“I . . . didn’t think.” He had told Julianna he would wait for her on that bench, yet he hadn’t spared a thought for his friends waiting for him. “It was ill-done of me.”
“We were concerned about you.” Archie served Effie some glazed beetroot and gestured to Simon to pass a platter of roast pork.
“No, we weren’t,” Simon said archly, though he did pass the plate. “You found Miss Evans, didn’t you?”
“Tell me you did not go sea-bathing with Miss Evans!” Archie exclaimed.
“Where are the servants? Have you already had pudding?” There was a baked custard on the table, half demolished.
“We decided we rather liked the informal style of dining that circumstances forced us into last year—everything served at once, servants absent,” Simon said.
Indeed, the remoteness of last year’s holiday, and the lack of servants, meant the usual mode of dining in a series of removes had been abandoned. Effie murmured his approval through a mouthful of the custard. One of the other delights associated with this method was that one could eat the pudding first if one so desired.
“Tell me you did not go sea-bathing with Miss Evans,” Archie said again, though this time he sounded less exercised and more resigned.
“I’m not sure why you’re so scandalized,” Effie said through a mouthful of pork. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was.
“God’s teeth, hedidgo sea-bathing with her.” Archie turned to Simon, and they shared a look Effie could not parse.
“I didn’t gowithher. She went on the ladies’ side and I went on the gentlemen’s, and afterward we had a brief discussion about our respective experiences.”
“Where?” Archie asked.
“What do you mean ‘where’? Our experiences in the sea.”
“No. Where did you have this discussion?”
“On a bench. Why are you so agitated?” Hold up. “Are you about to say because it wasn’t proper?” Effie shot his friend a withering glance that froze him in the middle of lifting a glass of brandy to his lips.
Archie did not deny it.
“In fact,” Effie said, purely to agitate the apparently easily scandalized Archie, “I invited her back to dine with us this evening, but she declined.”
“Of course she did,” Simon said. “Miss Evans seems a sensible sort.”
Effie, confused and offended in equal measure, said, “It would have been much less scandalous than last year when Clementine and Olive joined our holiday—the whole holiday, not merely one meal.”
“Yes,” Simon said, “but last year we were in remote Cumbria and the house was staffed by an ancient woman and a girl who’d had a child out of wedlock.”
Effie started to object, but Simon talked over him.
“I’m not saying it’s right; I’m merely saying that circumstances this year are more delicate. You will recall that we were trying to cut a low profile—and that wasbeforeyou took to sea-bathing with Miss Evans.”
“What do I care if it gets out that I was seen associating with a common woman?” Effie said, offense winning out over confusion. “I can hardly fall further in my father’s estimation.”
“You don’t care, but she might.”
Ah. Indeed. Effie slumped against the back of his chair, ashamed that he hadn’t thought about things from Julianna’s perspective. It was akin to the letters. It had taken him far too long to understand that posting letters was, for many people, an unjustifiable expense.
Had he pressed her too hard, about the sea-bathing? He couldn’t remember precisely what he’d said, only that he was so very intent that she agree. That . . . was not ideal.
“She wasn’t wrong, before,” Archie said, “when she was speculating about the restrictions faced by unmarried women.”
“Wasn’t that anexcellentspeech?” Effie’s chest warmed thinking back on it. He was gratified that Julianna’s wit was as pointed in person as it had always been in print.Perhaps you ought to introduce yourself, too, she’d said after he’d presented Archie and Simon to her. Oh, the delicious sharpness of the barb, the delight he took in being so lanced, even as he had been properly chagrined.
Realizing he was grinning like an idiot, he schooled his face. “I do take your point.” He paused. “Perhaps that is why she declined my invitation.” He resumed trying to see his recent interactions with Julianna from her perspective. “She insisted that she was only going to be in town a little longer, that she and I had met, which was her aim, and that I ought to spend the rest of my time with you lot.” He curled his lip, and the boys laughed. “But was that an excuse? Was she worried that the servants would talk?”
Wouldthey have?
