Archie’s hearty laugh peeled out across the sunlit day. “Not at all, Miss Evans. Not at all.”
When she furrowed her brow in confusion—and hurt? Effie hoped not—Effie rushed to say, “He laughs because we have expended a great deal of effort in worrying about if I ought to call on you at the Old Ship. They were concerned my spending time with you would harm your reputation.”
The furrow deepened. It was a decidedly perplexed furrow, though, not a hurt one.
“Or harm your livelihood,” Archie suggested.
“I think,” Julianna began slowly, “that you gentlemen are a trifle confused over what sort of person I am.”
It was Effie’s turn to be perplexed.
“I am not a refined lady whose reputation is a fragile glass bauble in need of protecting. That is your world, not mine.”
Effie opened his mouth to say something, but, realizing he had no idea what that something might be, closed it.
“And, while I am hardly a newspaperwoman—though I was flattered that you thought to call me such yesterday, Lord Harcourt—I have in my time gone rather to extremes in pursuit of a story, so I hardly think being seen in the company of three gentlemen is a concern. In fact, isn’t there safety in numbers? Isn’t your hypothetical lady in need of reputational shielding in more danger from being discovered alone in close quarters with one gentleman than out of doors with three?”
Effie could not argue with that.
Neither, it seemed, could the others, for after a startled pause, they both smiled.
“Miss Evans,” Archie said, “we were about to walk in the direction of home and visit the beach near the house. Would you care to join us? We can make our plans for the tour you’ve arranged.”
She would, she said, and they set off. Effie’s skin tingled from the pure pleasure of strolling with his three favorite people. Had he ever imagined a scene in which he would get to be with Simon and ArchieandJulianna? He’d have sooner believed the sky reallyhadturned chartreuse.
“You can’t come as yourselves tomorrow,” Julianna said after they’d walked a way. When she was met with blank stares, she added, “I thought you were trying to avoid detection while on holiday.”
“We are,” Archie said. “We are.”
“While I do not fear any reputational harm from being in your company, neither do I want to call unnecessary attention to myself. If you attend as yourselves tomorrow, surely the news of your visit will get back to the king. The servants wouldn’t fail to mention the three peers who came calling, asking for a tour, would they?”
“You are suggesting subterfuge,” Simon said.
“I am.”
“How exciting,” Effie said, barely refraining from clapping.
“I am thinking that one of you is my assistant at the magazine,” Julianna said. “One of you is an artist I have commissioned to take some sketches. The other is . . . Well, I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“A student of architecture,” Effie said. “The person you have hired to write the story.”
“Yes! Perfect!” She turned and beamed at him. Effie had thought yesterday that the rosy, slanted rays of the sunset had illuminated Julianna, but he could see now that hadn’t been exactly correct. Julianna glowed from within. No amount of gray wool could contain that glow. It was stoked by the fires of her inner self. Her wit and ambition and goodness.
“Your student should be Simon,” Effie said, beaming back at her, “for he can credibly opine about architecture.”
“Yes,” she said, turning to Simon. “I so enjoyed our discussion yesterday about architecture.”
Julianna and Simon had had a discussion about architecture yesterday? Effie could recall no such discussion. But to be fair, he could recall little about their tea other than his singular focus on the idea that Julianna had been wearing a wedding ring. When he’d first degloved her, in the Pavilion garden, the shock of it had been visceral. As if that little bit of metal was a dagger and she’d shoved it straight into his heart. And then he’d spiraled: what right had he to feel betrayed over her being married when he had lied to her for years?
It was just that she’d spoken so forcefully against marriage, in her letters. The idea that she might have actually been married, even as she’d taken such a fierce stance against the institution, had made him feel rather ill.
The ring-dagger had then become a snake charmer, playing a tune that had him single-mindedly fixated—Effie was the snake in this unfortunate metaphor. He hadn’t been able to focus on anything else. To hear anything else. So it was entirely probable that Julianna and his friends had had any number of conversations he had missed.
“You should be the artist,” Archie said to Effie, “for youarean artist.”
“No, I am the assistant,” Effie said firmly. “I am Miss Evans’s assistant.” It felt like a true statement. Hedidaid her, did he not, by contributing toLe Monde Joli? “I know a fair bit about the magazine’s production,” he said, in case he needed support for his assertion.
“But that leaves me to be the artist,” Archie said, “and I could not sketch to save my life.”
