She no longer did that, though. In fact, Clementine had no idea what Olive did with the majority of her time.
Which perhaps did not reflect so well on Clementine as Olive had apparently spent some of her time lately making plans to elope with Theodore Bull.
Sheshouldask her sister to accompany her, but she wasn’t goingto.
* * *
By seven o’clock, Archie was hungry and annoyed. Effie had volunteered, earlier, to accompany the Morgan sisters on the necessary outings to secure dinner for the evening and a cook for the rest of their stay. To Archie’s surprise, Simon had opted to join them. Archie had been imagining pouring a scotch—the absent Sir Lionel didn’t keep much in the larder, but he had quite an enviable scotch collection and had apparently left instructions that they should avail themselves of it—and indulging Simon in an against-the-rules discussion of political matters. It would be Archie’s way of thanking him for helping dispatch Mr. Bull yesterday. Simon had never been a fighter—he favored words over fists when it came to settling disputes—but he had planted a facer on Mr. Bull, stunning him sufficiently that Archie had been able to finish the job.
But no, to Archie’s shock. Simon apparently preferred venturing out with their gate-crashers to a bracing chat about the gold standard.
Archie would have gone, too, except that would have made it too much a party. He was still annoyed at the Morgans for putting themselves in such danger, and, having insisted so vociferously that they stay out of the men’s way, he couldn’t quite see his way through to joining the outing. So, with no one around to tell him not to, he’d gone hunting. He’d come home with a pair of pheasants, and Mrs. MacPuddle had assured him the kitchen maid was up to the task of plucking and roasting them. He hoped she was better with fowl than she was with biscuits.
As usual, hunting had calmed Archie’s mind. When he was stalking through the grass with the intense focus required to shoot a bird, especially without a dog, there was no room for anything else. Hunting made it feel as though his usually frayed attention was being sewn up. He’d been looking forward to dinner with the boys, who had a similar knitting-up effect on his spirit. He pulled his beads from his pocket and settled in to wait.
His stomach rumbled aggressively. Nuncheon had been both inadequate and ages ago. And tea had been just that—tea. The brown steeped liquid and none of the traditional accompaniments he generally found insufficient anyway. Archie’s many athletic pursuits tended to work up quite an appetite. If his friends were any longer, he’d be forced to eat the birds by himself.
“Well, aren’t you looking cross.”
It was Effie. Finally. He clattered into the drawing room with his cheeks pink—and wet, for it had begun to rain—and his voluminous greatcoat still on.
“Where have you been?”
“In Doveborough.”
“For four hours?”
“Capital little village.” This was from Simon, who appeared looking as ruddy and high-spirited as Effie but had taken the time to shed his outerwear. “Lots going on.”
“Excellent modiste for such a small place,” Effie said.
Archie refrained from pointing out that there was “lots going on” inLondonthat Simon usually managed not only to avoid but to actively look down upon—not that Archie blamed him. And that surely London’s modistes were more excellent than Doveborough’s.
What business did Effie have with a modiste, anyway?
“We’ve returned with steak and kidney pies and a bushel of pears—just before the rain really started, so we were well-timed,” Simon said. “Miss Morgan posits that the pears can be transformed into a pudding with very little trouble. She’s at it even now.”
Archie started to object that Clementine, the daughter of a baronet, should not be toiling in the kitchen—the very point of their outing had been to find someone else to do such toiling, had it not?—but he stopped himself. As already established, this household was no threat to Clementine’s reputation. Therefore, it was no concern of his how she chose to fill her days. As long as she filled them far from Archie and his friends.
Which she was apparently doing.
“Well,” he said, shaking himself out of his musings, “shall we dine? I, for one, am fair gutfounded. I shot us some pheasants, so we shall be able to cobble together quite a credible, if odd, feast by the sounds of things.”
“Went hunting, did you?” Simon raised his eyebrows at Archie.
“If the rules of Earls Trip have beencompletelyabandoned,” Effie huffed, “I shall insist upon reading my new sonnet at dinner.”
Archie smirked, but inside he was smiling most genuinely. The trip was being set to rights. Flagrant breaking of the rules usually waited until the second week, but it always happened, and it was always accompanied by banter and feigned martyrdom.
And honestly, Archie adored listening to Effie’s poems. The man had a genuine talent, and more than that, Archie appreciated how his friend’s love of poetry never waned as the years wore on. He’d grown from a boy composing clumsy limericks about exams into a man whose work was published, albeit anonymously, in magazines. Every time one of Effie’s poems was accepted for publication, Archie felt it almost as his own victory.
He would also enjoy listening to Simon drone on about whatever outrage the Tories currently had brewing.
He was proud of his friends and their accomplishments, and he was feeling rather smug about his own ability to seek out and keep the best company.
Though to be fair, that sentiment had to be tempered by his egregious lapse when it came to the Morgans these past few years. Perhaps dinner could also be the start of righting that ship. He vowed to ask Clementine and Olive for details regarding their father’s condition—and for details about their lives, the horrid Mr. Bull aside.
“Where are the ladies?” he asked twenty minutes later as he and Simon and Effie sat at a table large enough that the entire occupying MacCallum clan could have feasted at it—one that was, he noted, only set for three.
