“Oh, and I forgot to tell you that Father will pass soon. He is by all accounts on his deathbed in Italy, too unwell to return home.”
He went on to explain the details of the plot Kenver had uncovered—the marriage lines, the probable bribe of the rector—and when he was done, he was met with another silence. It was shorter this time. After a heartbeat, the room erupted in exclamations.
“I am astounded that your father would do this,” Simon said when the cacophony died down.
“Are you, though?” Olive asked. “Are you really?”
Simon made a conciliatory gesture, and everyone turned their attention back to Effie.
“Better to have an illegitimate earl than a soft one,” Effie said. The truth didn’t hurt anymore. Not since the dream. “Kenver and I are aligned in our thoughts on the matter. He will not make a claim on the title. We have allowed Father to think he will, but he won’t.”
“How do you know you can trust him?” Simon asked.
Effie didn’t bother explaining about the surety Kenver had offered in the form of that pouch of coins, because that pouch of coins was immaterial. “I just am. You will be, too, when you meet him.”
“What says your mother of all this?” Archie asked. “Sarah?”
“I do not know. Mother writes to Mr. Nancarrow from Italy, but her letters are limited to the facts of the matter. ‘Father is declining rapidly. The weather is lovely. At least his final days shall be filled with the beautiful golden light of Campagna. Et cetera.’ I do not know if she knows about his plan, or if she knows the truth about Kenver. I doubt it, on both counts. I shall have to speak with her when she returns.
“None of this is the point, though. The point is that I have a brother. Huzzah!”
Everyone lifted their glasses and congratulated him and said how much they were looking forward to meeting Kenver.
“Well, that I have a brother is the precursor to the point. The true point is that having discovered a brother who is adept at estate management has worked rather in my favor.”
“I should think so,” Archie said. “But I should also think if he is as decent a man as you suggest, he will be willing to teach you.” He paused. “In perhaps a way your father was not.”
“I’m sure he would, but I have decided that the life of a peer isn’t what I want. It never was. I’d reconciled myself to it and therefore sought to learn about it, but now I am presented with someone who truly enjoys doing it. Kenver and I have therefore decided that he will carry out all the duties associated with the title.”
“That is not unheard of,” Archie said. “It is not unlike the arrangement I have with Mr. Hughes,” he said, naming his own steward. “We meet once a week when I am at Mollybrook, and I do my best to contribute, but I would be lost without him.”
“That is . . . not precisely what I am imagining.” Here was the point, the point Effie kept dancing around. He cleared his throat. “I am looking to make a rather large change.”
They were all regarding him with open, inquisitive expressions. Oh, how he loved them. He was blessed when it came to friends. Over-blessed.
“I am going to move out.”
“Of this house?” Archie asked. “Are you going back to Highworth?”
“No,” Olive said, eyeing him closely. She was getting it, even if she didn’t yet know precisely what “it” was.
“I have found rooms to let. On Grub Street. One for me to live in, one from which I shall operate my business.”
He had stunned them. Well, he had stunned the boys, whose mouths had dropped open in tandem. Olive merely regarded him with raised eyebrows.
“I plan to be a poet.”
“You are already a poet,” Simon said, “and is poetry a ‘business’? And what about Lords? Mr. Nancarrow cannot vote for you.”
“I want to publish my poems myself. In a chapbook, as you yourself have often suggested. A book with my name on it. My true name.” He took out his fan. “The idea is nearly enough to make a person swoon.”
“That’s wonderful,” Archie said, beaming like a proud papa.
“And I want to print them myself,” Effie added. Now they were finally at the crux of the matter. “I want to be in charge of every aspect of their creation and production.”
“I think I begin to understand,” Simon said. “You’re going to buy a press, aren’t you? This is why you’ve been pestering me about Stanhope. Here I’d thought you wanted the press for Miss Evans.”
“I did. But I’ve rethought matters. If I own a press, I can print whatever I like. My own poems, but also other people’s words. Other people’s paying words. To do that, I need money.”
