Page 13 of What Happens in Hedone

“Is this brick earth rare?”

“It’s been mined certain places in Norfolk, and Kent is full of brick earth, but on the whole it is not common. It’s a particular mixture of clay, silt, and chalk that— You must not let me go on. Even my sisters find it tedious, and bricks pay for their pin money.”

“So you are in Brighton to make bricks.”

“Yes.”

He was here for a time and then would leave. This was not his home. A slower, deeper smile dawned, spawning from the lift of her heart. Better and better.

“Are you building the sea wall?” She pointed toward East Cliff, where the high gray wall stretched from Old Steine to the Royal Crescent, with Chain Pier stretching into the water like the foot of a mollusk.

“That is cement, and I have talked with William Lambert, the builder, about his process. He means to reach all the way to Kemp Town in time.”

She stirred her fingers through the rock pool, stroking the shell of a dogwhelk. “Are you making repairs to the Royal Pavilion?”

“I dream of such a commission from the King, but no. At present I am helping finish Brunswick Terrace.”

“That is where I found you yesterday.”

“Yes. I’d been visiting the kiln, and I felt the need to cool off.”

Effie glanced down the coast, though the terrace was too far away to see. “I had not perceived that building material to be brick.”

He laughed, and she curled her fingers with delight, wanting badly to touch him. “You are correct. The dressing is Bath stone, which is expensive and heavy to transport. All the inner walls you do not see? Brick.”

“You seem very pleased with yourself.”

“I enjoy my trade.”

“And you shall not be obliged to stop when you are married,” Effie observed. “Unless…” An awful thought sank into her chest. “You are married already?”

“I am not.”

Then he was ideal. No one expected men to be celibate before marriage. No one would fault a bachelor for frequenting a pleasure club. Not the way Effie’s parents would have an apoplexy, then bind her in chains in the cellar if they knew what Heddy was doing, and that Effie had been part of it.

“You should know,” he said, watching her with that steady gaze of his, “I would not be here, with you, if I had obligations to another.”

So, a man of principles. She tried to settle her heart, still pumping like a prawn through the water, elated that he belonged to no one else. She wanted so badly to take his hand. She settled for picking up a starfish, stroking the delicate ridge along its arms.

“I want to hear more about bricks. That school I told you about, the one in Bath I attended, Miss Gregoire’s—our buildings are in need of some repairs. I should like to hear your advice on the subject. Are you free this evening?”

“I made a commitment for this evening,” he said slowly, dropping his gaze to the rock pool. “Tomorrow?”

He meant Hedone. He was coming to see her at Hedone, as he said he would.

The top of her head lifted off and drifted among the clouds. He was coming to see her. He might kiss her again. She would ask him then, and she was almost certain he would say yes.

“Tomorrow Heddy and I plan to walk around Adelaide Crescent. We have been watching the construction of the new Anthaeum,” she said. Bold, bold, but he had not been put off by her frankness before.

He traced the starburst ridges of the animal she held, his finger close beside hers. “Please do not stray too close to that site. I question some of the decisions that builder has made.”

She glowed. She knew she did; her cheeks heated. “If we had a wise escort, we should not fear. But I do not expect we will be about much before eleven. Heddy is not an early riser like I am.”

He did it, finally. He lifted her hand into his, sliding his palm beneath hers so easily. As if he knew he had the right. As if he knew she ached for him to touch her, and he would not deny her.

“I should very much like to be your escort, Miss Iph—” She shaped the word, but he said it, with a disarming smile. “Effie.”

That smile. That confidence with the barest trace of bashfulness, as if he would only put himself forward so far. That ease in his manner, the wariness that dissipated as he talked of bricks and building and his sisters. His wife, when he settled on one, would be the luckiest woman alive. Effie envied her already.