‘Mrs Moore!’
Mrs Moore patted her hand. ‘It’s a tempest in a teapot. That is all.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘So do I,’ her housekeeper said quietly. ‘Time will tell.’
It proved to be a long week. Left to her own devices, Anna knew she would stay away from innuendo by remaining indoors. She wasn’t one to invite attention, which made this entire situation so improbable. Didn’t these Covent Street ladiesknowher by now?
She would have remained inside except for Allan, who for two days sat by the window that overlooked Covent Street, gazing out with a wistful expression. She chafed inside, knowing that he had already suffered cruelty by a nanny and housekeeper who hadn’t had his best interests in mind.
Stiffen your spine, she told herself one morning. She held out her hand to him as he pined in silence.Enough is enough.
‘Allan, let’s go for a walk.’
His expression brightened immediately. In minutes, they walked down Covent Street to Sutton Pool, with its noise and confusion, and smells of tar and low tide. At the Hoe, she bought Allan a sweet and they started back. Allan tugged on her hand. ‘Missy, when will my father return?’
It can’t be a moment too soon, she thought, hoping Captain Beattie could solve the dilemma he had inadvertently turned loose on her.
‘I wish I knew,’ she tried, which Allan’s expression told her was unsatisfactory. ‘I know it’s not the answer you want, but it’s the best I have.’
The afternoon was warm for January, and they idled towards Covent Street again, a tidy lane that used to feel like a refuge.
They passed two of her friends, who ignored her by turning away.Never mind, Anna, she told herself, even as her heart broke.They choose to believe rumours.
So ended another dreary day, brightened only by Allan Beattie’s growing confidence, and Pru, who had attached herself to Mrs Moore even as she continued her own vigilance over Allan.
‘I never heard Pru laugh before,’ Allan told her after dinner when they adjourned to the sitting room for a jackstraw competition, now conducted on a whist table. ‘She likes Mrs Moore.’
‘So do I,’ Anna said.
‘I like you,’ he said in a most matter-of-fact way, chin in cupped hands, elbows on the table as he surveyed the battleground of jackstraws.
His quiet observation carried her through that week and the next and into February, which ended on a Saturday evening as someone knocked on the door, a novelty in itself, because no one had knocked on their door for weeks now. She prayed it wasn’t the curate.
‘I’ll get it, dearie,’ Mrs Moore said. Anna thought she heard more than a hint of militance, as if her housekeeper was ready to do battle for her and the children.
Allan concentrated on the jackstraws, even as he rubbed his eyes and yawned, sure signals that his day was done. Anna rose to her feet at the sound of firm footsteps.
‘Thank God,’ she whispered as Captain Beattie stood in the doorway to the sitting room, Mrs Moore beaming behind him.
‘Allan!’ was all he said, which ended any jackstraw competition. He embraced his ecstatic son.
Anna smiled at the sight, grateful beyond measure that there were no tears this time, nothing but a little boy so happy to announce that he was the Covent Street jackstraw champion, and, ‘Why were you so long away, Papa?’
‘Yes, why?’ Anna whispered, her lips barely moving, her turmoil replaced by sudden calm. She hung up the Captain’s boat cloak as father and son sat close together and Allan told him about visiting Sutton Pool with Miss Fontaine and even walking all the way to the Hoe, where Sir Francis Drake himself had watched for the arrival of the Spanish Armada.
‘I have learned so much, Papa,’ he concluded, as his father held him close.
The Captain looked up at Anna when she said that Mrs Moore had prepared a second supper. ‘That is, if you’re hungry, sir,’ she added, unwilling to interfere, as much as she wanted to crowd close to Captain Beattie, too, and pour out her calamity.
It could wait, and it did, as they crowded together around the kitchen table, enjoying the sight of a hungry man making short work of Mrs Moore’s leftovers.
Allan’s enthusiasm faded when his father announced that his visit was brief.
‘Allan, I have to leave again on tomorrow’s tide. TheSwallowis fit and ready, and it’s back to the Channel for me.’ He looked at Anna. ‘Miss Fontaine, you and I must discuss what will happen now. I still need your assistance.’
‘There is another matter,’ she said quietly when Allan turned his attention to Pru. ‘Once Allan is in bed, we must talk.’
