“And he would have had my title too,” Joshua continued, “and everything that came along with it, if Albert had married you.”

Anne shot to her feet, slopping some of her tea over into the saucer before setting it down on a table beside her chair.

“David is my son,” she said.

“Of course he is,” Lady Hallmere said, sounding haughty and even somewhat bored, though her eyes regarded Anne keenly. “It occurred to Joshua as we left Lindsey Hall that your son might enjoy a summer in the company of other children, though most of them admittedly are considerably younger than he. There will be Davy, though, Aidan and Eve’s adopted son, who is now eleven. It is rather unfortunate that he and your son have the same name, but I daresay everyone will contrive to know them apart-and it might actually be fun for each of them to ignore unwelcome orders and claim afterward that they thought the command was for the other. The duchess’s nephew Alexander will also be there, and he is ten.”

“We would really like to take the lad with us, Anne,” Joshua said. “What do you say?”

Anne bit her lip and sat down again.

“It is always one of my greatest concerns,” she said, “that he is growing up at a girls’ school with women teachers except for the art and dancing masters. He is a general favorite and is made much of by everyone-I could not be more fortunate in that respect. But he has very little contact with men and almost none at all with boys.”

“Yes,” Joshua said, “I realize that. I still intend to send him to school when he is older, with your permission, of course, but in the meantime he ought to have some contact with other children. Daniel and Emily are much younger than he, but they are his second cousins. And therefore all the other Bedwyn children are loosely related to him too. I will not press the issue because I know it distresses you, but it is the truth nevertheless. Will you let him come?”

An unreasonable sense of panic balled in the pit of Anne’s stomach. She had never been separated from David for longer than a few hours at a time. He was hers. Though he was only nine, she knew she would lose him in the not too distant future. How could she deny him a proper schooling with boys of his own age, after all? But must it start even now? Must she give him up for a whole month or longer now, this summer?