Someone to Love (Westcott #1)(96)

Avery made his appearance in the House of Lords a number of times, having neglected his duties there lately. He visited his clubs, accompanied his wife to a number of social events, and very correctly kept his distance from her until it was time to escort her home. He took her driving in Hyde Park a couple of times at the fashionable hour and walked with her once down by the Serpentine, weaving their way among other people. Most evenings he dined at home with her and his stepmother and Jessica, who was now deemed adult enough to join them. He slept in Anna’s bed and made love to her at least once each night. They ate breakfast together and looked through their invitations together after Edwin Goddard had sorted them.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with his marriage. It was no different from any other ton marriage as far as he could tell. And that—devil take it!—was the trouble. He had no idea how to make it better, how to recapture the glow and euphoria of those two weeks. It had been what people referred to as a honeymoon, he supposed. Honeymoons, by their very nature, could not be expected to last.

Perhaps things would be different—better—when the parliamentary session was at an end and with it the Season and they could go home to Morland Abbey for the summer. Her grandparents would be coming for a few weeks. But he was well aware that the future could never be relied upon to be an improvement upon the present. The future did not exist. Only the present did.

The present was . . . disappointing. He had known happiness for a couple of weeks. Yes. He tested the thought in his mind. Yes, he had been happy. He was not enjoying being back to normal. And of course, even normal was no longer normal. For there was his wife and there was his marriage and he did not know quite what to do with either one. He was not accustomed to feeling inadequate, out of control of his own destiny.

He spent long hours upstairs in his attic room—he suspected Anna did not even know he was at home—but though he worked himself mercilessly until he was bathed in sweat, and sat in meditative pose until he almost turned into a sphinx, he could find no peace. He could not find that place beneath and behind his whirling thoughts into which to sink and find rest. And always, always, in the attic, out of it, in bed, everywhere, he could not escape the echo of a slow, peaceful voice telling him in its pronounced Chinese accent: You are whole, my boy, right through to the hollow center. Love lives at the center of wholeness and pervades it all. When you find love, you will be at peace.

But, so annoyingly typical of his master, he had never been willing to explain such remarks. Deep and lasting truths could be learned only from experience, he had always explained. It had been pointless for Avery to argue that he did love—his dead mother, his father, his little half sister, oh, numerous people. The Chinese gentleman had only smiled and nodded.

Avery was unhappy.

*

Archer House on Hanover Square, so intimidating the first time she stepped inside it, was now Anna’s home. All her belongings had been moved during her absence. John and a few of the other servants had been brought over too.

“Your duke made a special request for me,” John explained to Anna with a beaming smile. “That must mean I am doing my job well, don’t you think? The butler over at the other house would have me believe I ought not to speak to people unless I was spoken to, but it seemed rude and unfriendly to me. I like this new livery better than the other one—no offense to you, Miss Snow. Actually I am happy just to be wearing livery. I might easily have ended up at a bootmaker’s like poor Oliver Jamieson.”

“I think, John,” Anna explained, “his apprenticeship has been a dream come true for Oliver.”

“Well,” he said cheerfully while Avery’s butler came into the hall and looked taken aback to see the new footman chatting with the duchess, “it takes all sorts, doesn’t it, Miss Snow? Which is just as well, I suppose. It would be a bit odd if everyone in the world was a footman.”

Besides the fact that she was married and in a different house, life resumed much as it had been before Anna left London. Her grandmother and the two aunts who were still in London were as concerned about her as ever. There was potentially great damage to be repaired, it seemed. Just when she had been presented to society with great success and some acclaim, she had committed the huge social error of not pressing onward but of marrying in indecent haste and then disappearing for two whole weeks. It would be amazing indeed if the highest sticklers at the very least did not frown upon her, even shun her. It would be amazing if she was not struck off the guest lists of some of the more prestigious events of the Season and if her vouchers for Almack’s were not revoked. Only her new title and Avery’s enormous consequence might save her. But a great deal of work was needed.

There were conferences at Archer House and at the dowager countess’s house. Aunt Mildred and Uncle Thomas were no longer in London, of course, and the second cousins did not involve themselves this time. A round of visits was planned with Anna’s grandmother or Aunt Louise to accompany her. She was advised over which parties and which balls it would be most to her advantage to attend.

Avery accompanied her to some of the evening entertainments. He informed her with a sigh one morning when they were looking through the invitations the post had brought that she did not have to attend anything if she preferred not to but could let the ton go hang, but it did not sound like very helpful advice to Anna. She had made the decision soon after her arrival in London to stay and learn the role of Lady Anna Westcott, and it was no longer possible to go back on that, for she was now the Duchess of Netherby, and it was necessary to perform the duties expected of a duchess. It was all very well for Avery to consign the ton to the hangman, but he had always been an aristocrat. His eccentricities were accepted because he was indisputably the duke. Any eccentricity in her would be dubbed gaucherie or vulgarity.