The only thing that would make it more perfect would be to seal their editorial triumph with a kiss.
So he did.
Chapter 10
Unlatching
Julianna’s past affairs had taken place in secret. Her liaisons had always been conducted in the dark—usually in the literal dark and always in the metaphorical dark. It was therefore utterly novel to be able to go downstairs to a sunlight-flooded breakfast room and have the other gentlemen know what was going on.
At least, she assumed they knew. Why else would Lord Harcourt have winked at Effie when she appeared? Why else would Lord Marsden, seated next to Effie, have looked even stiffer than usual, as if he were trying very hard to affect a pose of nonchalance?
They all stood and greeted her formally but warmly.
“Allow me to make you a plate,” Effie said, encouraging her tosit.
“I have a newspaper if you would like to read it.” Lord Marsden passed her this week’s edition of theBrighton & Hove Herald. How lovely.
“What are your thoughts on kippers?” Effie called from the sideboard.
“I detest them,” she called back, causing her tablemates to chuckle.
“Eggs?”
“Eggs would be lovely, thank you.”
“Rashers?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Toast? With butter? Marmalade?”
Lords Harcourt and Marsden both appeared to be supressing laughter, and indeed Effie’s methodical recitation of the contents of the breakfast spread was rather amusing. Julianna had the idea that normally, when one person made a plate for another, the first person knew what the second person liked. This was what she’d meant earlier, when she’d said that while in some ways, probably the ways that mattered the most, she and Effie knew each other, yet in other ways, they did not. She had not known about his father’s cruelties. He had not known she didn’t care for kippers. Not that she was equating kippers with cruelties. The point was, there were holes.
“Butterandmarmalade?” Effie called when she neglected to respond.
“Use your judgment,” Julianna said. “Regarding the toast, and the rest of it. Just no kippers, please. Or liver, should there happen to be any on offer.”
“Clementine would find nothing to eat at this buffet,” Effie remarked when he returned with Julianna’s plate.
The men went on to explain that the countess did not eat meat.
“What about eggs?” Julianna asked.
“She eats them from our chickens at Mollybrook,” Lord Harcourt said, “but eschews them when she is ignorant of their provenance.”
“The hens at Mollybrook live in a veritable palace,” Effie explained. “They are well fed and left to roam free. I would not be surprised to learn that the countess reads and sings to them, too.” He smiled fondly. “We should all be so lucky.”
“Does this have anything to do with that tract that was quite popular a few Seasons ago,On the Moral Imperative of Not Eating Animals? By a Theodore Bull?” Julianna remembered that pamphlet well. She’d seen hundreds of copies at her previous printer’s establishment. In fact, the sudden vogue for Mr. Bull’s ideas had delayed the production of the magazine more than once.
“What shall we do today?” Effie asked in an overloud voice that made Julianna wonder if she had said something wrong.
Lord Harcourt merely smiled and leaned closer to Julianna. “Yes, it does. My wife was at one time engaged to the author of that tract.”
Julianna felt her eyes widen. She certainly hadn’t expectedthat.
“While she is happily rid of the man, some of his . . . ideas endure.”
Lord Marden said, “To be fair, and as Clementine pointed out, they aren’t his original ideas. They have a much older intellectual ancestry.”
