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“But what I would like to know most of all is—what I am most curious about, that is—” Deuce it, how should he frame it without giving everything away? “I mean, based on what Phoebe has told me, of course. She has formed an attachment to a girl, a woman, someone who is very important to her.” Dash it, he was stammering like a schoolboy, but his heart was thumping so loudly it was difficult to form coherent sentences.

Miss Hilversham’s white eyebrow had nearly risen to her hairline.

He moistened his lips and tried again. “You mentioned that Phoebe was lonely and I daresay you are right. You are right in everything you said. But gathering from what she told me, she has formed a friendship of some sort with one of the girls there.” He paused and took a big breath. “She is smaller, daintier, and has dark hair and violet eyes.”

The second eyebrow rose.

Christopher had never been so nervous.

“I have no idea who you are talking about.”

“She is not as tall as you, a slight button nose and her voice is soft, lilting…”

Miss Hilversham shook her head, mystified.

Christopher threw up his hands. “She speaks excellent French. She may be a member of your staff.”

“Ah.” She tilted her head sideways. “Do you mean Anna?”

“A-Anna.” He tasted the name in his mouth. It was lovely. So, her name was Anna. “Anna who?”

“Anna Vale.” Miss Hilversham’s finger tapped on the armrest of her chair. “Why has Phoebe befriended the housemaid when she has thirty other girls to choose from?”

He felt as though all breath had left his body.

“She is the housemaid.”

“If that is who you mean, yes. Anna speaks excellent French due to her French ancestry. Come to think of it, now that you mention it, Phoebe does indeed seem to have developed a fondness towards our housemaid. We do not consider this a bad thing, my lord. Our domestics are not to be looked down upon,” she lectured, but Christopher did not hear a thing.

Housemaid.

Her name was Anna.

His Anna.

She was a housemaid.

Good heavens.

Chapter 19

Anna stared at the newspaper column, horrified. Earl St John and Miss Hilversham mentioned in one sentence could mean only one thing: that they had met, that he knew who Miss Hilversham was, and that he knew she had been deceiving him all along. If he had talked to Miss Hilversham longer than a few minutes, he would have been able to discover that the seminary had a French-speaking housemaid named Anna Vale and that she looked suspiciously like her.

She lowered the newspaper with shaking hands as the implication of it all came crashing down upon her.

She could not return to Hungersford Hall. Not with St John knowing who she really was. But that meant she would never see him again. He would never know what he meant to her.

Neither could she return to the seminary in Bath. It was impossible for her to return. Even though she knew Miss Hilversham to be stern but kind, it was well known that there was one thing she despised above all: deception. A housemaid who had passed herself off as her mistress for an entire summer was unforgivable. It was a crime punishable by law.

A sick feeling pooled in Anna’s stomach.

She could not return. Not now. Not ever.

Never to see St John again. Never to see Miss Hilversham again. Never to see Phoebe again. She had to break her promise to her. Phoebe would believe that she had abandoned her, too.

A feeling of bleak anguish filled her.

But then, there was Jules.