“Yes. Right.” Effie dropped her hand suddenly, as if it were a hot pan he’d mistakenly grabbed without protecting his hand. As if Effie, this fine gentlemanly version of Effie, had ever touched a pan. Still, something had shocked him, and unpleasantly so. His countenance changed, clouded. He looked as if he were going to be ill.
She put her gloves back on.
He took a step back.
“Miss Julianna Evans,” Effie said, his voice taking on an air of formality that didn’t sound like him—though she did realize what an odd notion that was given that she’d heard his voice for the first time mere seconds ago—“may I present . . .” He trailed off, looking pained, though she did not understand why. Were his friends criminals?
He stood taller, as if steeling himself to a task and began again. “May I present Archibald Fielding-Burton, the Earl of Harcourt, and Simon Courtenay, the Earl of Marsden.”
Earls! Effie’s friends were earls! She would almost rather have had criminals.
Julianna did not care for being shocked. It wasn’t the way she wanted to present herself to the world. So she said, archly, even as she dipped a curtsy in response to the pretty bows made by Effie’s companions, “Perhaps you ought to introduce yourself, too.”
“I am Effie,” he said seriously, even as his companions snickered over her retort.
“Not short for ‘Euphemia,’ though, I presume.” The joy and wonder she’d initially felt on seeing Effie was receding in favor of pique.
After a pause that stretched out long enough to confer discomfort, he said, “Not short for Euphemia.” He spoke quietly, almost sadly. “My Christian name is Edward. ‘Effie’ is short for my title, which is Featherfinch.”
“You are an earl, too?” The pique was growing, though she wasn’t sure why. She’d had her suspicions Effie might be the daughter of an aristocrat. And since it turned out Effie was not and had never been a daughter, why shouldn’t he be titled?
“A viscount. It is a courtesy title. My father is the earl.”
Effie continued to stare at her with such intensity, it seemed as if he were trying to convey a silent message. She had no idea what it might be. Perhaps they—Effie and Jules—only worked on paper. Perhaps Miss Julianna Evans and Edward Astley, Viscount Featherfinch, could not survive the confining realities of the corporeal world.
She wanted to ask him questions. A great number of them. Was he sometimes in Cornwall because his family had a house there? Was he the eldest son and therefore heir to his father’s earldom?
Had he written those poems?
She tried and only half succeeded in swallowing a gasp at that last thought. She could cope with his being a man, a peer, even, but what if he had deceived her regarding matters of authorship?
She could easily imagine an aristocrat—one prone to misrepresenting himself, as it turned out—amusing himself by playacting at being a poet. She could hardly bear to think it. If Effie had not written “E. Turner’s” poems, she would be devastated. If all the stirring words he had sent her, all the words she had printed, were nothis, she didn’t know how to come back from that.
“Perhaps,” Lord Harcourt said, making Julianna realize she was once again comporting herself less than ideally given the public nature of their encounter—she and Effie had continued to gape at each other while she underwent her bout of mental turmoil—“we ought to find somewhere to . . .” He trailed off as if at a loss. She knew how he felt.
“Have tea,” Lord Marsden said firmly.
“Yes,” Julianna said, breaking with Effie’s gaze, a rending that required some effort. Tea. A perfectly regular thing to do in the afternoon, and shewashungry. “I’m staying at the Old Ship. It’s not far.”
“I suggest,” Lord Marsden said, “that we find an establishment a trifle less . . . prominent.”
“We are endeavoring to not make our presence in town known,” Lord Harcourt said conspiratorially. “In case the king is here. I don’t suppose you know if he is? I understand you’re somewhat of a newspaperwoman.”
Effie and his friends—his earl friends—were trying to avoid the king. It boggled the mind. “No. I believe His Majesty is in Greenwich, having recently arrived from Scotland. At least that’s what I read in the papers yesterday.” Yesterday when she was in London, rifling through letters from her friend Effie, short for Euphemia.
What a difference a day made.
* * *
Tea, taken in a small shop a few blocks from the Pavilion, was excruciating. The sandwiches were stale and the conversation stilted. The four of them had apparently entered into an unspoken agreement to pretend it was perfectly normal that they’d met in Brighton, that the origin of Effie and Julianna’s acquaintance was unremarkable.
They talked mostly about the Pavilion itself. Lord Marsden, she gathered, had a particular interest in architecture. Under other circumstances, Julianna’s mind would be abuzz with ideas she might press him to write about, for he struck her as intelligent and thoughtful. “The Earl of Marsden on the Royal Pavilion.” That would be the rare piece she and Mr. Glanvil would delight in equally. He might even allow her a colored plate.
The problem was that she couldn’t sit and make idle conversation with Effie’s friends while Effie himself sat silently on a chair to her left.
She had to amend an earlier thought.Threeof them were endeavoring to pretend that everything was usual. Effie had not spoken a word in the hour-plus they had been together. He hadn’t eaten anything, either. He had simply stared at Julianna over the rim of his cup as he drank methodically from it. She’d refilled it several times, and he hadn’t even murmured athank-you. Effie had sent her hundreds of poems over the years. To think of all those words flowing from this silent creature.
He was close enough to touch, yet he was also, somehow, farther away than he had ever been, even when he’d been writing her from Cornwall.
