“But you persist,” Archie said. “It is admirable.”
Simon nodded at the painting. “And, apparently, efficacious.”
A knock heralded a footman with a trunk.
“Go!” Leander screeched, and Effie began tossing apparel into the trunk.
Before too long—Archie still lost the wager, though, thanks to the Lansing siblings—they were ready.
A pair of footmen took the trunk, and Effie picked up Leander’s cage.
“Surely you are not bringing that creature with you,” Simon said.
“I have to. He’s only recently learned to vocalize. If I leave him alone for a fortnight, he’s likely to backslide.” When no one said anything, he added, “He needs someone to talk to him.”
“Cannot a maid talk to him?” Simon asked.
“Do I trust a maid to talk to him?” Effie asked. “To feed him, yes, but to tend to his education?”
“He has a point,” said Archie, suppressing laughter. “I imagine your maids have better things to do with their time than talk to birds.”
“And look how big he is!” Effie said. “He needs regular exercise outside of his cage. Can I trustthatto a maid?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Simon said.
The three of them bickered good-naturedly about avian intelligence or lack thereof as they descended to the foyer.
Whereupon they ran into Father and Mr. Nancarrow.
Effie’s first impulse was to think,My goodness, are weevergoing to get out of here?
His second impulse was to panic.
The second impulse won out. The sight of the earl filled Effie’s ears with the roaring of an imaginary sea.
He did not want to be the sort of man who panicked when encountering his own father, but here they were.
To be fair, he did all right when he had time to prepare, when he knew he would be meeting his sire. So perhaps he was merely the sort of man who panicked whenunexpectedlyencountering his own father.
And also the sort of man who held his pet macaw behind his back when unexpectedly encountering his own father.
When the cacophonous waves receded, the boys were in the process of making greetings to his father. The panic subsided, soaking into the sand with the waves, because of course his father would behave in the company of Effie’s friends, highborn as they were.
“Harcourt, Marsden,” Father was saying, “may I introduce Mr. Nancarrow, who has recently come aboard as steward at Highworth.”
Mr. Nancarrow dipped his head at the earls as Simon said to Effie’s father, “My lord, I am happy to meet you here. I was hoping to gain your support for an act we shall be introducing in Parliament next session . . .”
The rest of Simon’s speech was drowned out by the crashing of another wave. A larger one that brought with it not just panic but also terror. Terror not unlike the sort that had shoved Effie, gasping, from slumber to wakefulness more often than not these recent months.
Or perhaps not that sort. Nightmares subsided when one awakened sufficiently to grasp that the tendrils slithering through one’s mind were merely of the phantasmagorical variety.
The panic was back because Effie remembered that the printing press was in the stable. Father’s driver was no doubt encountering it now. The last Effie had heard, Mother and Father were in Campagna until early October. He had thought he had more time.
He forced himself to think, to return to the conversation at hand. What would Julianna do, in his shoes? Simon was droning on about prison reform, and Archie and Father were paying polite attention. Effie turned to the new steward and said, lowly, carefully, “Mr. Nancarrow, might I have a word?” Kenver Nancarrow had struck Effie, on the few occasions they’d been in company, as a reasonable, even affable, sort of man. He was also Effie’s only hope.
“Yes, of course, my lord.”
Effie caught Archie’s eye as he ushered Mr. Nancarrow into a small parlor off the foyer and hitched his head ever so slightly in Father’s direction, willing Archie to receive his silent message.
