“That plate in your September issue was really quite impressive,” Lord Harcourt said. “It has inspired me to see about getting tickets to the play it depicted.”
She resisted pointing out that for most of her readers, the plate would have to do.
“I am not much of a reader,” he went on, “but I find myself turning the pages almost compulsively.”
She smiled. “Thank you. I can think of no higher compliment.”
“Truly. One reads a short story, and one thinks one will put the magazine down after that, but then on the next page one finds a compulsively readable column on how to dress pheasants. It’s quite different from a newspaper.”
“It is. In fact, I must take care not to report too directly on the news if I want to avoid the stamp tax.” She paused, considering that she was in company with two members of the House of Lords. Ought she to press them for the tax’s repeal? She decided against it. “To my mind, a magazine such asLe Monde Joliis the perfect form. I strive always to balance art and practicality, and I make no apologies for doing so. If a lady is fond of poems, she may read some of today’s best in my pages. But if a lady wants to know what the latest fashions out of London or Paris are, she can learn that and skip the poetry. Or a gentleman, too, of course,” she rushed to add. She was tickled that a man such as Lord Harcourt had read her magazine, but she told herself not to be. Whyshouldn’the read it?
As much as the turn in the conversation had revived Julianna, she was aware that Effie had still not spoken. And that she was still wearing her armor.
Armor was so very uncomfortable.
“Perhaps we ought to be going,” Lord Harcourt said after their conversation about the magazine dwindled.
“Yes!” Julianna cried, regretting the vehemence with which her agreement had been tinged. But she did so desperately want to leave. A day ago she would have said she had no fonder wish than meeting Effie in the flesh. That wish had become the imperative that had propelled her to Brighton. Now she wanted nothing more than to get away from him.
As they were beginning to stir themselves, Effie—Lord Featherfinch, or whoever he was—suddenly grabbed her hands again. Peeled the glove off the left.
She gasped. That made twice in one afternoon. Julianna did not like to think of herself as a gasper, but she prized logic, and what did two gasps in one day make one if not a gasper?
Effie twisted the ring she wore on her fourth finger.
“You are married.”
“No!” she exclaimed, though again, she found herself regretting her pressed tone.
“No,” she said anew, and with more control. She was startled, possibly offended, that he could think she was married. Yet unaccountably glad that he had spoken. His voice had sounded . . . well, she couldn’t say it sounded usual because once again, she had no history of hearing his voice. Yet somehow it sounded like . . . Effie.
“You are not married,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. Regardless, he sounded uncertain.
Was it possible that his silence all this time had been masking something else?
“You know that I will never marry. Besides, would I not have told you if I was married?” she asked, though she did not take her hand back. He kept twisting the ring, though the overwhelming sensation was not the tin moving against her skin, but the touch of his fingers. Gooseflesh rose all the way up her arm. She remembered that she prized logic and said, “If I were married, would I not have signed my early letters, before we moved to addressing each other by our Christian names, ‘Mrs. Evans’?”
“Well, I did not tell you I was a man. I signed my letters with an entirely different name.”
“Point taken”—she smiled despite herself—“but I am unmarried, and I shall remain so. The ring is merely a decoy. A bit of armor.” Actual armor.
“How do you mean?” He was still holding the finger that wore the ring, and he was looking at her with that same intensity she’d observed in his countenance before, but now that he was speaking along with looking, his regard felt . . . different. It reminded her of the way his attention had felt via their letters. On paper, Effie always wanted to know what she thought about everything. It felt as if he were hanging on her replies, sometimes.
She considered his question. “Unmarried women on their own are disallowed from so many experiences. They must have a father or a brother, or at least a mother or a maid, if they want to do anything.”
Effie tilted his head. “Yes, why is that?”
“Everyone says it’s so the innocent young lady isn’t corrupted, but the degree of hysteria that accompanies the very idea of a woman alone in the world makes me wonder if perhaps it isn’t the reverse that’s true. Perhapstheyare afraid ofus. Perhaps it is we who have the power.”
“Hmm.” The head tilt deepened.
“Ahem.”
Effie let go of her finger.
Oh, dear. That was the second time that Lord Harcourt had cleared his throat to draw their attention to how improper they were being. Not just with the hand holding—finger holding—but Julianna’s speech just then. She’d meant it for Effie’s ears only. Never in a million years would she have said such a thing in front of two peers she’d only just met.
All the lowering things were coming in twos today: gasping, having to be reminded that she had an audience, the feeling that she might cry.
