“All the money I have in the world. Well, all that I have save what I need for the next month. I’ve been saving diligently. I have been wanting to buy my mother a little cottage, one that’s not . . .”
“Paid for by our father,” Effie supplied. He understood. “Why would you give me this?”
“So you know you can trust me.”
Effie did trust Kenver, but he appreciated that Kenver’s honor demanded he accept—temporarily—the promissory gesture. “All right. I shall keep this safe for you.”
Kenver nodded. “And I shall keep the forged document safe for you.”
“For the record, I should like to say that when Father is gone, I . . .” Effie trailed off, unsure if it was safe to speak around Kenver the way he spoke around Archie and Simon, expressing sentiment that for some inexplicable reason was regarded by society as unmanly. Well, why not? If they were to be in each other’s lives in any meaningful way, which Effie very much hoped they were, Kenver would eventually catch on to what sort of person Effie was. He cleared his throat and spoke confidently, if a bit defensively. “I should very much like to have a brother generally, and to have you for a brother especially. I shall be proud to call you mine.”
There went the lopsided smile again, though it was quite a bit bigger than before. “I should like that, too, more than you know. I have never had any family, apart from my mother, who—” It was Kenver’s turn to clear his throat, and Effie realized with a start that this conversation was making Kenver feel as sentimental as it was Effie. “I was going to say that I should very much like you to meet my mother, though I know that is impossible.”
“Impossible? It would seem the opposite. She is in Calecastle, is she not? While we should perhaps wait until our father has passed, once that has occurred, it would seem the easiest thing in the world for me to meet her next time I am at Highworth. In fact, I should like to make a trip for the express purpose of meeting her as soon as it is convenient for you both.”
“You would?”
Effie smiled. It seemed he had managed to astonish the unflappable Kenver Nancarrow. “I would. I believe I am familiar with this sentiment of wanting one person you care about to meet another person you care about. In my case, I have never been close to my family of origin, though Sarah and I are, I think, fond of each other in a distant, vaguely exasperated sort of way. I consider my real family to be my close friends, the Earls of Marsden and Harcourt. I should be honored to introduce you to them. Properly, I mean, not just standing in the foyer while we plot to hide a printing press.”
Kenver lowered his head on an exhalation. Effie supposed no one had ever been honored to introduce Kenver to anyone, given the circumstances of his birth. When he raised it again, he said, “I can think of nothing I’d like more than to meet your friends properly.”
Chapter 15
True Colors
Julianna’s life had returned to its previous rhythms on both its major fronts: the magazine and Effie.
The November issue had come and gone and she’d been quite satisfied with it. December was in hand. The American alligators had not come in early enough, alas, but she had resigned herself to swapping in the Great Tea Debate. Julianna and Mr. Glanvil were arguing about color plates. In other words, magazine life continued apace.
On the other side of things: Julianna and Effie had resumed their correspondence.
It was curious, though, that she thought of her life as having two major fronts. For so long there had been only one:the magazine above all. But, she reminded herself, friendship was important. After that initial dose of formality bordering on frostiness in Effie’s first—first new—letter, she and Effie had regained their previous degree of intimacy. Everything was well. Except . . .
Everything was also very unsettled.
Which was curious, because she never used to feel that way. Her work fulfilled and stimulated her. She loved her sister and her sister’s family, even if living with them was sometimes awkward. She had been happy with and proud of the life she had made for herself and had felt settled. Rooted.
She no longer felt that way. In fact, she felt the opposite: restless. Easily distracted. The world seemed drabber than it used to, as if it were a plate in need of the color that Mr. Glanvil would not allow.
She suspected she knew what was wrong: it was the dream. The one in which Father visited the office and seemed to want to tell her something but found himself unable to speak. She had it nearly every night now. Her advice to Effie regarding controlling one’s dreams had been featherbrained. It didn’t work at all.
“Hello? Jules?”
But perhaps Effie had managed to get it to work? To invadeherdreams? For she must be dreaming now. There was no way Effie was here, in her office, at two o’clock on a dreary Thursday in early November.
“Miss Evans, I have come to seek your counsel regarding my treatise on the Pavilion.”
Hmm. Unless Effie had managed to bring a friend with him on his nocturnal wanderings, Julianna was not, in fact, dreaming, for that last sentence had come from Lord Marsden.
She rose unsteadily from her desk. “Goodness. Effie. Lord Marsden.” She was flustered. Julianna had never been flustered in her life.
Effie looked . . . different. Still himself—he was wearing a scarlet waistcoat embroidered with black thread—but he was blurry.
“I say, Jules, what a smashing eyepiece. You look like a scientist, or a deep-sea explorer.”
Oh, yes. Effie was blurry because she was wearing a magnifying glass fashioned in the style of a monocle over one eye—she used it to proofread stories because she had discovered she found errors more reliably when she examined the text up close.
She fumbled it off, and the gentlemen came into focus.
