“I’d have to be bound for Bedlam to take that wager.” Simon bent his head to join Archie in peering out the window at Number Twenty. “God’s teeth! Who’s died?”
“I don’t know!” Archie exclaimed, alarmed. The steps of the town house were strewn with straw and the door bedecked with the black ribbons of mourning.
“You don’t think . . . ?” Simon’s voice reflected the horror that had taken root in Archie’s gut.
“No,” Archie said, though he was all too aware that wishing something weren’t true had no bearing on whether it actually was. “We’d have heard if the earl died,” Archie said to himself as much as to Simon. Effie would have come to them straight away.
It occurred to Archie, though, that someday, the old earlwasgoing to die, and his son, Edward Astley, Viscount Featherfinch, would inherit the earldom. It also occurred to Archie that no one, least of all Effie himself, was prepared for that day. As they approached the door, Archie, trying to regain some equilibrium, said, “I wager it takes us seventy minutes to extract him.”
“Considering that he planned this year’s trip,” Simon said, “I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say three-quarters of an hour.”
“We shall see. Loser sits backward on the journey.”
“If there’s even going to be a journey,” Simon said as the straw crunched beneath their feet. “Someonehas clearly died, and we can’t go without Effie.”
“Indeed.” Well, they could. But they wouldn’t. “Then we’re here to pay our respects, I suppose. Still, I maintain he would have told us if something terribly dire had happened.” Although Effie did tend to live in his head. Not in the same manner Simon did. Simon lived inside his Parliamentary arguments; Effie lived inside his daydreams. Whereas Simon could usually be counted on to remember to do things like eat and bathe—he saw them as necessary annoyances—often Effie could not.
Archie’s knock was answered by a footman he did not recognize. The man was not wearing a mourning armband and greeted them as if nothing were amiss.
“We’re here for Featherfinch,” Simon said.
“I’m afraid the viscount is not at home to visitors at the moment.”
“He’s at home to us.” Archie started for the stairs. “He’s expecting us.” Or, rather, heshouldbe.
“Ibegyour pardon!” the footman called after them.
The housekeeper appeared, no doubt drawn by the commotion. Archie paused in his ascent. “Ah. Mrs. Moyer. We’re here to collect Featherfinch for our trip.”
“Your trip?” she echoed blankly before recovering herself and curtsying to them. “My lords.” That caused the footman to stand straighter.
“Our trip to Cumbria?” Archie tried, though he knew full well what had happened here. Effie hadn’t told any of the household staff, never mind any of his family, about his travel plans.
Mrs. Moyer wrinkled her brow and said, predictably, “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about such a trip, my lord.”
“The trip we take every year the second fortnight in September?” Honestly. Was Effie’s dreaminess like the plague, capable of infecting the rest of the household?
At least Archie was going to win the wager.
“Mrs. Moyer, a good morning to you.” Simon, able to sense Archie’s rising frustration, spoke soothingly to the housekeeper. “May I ask who has passed?”
Mrs. Moyer tilted her head to one side, as if she were searching for words but coming up short. “Perhaps you ought to ask Lord Featherfinch about that.”
“Are the earl and countess well?” Simon pressed.
“Oh yes, quite. They’re at Highworth,” she said, naming the family’s Cornish estate.
“Let’s go.” Archie mounted the stairs and made for Effie’s room, trusting Simon would follow and reflecting on what a poor job the staff was doing keeping people from Effie if they had, in fact, been instructed that he was not at home to visitors.
“Featherfinch!” Simon called as Archie knocked.
Archie, not waiting for a response, pushed open the door. “Unless someone very important has died, you had better be at the ready, or I shall—”
Edward Astley, Viscount Featherfinch and heir to the Earl of Stonely, was not at the ready.
He was also not dressed.
He was seated at his desk, naked as the day he was born, his long hair wild and tangled. “Itoldyou,” he said without turning from where he was madly scribbling with an overlong quill, “Idon’t wantanything to eat.”
