She deserves to be married because she is everything in the world to one particular gentleman.

God damn it and a million or so other profanities and blasphemies he would utter aloud if he were not on the public street where he might be overheard. Everything in the world, indeed. It was enough to make him want to vomit.

Though it was just as well if he was in love with her, since he was doomed to marry her. He needed to marry in the foreseeable future anyway. It might as well be sooner rather than later. He had imagined, though, that when he finally got around to making his choice, the chosen one would be an acknowledged beauty, someone like Miss Edwards. He had danced with her once the evening before last and found himself wondering why he had so admired her just a few weeks ago. There was a certain softness to her face and figure that would almost certainly convert to plumpness and plainness within ten years, and he had wondered if she possessed enough character to make the inevitable changes of little importance.

Even then, with such uncharitable thoughts, he might have guessed the truth.

He had never been in love. He had never come close. He did not even know what the term meant. He was not off his food or off his sleep. He felt no urge to write a sonnet dedicated to her left eyebrow—or the right for that matter—and none whatsoever to sing a ballad of love lost below the window of her bedchamber in the dead of night. He did not feel lovelorn when he was out of her presence or lovestruck when he was in. He had not even suspected until a short while ago when it had popped into his head to offer to marry her himself and put the whole lot of them out of their misery.

No one had been miserable.

Yes, she had. She had made that impassioned little speech about feeling like an object, a commodity. She had described all the frenzy of male interest her appearance in society had aroused as though it were the worst possible insult that could happen to anyone. Most ladies would sacrifice a right arm for half the attention. To her it was a misery.

He had offered her marriage to put her out of her misery. He did not care about anyone else’s.

At least she would know he was not marrying her for her money.

He climbed the steps to Archer House, rapped on the door, handed his hat and cane to his butler, and eyed the stairs, a frown between his brows. What he felt like doing was splitting a pile of bricks in two with the edge of his hand. But he had been taught long ago that he must never practice when he was feeling out of sorts. The arts he had learned were not an antidote to bad temper. What he ought to do was go up and have a word with Jessica. She would be less than delighted with his news, and it was not fair to expect his stepmother to break it to her.

He never did anything because he ought to do it.

Except this one thing, he thought with an inward sigh as he made his way up to the schoolroom.

* * *

Anna did not escape so easily from the drawing room. She sat there in near silence for the next hour or two—she had no idea how long—while everyone around her planned her wedding.

She must be married at St. George’s Church on Hanover Square. Everyone was agreed upon that, not just because it was within a stone’s throw of Archer House, but because it was the church for fashionable weddings during the Season. Everyone must be invited, and everyone would attend, of course. Aunt Louise would borrow Avery’s Mr. Goddard again to draw up the list, which would not be difficult, since it would be essentially the same as the one for the ball two evenings ago—with the exception of Viscount Uxbury, of course. Mr. Goddard would write the invitations too. He had a neat, precise hand. The wedding breakfast would be held at Archer House, as was only proper. The banns must be called on the coming Sunday so that the wedding would not have to be delayed longer than one month. Madame Lavalle and her assistants would be brought back to Westcott House to make Anastasia’s wedding outfit and her bride clothes. Anna’s grandmother would take her to her own jeweler’s to see to it that she purchased jewelry suited to her current rank and future prospects.

“Though of course there will be the Netherby jewels for you to wear on state and other formal occasions, Anastasia,” she added.

“You will be supplanting me in the title, Anastasia,” Aunt Louise said, one hand over her heart, “and relegating me to the position of dowager. I am delighted. I really feared Avery might never marry. One can only hope that he will now proceed to do his duty and start to populate his nursery within the year.”

Anna’s mind seemed not to be working clearly. Everyone seemed to have forgotten her declared wish to go to Wensbury to see her grandparents for herself and find out just what had happened all those years ago. Of course, her mother’s people would be deemed of no account by these aristocrats.

The duke had said he would take her there. He had given her the choice of going wed or unwed, and she had chosen to be wed first. Then he had simply taken his leave and gone away. How absolutely typical of him to leave her to the mercy of her well-meaning family. Her wedding was going to be at least a month in the future. Yet she had longed to get away from a life that was overwhelming her. All she had succeeded in doing was making things worse. Far worse.

The talk around her had progressed to betrothal announcements and betrothal parties.

Why on earth had she agreed to marry the Duke of Netherby? Was she in love with him? But what did that mean—being in love? And he was surely the last man with whom she might be infatuated.

At last everyone left, though Anna knew it was just a temporary reprieve. Elizabeth had gone downstairs to see her mother and brother on their way and was gone for a while.