Thus appealed to, Cousin Alexander regarded Anna gravely and inclined his head. “I do indeed,” he said—but what else could he have said?

The Duke of Netherby’s fingers were curled about the handle of his quizzing glass, but he had not yet raised it to his eye. He had also refrained from comment. Unlike Alexander and the other gentlemen present, all of whom were clad in what Anna understood to be fashionable and elegant black evening clothes, he was dressed in a dull gold tailed evening coat with paler gold knee breeches, very white stockings and linen, and a white waistcoat heavily embroidered with gold thread. His neckcloth frothed beneath his chin in snowy, intricate folds and lace foamed at his wrists. His jewelry was gold, inlaid with amethysts. There were gold buckles on his dancing shoes. He looked, Anna guessed, somewhat old-fashioned and quite startlingly gorgeous. The fact that he was smaller and slighter than any of the other gentlemen was of no matter. He reduced them all to insignificance.

The judgment of her family having been passed upon her appearance, he stepped forward at last and took it upon himself to introduce Anna to the only two people she did not know—Colonel Morgan and Mr. Abelard she had met at the theater. The other two gentlemen, who made numbers even so that there would be an equal number of ladies and gentlemen at dinner, were Sir Hedley Thompson, the dowager countess’s cousin, and Mr. Rodney Thompson, his son. More relatives, Anna thought as they bowed to her.

The butler announced dinner soon after, and the duke offered Anna his arm. Now she was confused. This was not the strict order of precedence Mrs. Gray had explained to her so painstakingly and she had memorized. It seemed that he read her thoughts.

“Sometimes,” he said, for her ears only, “precedence gives place to occasion, Anna. This is the evening of your come-out, so to speak. You are the guest of honor.” His eyes regarded her from beneath lazy lids. “You have been very clever, though I doubt you realize it. You will undershine every other lady tonight.”

She was amused rather than offended. “And that is clever?” she asked.

“Indeed,” he said. “It is rather like pitching one’s voice low in a din and thus making oneself more clearly heard than everyone who is shrieking. It is a skill you know as a teacher.”

So the remark that she would undershine everyone was in a sense a compliment, was it?

“And you,” she said, “will certainly outshine every other gentleman.”

“Ah,” he said as he seated her to the right of his place at the head of the table, “one can but try.”

Oh, Anna realized in sudden surprise, she had missed him.

Fourteen

Good God, he had missed her, Avery thought. It was not a comfortable realization, the more so as he could not for the life of him understand it. Her grandmother and aunts were quite right about her appearance. Her gown was too prim and plain, her hair too sleek despite the curling tendrils, her person too bare of jewels. He had spoken the brutal truth when he had told her she would undershine everyone else at the ball. He had also meant it when he said she had been clever, though he was perfectly well aware that it had been unintentional on her part.

She looked nothing short of gorgeous.

And he was nothing short of . . . puzzled.

He could not recall when he had last hosted an evening event. Arranging dinner parties, soirees, concerts, and the like required just too much exertion, though admittedly Edwin Goddard would have done all the real work as he had for this. Avery looked along the length of the dining table to where his stepmother was seated at the foot, and was half surprised that it was large enough to seat this many. He did a quick count—fourteen persons in all, himself included. And perfectly balanced numbers, seven ladies and seven gentlemen. How very punctilious of Edwin and the duchess. Such attention to detail would have been enough to give him a headache.

But he had Anna to his right as the guest of honor for this evening and the Dowager Countess of Riverdale to his left as the lady of highest rank after his stepmother. He set about entertaining them, dividing his attention roughly equally between each. Anna had Molenor on her other side, he noted, again a clever move on his stepmother’s part, since Thomas was mild-mannered and kindly disposed and not likely to frighten Anna or tie her tongue in knots when she would need it to eat her food.

Not that he could imagine Anna frightened. She ought to have melted into a greasy pool of agony when she stepped inside this house on that very first day, but she had been as cool as her name. He would guess that had been the most frightening moment of her life so far. He must ask her. He was conversing with the dowager when the thought popped into his head. Or perhaps it was yesterday’s presentation to the queen, at which she had acquitted herself well, according to his stepmother.

“It is to be hoped,” he said a few minutes later when the dowager turned toward Alex Westcott on her other side and Molenor turned toward Lady Matilda on his, “that you have exhausted all there is to say about the weather we have been having and may hope to have in the near future, Anna. I may be able to make a few more observations on the subject if I must, but I doubt any of them would be original, and I hate not to be original.”

“The subject is exhausted,” she said.

“I am delighted to hear it,” he said. “Tell me, Anna. What has been the most frightening moment of your entire life so far?”

She stared at him for a short while, her fork suspended above her plate. “Where did that question come from?” she asked him.