“Anne.” He took both her hands in his and squeezed them tightly. “You are in remarkably good looks. The Bath air must suit you.”

“It does,” she assured him. “How is Lady Hallmere? And how are the children?”

“Freyja is in the drawing room,” he said. “You will see her in a moment. Daniel and Emily are with their nurse upstairs. You must see them before you leave. Daniel has declared at least two dozen times in the last hour that he simply cannot wait another moment for David to come.” He looked at David with an apologetic grin. “A three-year-old will not be much of a playmate for you, lad, but if you can find it in your heart to entertain him for a short while, or to allow him to entertain you, you will make him the happiest child alive.”

“I would love to play with him, sir,” David said.

“Good lad.” Joshua ruffled his hair again. “But come and pay your respects in the drawing room first. It is only very young children who are whisked off straight to the nursery and you certainly do not fall into that category, do you?”

“No, sir,” David said as Joshua offered Anne his arm and winked at her.

Lady Potford received them graciously in the drawing room, and Lady Hallmere got to her feet to nod in acknowledgment of David’s bow and to look assessingly at Anne.

“You look well, Miss Jewell,” she said.

“Thank you, Lady Hallmere,” Anne said, curtsying to her.

She had always found the marchioness rather intimidating, with her small stature and strange, rather harsh, rather handsome features. She had disliked her on first acquaintance and considered her quite unsuited to the kindhearted, easygoing Joshua. But then she had discovered that her former pupil, Lady Prudence Moore, Joshua’s mentally handicapped cousin, adored Lady Freyja, who had been unexpectedly kind to her. Prue had always been a good judge of character. And then Lady Freyja, recognizing that Anne was living only a half-existence as an unwed mother and would-be teacher in the small fishing village of Lydmere, had appeared on her doorstep one morning and offered her a position at Miss Martin’s school, of which she was the anonymous benefactor.