Anne had been invited to take tea with Lady Potford on Great Pulteney Street because Lady Potford’s grandson, Joshua Moore, the Marquess of Hallmere, was in town staying with her-as were his wife and children.

“I have been invited because of Joshua,” Anne said. “You know how good he has always been to me and David, Claudia.”

He had been her friend at a time when the whole world had turned against her-or so it had seemed. He had even provided her with some financial support for several years when she was close to being destitute, giving rise to the very distressing and quite erroneous rumor that he must be David’s father. To say that he had been good to her was markedly to understate the case.

Susanna had started the girls singing a song in rounds, and they sang out lustily, heedless of any attention they might draw from passersby. Miss Martin, severe looking and ramrod straight in posture, did not blink an eye.

“And if I had suspected for one moment,” she said, “when you applied for the position of mathematics and geography teacher here four years ago, Anne, that that woman had suggested this school to you, I would not have hired you in a million years. She came to the school a few months before that, snooping around with her offensive, supercilious air, noting every worn spot on the carpet in the visitors’ parlor, I do not doubt, and asking if I needed anything. The nerve of it! I sent her packing in a hurry, I do not mind telling you.”

Anne half smiled. She had heard the story a dozen times before, and all of Miss Martin’s resident teachers knew of her undying antipathy toward the aristocracy, particularly toward those unfortunate enough to bear the title of duke, and most particularly to the one who bore the title Duke of Bewcastle. But Lady Hallmere came in a very close second on her blacklist.

“She has her good points,” Anne said.

Claudia Martin made a sound that resembled a snort.