They stayed for half an hour while the ladies made stilted, polite conversation. They said their farewells with thanks and good wishes on both sides. And Avery, thankful it was over, took Anna’s hand through his arm and started downhill with her in the direction of the abbey and the Pump Room and the main part of the town, on foot as they had come because the hill straight up was too steep for a carriage.

“Tell me, Anna,” he asked, “was it an error in judgment on my part to bring you here?”

For a moment she rested the side of her bonnet against his shoulder.

“No,” she said, “for they did receive me and they were civil and I could see for myself that they are in good hands with their grandmother. And perhaps now they will hate me less, though the fact that I have married you has surely not endeared me to them. Is it true that time heals all wounds, Avery?”

“I really have no idea,” he said with all honesty. “But for argument’s sake I will state quite dogmatically that yes, of course time heals all ills.”

“Thank you.” She smiled ruefully at him.

Twenty-two

“It was civil of them to call.” Camille was the first to break the silence.

“I thought so,” her grandmother agreed. “It is what I would expect of Netherby, of course. It must have taken considerable courage, though, for his duchess to accompany him. I was surprised to find her so modestly attired, though it is clear she has the finest of dressmakers. I could detect no trace of vulgarity in her, and her manners are excellent.”

“I still do not understand why Avery married her,” Abigail said. “He has a reputation for having an eye for only the most acclaimed of beauties.”

“That, I believe, Abby,” Camille said, “is the very point. Did you see the way he looked at her?”

Abigail sighed. “I thought perhaps Cousin Alexander would marry her,” she said, “in order to reunite the title and fortune. But Avery married her instead. He would not have done it just out of pity, would he, and certainly not out of avarice.”

“Certainly not,” Camille said. “Oh, we have been around and around these arguments in the few days since Grandmama read the announcement until I am mortally sick of the subject. I believe he married her for love, Abby, astonishing as it seems.”

“Poor Jess,” Abigail said. “She does so resent Anna on our behalf, though she is perfectly well aware that nothing in this whole dreary situation is our half sister’s fault. And now Anna is her sister-in-law as well as her cousin.”

“She must learn to adjust,” Camille said, getting restlessly to her feet and crossing to the window, from which she looked across to sloping parkland and the view below, “just as you advised her to do, Abby. I wonder if she—the duchess, I mean—will take Avery to see the orphanage. Do you think they will find out if she does?”

“That I have been there?” her grandmother asked. “That I have agreed to fund a large bookcase for the classroom and books to fill it? It is the sort of thing a number of citizens of Bath do out of a spirit of charity. I see no reason why the Duchess of Netherby would be informed or why she would find it remarkable if she were.”

“That I have been there, Grandmama,” Camille said, turning from the window.

“You?” Her grandmother was all astonishment. “You have been to the orphanage, Camille? When, pray? To my knowledge you have left the house only twice since you came here, both times to take a walk with Abigail, and both times with a heavy veil over your bonnet to cover your face just as though you were in some sort of disgrace and were afraid of being recognized.”

“The first time we walked past,” Camille told her. “The second time I went inside and asked to speak to the manager. Abby would not come with me. She walked up and down the street until I came out.”

“I did not have your courage, Cam,” Abigail said.

“And?” their grandmother asked, frowning.

“Miss Ford, the matron, was gracious enough to show me some of the rooms,” Camille said, “after I had explained who I was. She still misses . . . Anna Snow. So does everyone else, apparently. She was quiet and unassuming, but—how exactly did Miss Ford phrase it?—her real value to them all loomed far larger when it was no longer there. The replacement teacher has not worked out well. She has threatened several times to leave, and I understood that Miss Ford hopes she will before she is dismissed.”

“Cam,” Abigail said, her face unhappy, “I still think you—”

But Camille held up one hand to stop her. “I have offered to take the teacher’s place if there should be a vacancy, Grandmama,” she said, “even if only for a short while until someone better qualified and more experienced can be found.”

“What?” Her grandmother’s hand crept up to the pearls at her neck. “Camille? There is really no need of this.”

“There is,” Camille said. “I must somehow put myself in her place—Anna Snow’s, that is—even if only for a short while and even though I can never know what it feels like to be a child there. I must stop hating her. Perhaps I can do it if I take her place.”

Abigail spread her hands over her face.

“It would seem to me,” Mrs. Kingsley said, “that hating—or loving—are a matter of willpower, Camille. You do not need to put yourself through this humiliation.”