Netherby,” Harry said sullenly.
Instead of instantly groveling, the sergeant glowered, and Avery regarded him with approval. “And I s’pose you ’ave the ear of the king whenever you want it,” the man said bitterly, “and all the other nobs’ ears ’oo don’t ’ave to live by the laws of the land like all the rest of us salt of the earth ’umans.”
“It does seem rather unfair,” Avery agreed.
“’e would be useless, anyway,” the sergeant said, turning his head to spit in the dirt, only narrowly missing the left boot of the nearest of the spectators. “Just look at ’im. The best soldiers are the scum of the earth, like the rest of ’em there. I’ll whip ’em into shape in no time flat, Lord love ’em.”
The scum of the earth gawked back at him. One of them then leered at Avery, favoring him with a view of a mouthful of rotten teeth.
“Take ’im,” the sergeant said, tearing the recruitment paper in two lengthwise and then again crosswise before dropping the pieces and setting a giant boot over them. “And good riddance. Let ’im drink ’imself to death. ’e is well on ’is way already.”
“I don’t want to leave,” Harry said mulishly.
“Of course you do not,” Avery said agreeably, glancing once at the boy through his glass before turning away. “But there is nothing left for you here, Harry.” Except a good dose of lice and fleas and other vermin from the company in which he found himself.
Avery strolled away without looking back, and after a minute or two Harry fell into step beside him.
“Damn you, Avery,” he said, “I want to be a soldier.”
“Then a soldier you shall be,” Avery said. “If you are still of the same mind after a good bath and a good sleep and a good breakfast. But perhaps as an officer, Harry? You are an earl’s son, after all, even if through no fault of your own or your mother’s you were born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
“I cannot afford a commission,” Harry growled.
“Probably not,” Avery said—it was not the time to remind the boy that his newfound half sister had offered to divide her fortune with her siblings. “But I can, you see. And I will, since you are my stepmother’s nephew and Jessica’s cousin and my ward. If you still wish it after you wake up sober, that is.”
Life had grown remarkably tiresome, he thought as he tried not to smell Harry. And decidedly odd. Had he really told Lady Anastasia Westcott, alias Anna Snow, yesterday afternoon that he might well fall in love with her? If he were to list the top one hundred types of women most likely to attract him, in descending order, she would be number one hundred and one.
And had he offered her the choice of walking on or being kissed?
He was not in the habit of kissing unmarried maidens, and he was in absolutely no doubt that she was both.
Nine
Anna awoke the following morning feeling exhausted. The past few days had been so far outside any of her past experiences that she could find no place in which to rest her soul. Even her bed—wide and comfortable, with deep, downy pillows and soft, warm covers—felt too vast and too luxurious.
She threw back the covers, swung her legs over the side of the bed, got to her feet, and stretched. And there was no end in sight to all the strangeness. Yesterday she had made the decision to stay, at least for a while. She had written to Miss Ford to resign from her teaching position and to Bertha Reed inviting her to come and be her maid—she had even enclosed money for the stagecoach from what Mr. Brumford had given her until some more regular arrangement could be made.
She stepped into her dressing room and selected one of her two day dresses—she could not wear her Sunday dress for a third day in a row. Someone had been in her dressing room recently. There was water in the jug on the washstand, and it was still warm. She poured some into the bowl, stripped off her nightgown, and washed herself all over before dressing and brushing her hair and twisting it into its usual knot at the back of her neck. She drew a few deep breaths and let herself out of the room. She would come back later to make her bed.
A manservant who was standing in the hall looked a little startled to see her, but bowed and led her to what he described as the breakfast parlor, which was smaller than the dining room where she and Elizabeth had eaten last evening. He drew a chair out from the table and pushed it back in as she seated herself. He would go and inform Mr. Lifford, he told her, that my lady was ready for her breakfast.