Chapter 12
This dining room is far too large for one person, Anna observed as she entered that morning.
The table, which had seated four comfortably during Lady Oldbarrow’s visit and housed two with reasonable dignity, seemed to expand in proportion to absence.
The silver was set for one. A single teacup.
The fire was going, and the sideboard was covered with everything that was always arranged with breakfast: toast, fruit, eggs, and bacon, almost mocking her solitude. She took her usual chair.
“His Grace has asked for his breakfast in the study this morning,” Simmons said, appearing beside the sideboard as she made her plate at the buffet. “He sends his apologies.”
“Of course,” Anna said as she took her seat.
Simmons silently poured her tea, gave a small bow, and withdrew without another word. Anna looked at the window. The rain from last night had cleared. The view was clear and still, the east lawn pale in the November light.
He is avoiding me, she thought as she bit down on a piece of toast, letting the pieces crunch in her mouth. Imagine that, a duke avoiding me?
She was not surprised nor particularly upset about it, or at least she was trying not to be. There was some logic to it. What had very nearly happened in the study last night was something that should not happen again, and avoiding her was a good way to ensure it.
She drank her tea and watched Percy strolling about the lawn.
Rachel appeared a few minutes later, pulling off her gloves from her morning ride. She paused in the doorway, took in the single place setting with a quick and comprehensive glance, and sat down across from Anna without commenting.
Another footman materialized to pour her tea. Rachel accepted it and looked at the sideboard.
“I’ll take some of that,” she said, as she went toward the cold bacon and helped herself at the breakfast buffet. “He is in his study,” Rachel said, not quite a question.
“So Simmons informed me this morning.”
Rachel made a small sound. It was not quite hmm and not quite ah. It communicated, nevertheless, a great deal. She reached for the bread and applied herself to buttering it with more attention than the task required.
“Are you all right?” She asked as she sat down.
“Perfectly so,” Anna said. “I slept very well.”
This was not true. She had slept perhaps three hours and had spent the other two staring at the ceiling.
But Rachel did not need to know that, and in any case, Anna had decided on the walk downstairs that the correct approach to this morning was composure.
Rachel looked at her over the rim of her teacup.
“Good,” Rachel said, and did not press.
They sat at the table in the calm quiet of the morning. A coal shifted in the fireplace.
Outside, somewhere in the park, a wood pigeon called once and was answered. Anna refilled her own tea and looked at the empty chair at the head of the table and then looked firmly at the window instead.
It is going to be a long day.
The letter arrived mid-afternoon. Frederick had been at his desk since before dawn, which was not unusual, and had worked through three estate accounts, a tenant dispute in the south quarter, and a letter from Barnes that required a careful reply.
He had done all of this with methodical and deliberate attention. He had not thought about Anna, or at least when he had, he pushed the thoughts away as quickly as they came.
He was re-reading Barnes’s previous letter when the new one arrived on the afternoon tray. Barnes’s seal, sent express. He broke it and began to read.
The matter proceeds well. However, it is my considered advice that Lady Birchall’s physical presence in London will be required to advance the petition.
A formal deposition before a commissioner of oaths is the necessary next step, and that process cannot be completed by correspondence alone.
I should also note that having her readily available during the filing period, to respond to any counterarguments from the opposing party, will significantly reduce complications and further delay.
I estimate her presence may be required across two to three meetings, and recommend we proceed as soon as practicable.
Frederick put the letter down. He read it again, which did not change the contents. He stood and went to the window. The grounds were still and cold in the late afternoon light, the oak bare now.
He stood there for a moment.
London.
He thought about Birchall, whose main residence was in London.
Whose solicitors were in London. Whose web of connections and influence was in London.
He thought about what it would mean for Anna to be visible in that city, however briefly, while the petition was still in progress, before the annulment was secured, before she had any legal protection. Before the outcome was certain.
His hands tightened into fists at his sides as he began to pace.
He thought about Edgeware, too, and what the man might do if he discovered his cousin was within reach. He leaned over his desk then and pressed his hands flat against it, thinking. Then, he picked up the letter and folded it and put it in the drawer, and sat very still for a long moment.
The clock ticked. The fire went on. Percy, who had come in sometime in the past hour and arranged himself on the corner chair, regarded him from across the room with his serene amber eyes that felt too perceptive.
“Not a word from you,” he said.
Percy blinked once, slowly, silently. Frederick looked at the drawer.
Yes, it is dangerous, but she cannot not go. That is the plain truth of it. Barnes is right. Delay helps Birchall, not Anna.
Every week the petition sat without her deposition was another week in which Birchall’s solicitors could maneuver, raise objections, manufacture complications.
The faster this moves, the safer she will be… And the faster she has her freedom back, the sooner she will be free of this house, of this impossible situation…
Of strange late nights that Frederick would not think about.
He would see to it that she was protected in London. He would ensure she was not exposed. He would be with her, and Rachel would be with her. That was not ideal, but then nothing about any of this had been ideal from the very beginning.
He found them after dinner in the drawing room, which Rachel had arranged as she often did. Books had migrated from the library and a fire built too large, the sofa pulled closer to the hearth than was seemly.
Anna had a piece of embroidery she had been working on, and Rachel had a novel in her lap. Frederick walked through the threshold and stood just inside the door, which was enough of an entry that both of them looked up.
“I had a letter from Barnes,” he said.
Rachel closed her novel. She set the book on the cushion beside her and folded her hands. “And?”
“He believes the petition is progressing well.” He looked at Anna, who had set down her embroidery and was watching him steadily.
Her composure was intact, or at least the face of it was. He had learned to see, now, the subtle signs of the effort it cost her. The slight stillness of her hands, the way her full lips went imperceptibly thinner.
“He has advised, however, that the next step requires your presence in London, Anna.” He said it plainly; there was no useful way to soften it. “A formal deposition. Two or three meetings, perhaps, depending on how the process moves. It cannot be done by correspondence alone.”
“London,” Rachel said after a short silence.
“Yes.”
“With Birchall—”
“Birchall will not be a concern,” Frederick said. “I will ensure that.” He did not look at Rachel as he said this, but at Anna. “I am aware it is not ideal. I would not propose it if I saw another way.”
Anna had not spoken. She was looking at him with those brilliant hazel eyes, luminous in the firelight. He could see her working through it the same way she worked through everything, quietly and with a kind of careful steadiness that, even now, he found—
“Is it the fastest path?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts.
“I beg your pardon?” He asked, embarrassed by his drifting thoughts, which he concealed expertly, or at least hoped.
“The deposition. Is it the thing that moves everything forward most directly?”
“According to Barnes, yes. Significantly so,” he recovered.
“And if we delay? Or attempt to do it by correspondence?”
“It introduces complications. More time is more opportunity for the opposition to file objections and complicate the proceedings.”
Anna looked at her hands briefly and then looked back up. “And you believe Barnes?”
“Yes. His judgment is sound.”
A short silence. He watched her reach the same conclusion he had reached an hour ago, following the same unsparing logic to the same unavoidable end. There was no argument to be made against it.
“Then we go,” she said.
Rachel made a small, unhappy sound. “But Anna…”
“It is the right next step, Rachel.” Anna’s voice was quiet but certain. “I knew this day would come. It is what must happen to finish this.” She looked at Frederick again. “What will we need? For the London house, for the meetings. What does Barnes require from me beforehand, so I may prepare?”
Frederick felt, not for the first time, a complicated and inconvenient admiration for her. He had seen women face difficult truths in every conceivable way, and this was something particular to her. She simply faced her troubles, with a frame that should have been too delicate for their weight.
“I will write to Barnes tonight to secure these details,” he said, bringing himself back to the present moment.
“He will send the particulars of when and where to present yourself. In the meantime, I would advise against writing to anyone in London. Not until we have arrived and I have had the chance to assess the situation.”
“I was not planning to,” she said with a sound that almost sounded like a laugh.
“I know.” He paused to look at her. Suddenly he became aware of how long he was looking at her, and looked at the fire instead, which only echoed her amber eyes. “I will arrange for the carriage on Thursday.”
Silence.
“It is two days,” he said, more gently, which was as much concession as he was going to make. “It gives you and Rachel time to prepare, but quickly. We will take every precaution—”
“I know we will, brother.” Rachel looked at Anna, her expression softening. Then she looked back at Frederick. “Thursday,” she repeated.
“Thursday,” Anna echoed.