“Does Anyone Here Speak Russian?” the Duke Asked — His Little Girl Pointed at the Maid Serving Coffee
Chapter 4
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"She asked me why her papa does not like her. She says that is why you left her in Petersburg, and that is why you have not said one word to her since the ship, only to other people over her head."The fair gentleman had stopped smiling. Mr. Gedge was looking into his cup. Somewhere at the back of the room, a chair creaked.The Duke of Ashkam stood very still. Then he went down on one knee on the sawdust floor of Pello's coffee house in his good gray breeches, so that he was level with his daughter and with the coffee girl who was holding her."Tell her," he said, and his voice was rough, "that I have not said a word to her because I do not know any words she knows. Tell her I am ashamed of it. Tell her I left her with her grandmother because there was a war and the roads were shut, and I thought she was safer there than anywhere in the world. Tell her I wrote to her every month for four years, and tell her I am very, very glad she is here."Anna told her, word by word, in a low voice. The little girl listened with her thumb in her mouth. When it was done, she took the thumb out and studied her father's face as if it were a map. Then she reached out one small hand and touched his cheek once—the way a child touches a big dog she is not yet sure of.Nobody in the room laughed at that.The Duke rose. He looked down at Anna, still on her knees with his daughter in her arms, and for the first time he seemed to see the apron and the darned gown and the place she stood in."Miss...?""Fenwick, Your Grace. Anna Fenwick.""Miss Fenwick, I need you to come to Grosvenor Square today. Now, if you will. I will match whatever this house allows you, and twice over, and I will send you home in my own carriage tonight if you wish it. But I cannot take her back through those doors without someone she can speak to. I will not."Behind him, the fair gentleman made a noise. "Edmund, you cannot possibly be serious. Cressida will laugh herself into a decline.""Then Cressida will have to decline, Felix."Mr. Pello cleared his throat. He was not a cruel man, but he had a business to keep."Your Grace, I don't hold a girl against her will. But it's working hours, and I have a room full of custom. If she walks out of that door this morning, she needn't trouble to walk back in it."Anna felt the floor tilt under her. Six years. Her narrow room over the scullery, her eight shillings, the small tin box under the bed with everything she had put by toward a winter coat—a place, which was all a girl with no family could ever really have.Then Sonia, who had not understood a word of the English, tightened both arms around her neck and said into her ear in Russian, "Don't go away. Everybody goes away."