Someone to Love (Westcott #1)(31)

He looked at her while her words rang in his head. She was not delighted by her incredible good fortune, was she? He wondered if she had dreamed of it all her life and now found the reality a bit empty, because along with the fortune came the knowledge that her father had been a bounder of the first order and her half sisters had fled with their mother rather than meet her again or accept her offer to share her fortune. That Harry was off somewhere drinking deep until he touched bottom and some sort of rescue could be effected. That her family considered her impossible. She may never be ready were the last words her grandmother had spoken before they left the house. He wondered if she had friends back in Bath. A suitor, perhaps? Someone the family would not consider eligible for her.

“Now, there is a memorable saying,” he said. “It ought to be a quotation from some famous sage—there is no kindness in money. I suspect, though, it is an original Anna-ism. To most people the motive would not matter. It would be enough that your father wanted you to be wealthy at last.”

“I hope it was not deliberate,” she said. “I hope he merely forgot that will and was too lazy to make another. I hope he was not deliberately malicious to us all—to his wife and children and to me. I found my family yesterday. Do you understand, Avery, what that means to someone who has grown up in an orphanage not knowing who she is, not even certain that the name by which she is known is her real name? It means more than all the gold and jewels in the world. And yesterday I lost my family, the part of it that means most to me, anyway. Today they are gone. They have fled rather than see me again. Oh, I am grateful for what remains. I have a grandmother, aunts and an uncle, cousins away at school—and your half sister is my cousin too, is she not?—and second cousins. They are all a treasure that was beyond my dreams just a few days ago, but perversely my heart is too sore to appreciate them fully just yet. Yesterday I learned that my mother is long dead and my father, a selfish, cruel man, is recently deceased. Yesterday I saw his second wife and his other children—my half siblings—crushed and their world destroyed. I am wealthy, probably beyond belief, but in some ways I am more impoverished than I was before—because now I know what I had and have lost.”

The one word that had registered most upon Avery’s mind was his own name—Avery. Almost no one outside his family called him that. Even his mistresses called him Netherby.

But the rest of what she said did register too, and he stopped walking and steered her off the path and set her back against a tree trunk so that she could recover herself before they moved on. She was very upset. She had recently discovered that she was one of the wealthiest women in England, and she was upset—because family meant more to her than riches. She had never known either—family or money—and family meant more. One never really considered the matter when one had always had both. Which was the more important?

He braced one hand against the trunk beside her head and gazed into her face.

“No,” she said, “there is no kindness in money, Avery, and there was absolutely none in the late Earl of Riverdale, my father.”

His name again—Avery. It was something else that had been against him from the start—his name, which suggested flowers and pretty birds and femininity. He could not have been Edward or Charles or Richard, could he? But somehow this woman, this Anna, made a caress of his name, though he had no doubt it was entirely unintentional.

“I wrote yesterday to my dearest friend in Bath,” she said. “I reminded him of something our former teacher was fond of saying—that one ought to beware what one wishes for lest the wish be granted. All orphans have the grand dream of discovering just what I discovered yesterday. I told him Miss Rutledge had been quite right.”

Him. Avery only just stopped himself from asking the man’s name.

There were other people coming along the path toward them. He drew her arm through his again and turned toward them. There were two couples. The men inclined their heads and touched the brims of their hats. The ladies half curtsied.

“Netherby,” Lord Safford said. “This is a fine day for May.”

“Your Grace,” both ladies murmured.

But all eyes, Avery was fully aware, were upon his companion, avid and curious.

“Yes, is it not?” Avery agreed with a sigh, his quizzing glass in his free hand.

“It is warm but not overhot,” one of the ladies said. “It is perfect for a stroll in the park.”

“And there is no wind,” the other lady added, “which is most unusual and very welcome.”

“Quite so,” Avery agreed. “Cousin, may I present Lord and Lady Safford and Mr. Marley and Miss James? Lady Anastasia Westcott is the daughter of the late Earl of Riverdale.”

“How do you do?” Anna said, looking directly at each of them in turn.

The gentlemen bowed and the ladies curtsied—to her, not to Avery this time.

“This is a great pleasure, Lady Anastasia,” Mr. Marley said as Miss James’s eyes moved over her from head to toe. “I hope we will see more of you during the Season.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I have no firm plans yet.”

Avery raised his glass partway to his eye, and the two couples took the hint and moved off after some murmured farewells.

“You do realize, Anna, I hope,” Avery said as they resumed their own walk along the path in the opposite direction, “that you have just made their day.”