Someone to Love

All eyes turned Avery’s way as though he had the answer to every question at the tip of his tongue. He raised his eyebrows. He was not in the habit of helping impecunious young men to find employment, especially wild young men who had been in possession of a seemingly bottomless coffer of funds until an hour or so ago and had been making profligate use of it. He fingered the handle of his quizzing glass, abandoned it, and sighed.

“Harry must be granted a day or two to stop laughing and telling everyone who will listen what a lark all this is,” he said.

“Oh, Avery!” Jessica blurted. “How can you make light of such a tragedy?”

He leveled a look upon her that closed her mouth and set her to huddling against her mother’s side, though she continued to glower at him.

“I am granting him a day or two,” he repeated softly. “For his laughter does not derive from amusement, and when he describes the morning’s disclosures as a lark he does not mean something that is fun.”

“Avery will look after him, Jess,” Abigail said, her eyes fixed upon him.

“Lady Anastasia seemed perfectly willing to share her fortune,” Cousin Elizabeth reminded them all. “Perhaps Harry will not need to take employment. Perhaps he—”

“I will not touch one penny of what that woman offers out of condescending charity, Elizabeth,” Camille said, cutting her off. “Neither, I trust, will Abby. Or Harry. How dare she even suggest it—as though she were doing us some grand favor.”

Which, in Avery’s estimation, was precisely what she would be doing if more sober consideration did not cause her to retract her offer.

“She is my granddaughter,” the dowager said.

“Is she returning to Bath, Avery?” Abigail asked.

“Brumford persuaded her to remain at least for the present at the Pulteney, where she apparently stayed last night,” he said. “He is to spend the afternoon there with her and her chaperone, doubtless boring her into a coma.”

“Poor lady,” Cousin Elizabeth said. “Her life has just changed drastically too.”

“I would not describe her as poor in any way, Elizabeth,” Thomas, Lord Molenor, said dryly.

“Her education as Lady Anastasia Westcott must begin without delay,” the dowager said, and everyone looked at her.

“After today,” Camille said, a world of bitterness in her voice as she got to her feet, “she will be able to move out of the Pulteney and into Westcott House, Grandmama. She will be thrilled about that.”

“Cam,” her mother said after heaving a sigh, “none of this is her fault. We need to remember that. Just think of the fact that she has spent all but the first few years of her life in an orphanage.”

“I cannot think of anything else but that,” the dowager said. “It is not going to be easy to—”

“I do not care where she has lived or how difficult it will be to bring her up to snuff,” Camille cried, rudely interrupting. “I hate her. With a passion. Do not ever ask me to pity her.”

“I am sorry, Grandmama,” Abigail said, getting up to stand by her sister. “Cam is upset. She will feel better after she has had a talk with Lord Uxbury.”

“Abby and Cam are not going to be staying here with us after all?” Jessica asked, teary eyed.

“Harry will stay here, I daresay,” the duchess said, “after Avery has found him. You must not worry about him, Viola.”

“My mind is too numb to feel worry,” the former countess said. “I suppose he is out getting drunk. I wish I were with him, doing the same thing.”

“Mama,” Jessica blurted, “promise me that woman will never, ever be allowed inside this house again. Promise me I will never see her again. I may well scratch her eyes out if I do. She is ugly and stupid and she looks worse than a servant and I hate her. I want everything to be back as it was. I want H-Harry back as the earl and laughing because he is h-happy, not because he is s-sad and can never be h-h-happy again. I want Abby to be my proper cousin again and still living close by. I want— I hate this. I hate it. And why is Avery not out looking for Harry and fetching him home?”

Avery dropped his glass on its ribbon, sighing inwardly, and opened his arms. She glared at him for one moment, then scrambled to her feet and dashed into his arms and buried herself against him. She would have climbed right inside if she could, he thought. She wept noisily and inelegantly against his shoulder, and he closed one arm about her and spread the other hand over the back of her head.

“Do s-s-something,” she cried. “Do something.”

“Hush,” he murmured against her ear. “Hush, love. Life is full of clouds. But clouds are lined with gold. You just have to wait for the sun to come out again. It will. It always does.”

Asinine words. He sounded worse than Cousin Althea had a few minutes ago. Where the devil did such drivel come from?

“Promise?” she said. “P-promise?”

“Yes, I promise,” he said, removing his hand from her head in order to fish out a large handkerchief from his pocket. Since women were always the ones who wept buckets of tears, it seemed illogical that they were also the ones who carried handkerchiefs so thin and dainty they were invariably sodden within moments of a cloudburst. “A cool glass of lemonade in the schoolroom will be just the thing for you, Jess. No, don’t protest. It was not a question.”

Her mother thanked him with her eyes as he led his half sister from the room, one arm about her waist.