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Chapter 10

Unlatching

J ulianna’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 the Brighton don’t you agree?”

“Lord Harcourt,” Julianna said, “do you think I might persuade your wife to write about her dietary philosophy for the magazine?” Julianna would have to invoke the nobility of its author to convince Mr. Glanvil to print it, but what a coup such a story would be. “I read Mr. Bull’s pamphlet and found his tone unnecessarily strident. I would be quite happy to hear a similar argument made from a more even-handed perspective. And for the author to be a lady? All the better.”

Lord Harcourt chuckled. “I shall ask her. I can almost guarantee that she will be thrilled by your commission, but of course I cannot agree to something on her behalf.”

How remarkable. The way Lord Harcourt had phrased that, one would almost think he considered his wife an autonomous individual.

“What shall we do today?” Effie asked again as Julianna picked up her fork. “I admit I posed that question earlier partly to distract from the unpleasant topic of Mr. Shelley’s intellectual descendant, whom I shan’t be naming, but I really do want to know. It is a beautiful day.”

“What do you usually do on your holidays?” Julianna asked when no suggestion was forthcoming.

“The gentlemen looked at each other, seeming to consider the question. “Talk, I suppose,” Lord Marsden said.

“Drink,” Lord Harcourt said wryly.

“Archie usually sneaks away to hunt, and with any luck, he doesn’t accidentally shoot anyone,” Effie said, making a face at Archie.

Julianna gathered there was a story there. She was getting a sense, with these men, of a rich shared history. Of deep bonds stitched together with caring and humor alike.

“How about a ride?” Lord Harcourt asked. “The stables here are well provisioned.”

“Haffert has encouraged me to make use of them,” Lord Marsden said.

The gentlemen turned to Julianna.

“I’ve never been riding.”

“Would you like to?” Lord Marsden asked.

“I could walk your horse,” Effie said. “I wouldn’t leave your side.”

“I think I should find riding quite exciting,” Julianna said.

Later, at the stable, Effie pulled the groom aside and said, sotto voce, “My sister has decided to attempt to overcome a long-standing fear of horses. Have you a gentle mare, perhaps, a creature who shall do right by her?”

Oh, dear. Julianna had not thought through the fact that Effie’s sister, the daughter of an earl, ought to be an accomplished, or at least competent, horsewoman. But Effie, ever thoughtful, had come armed with a cover story.

“Oh, yes, my lord,” the groom said. “I have just the horse.”

Effie glanced over his shoulder and shot Julianna a secret wink. “I will gladly accept any expert advice you may have to soothe my sister’s nerves.”

The groom seemed thrilled with the prospect of making a convert to the equine life, and he and Effie undertook an earnest discussion about saddles and terrain and the like.

The groom was beaming when he introduced them to a gentle old girl called Poppy and explained to Julianna how she was meant to mount. “You’ve got to explain it to me, too,” Effie said. “I’ve never paid any mind to side saddles.”

Julianna managed to get herself situated and was only experiencing a minor attack of nerves as Effie, on foot as promised, took Poppy’s lead. She could see why people enjoyed riding. The prospect from up here was pleasing, as was the notion that she and the horse were working together to achieve motion. Or, rather, she could see how they would be, if only she could get a hang of things. She kept forgetting the instruction to keep her right shoulder back, and the cane the groom had handed her at the last minute, telling Effie it would “stand in for the right leg when cueing beyond a trot”—whatever that meant—was cumbersome.

Once they had cleared the property and turned onto a road the groom had suggested, Effie stopped them. “Of course she’s expected to ride aside—I didn’t think.” He looked up at her. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be much of a guide.”

“Well, perhaps you can teach Miss Evans to fish, if not to ride,” Lord Marsden said. He and Lord Harcourt had brought fishing rods and had quizzed the groom about a pond a mile or so hence.

Which was how Julianna found herself on a grassy bank next to a murky pond digging for worms.

“I must say, Miss Evans, you are an awfully good sport,” Lord Marsden said when she held up a big fat one. “You’re not squeamish at all.”

She shrugged and allowed him to model how to twist the worm onto her hook—Lord Harcourt had lent her his rod. In fact, he’d been quite insistent that she take it. Effie had told her the man had all but given up hunting, despite the fact that he used to be mad for it, in deference to his wife’s animal-loving ways. Perhaps he’d given up fishing, too.

Lord Marsden demonstrated how to cast the line and reel it in. “What an ingenious little contraption this is,” she said, referring to the geared mechanism by which one reeled in the line.

“Invented by the Americans just recently.”

Goodness, these Americans with their innovative reels and their flashy magazines.

Lord Marsden, having insisted Lord Harcourt take his rod while he was helping Julianna, refused its return and said he would go sit by Effie for a bit.

His departure left Julianna and Lord Harcourt standing side by side in companionable silence, occasionally reeling their lines in and recasting. Julianna noticed that Lord Harcourt was casting without having baited his hook. At one point, he noticed her noticing, and, with a twinkle in his eye, made a shushing gesture with his finger against his lips. She smiled and nodded, miming buttoning her lips.

When she reeled in her line and found the hook empty, she baited it with a new worm.

“I suppose I ought to actually bait mine if I mean to keep standing here going through the motions,” Lord Harcourt said.

“You needn’t on my account,” Julianna said, but he was already done by the time she finished her sentence.

She glanced over her shoulder to check on the others, who were several yards away lounging on a patch of grass. Lord Marsden was talking earnestly about something, but the wind was such that she couldn’t hear what. Effie was twirling a long reed or cattail of some sort—beyond the flower-arranging advice the magazine occasionally ran, Julianna did not know plants—and nodding as Lord Marsden spoke. He must have felt her regard, for he turned his head and shot her a wink.

She smiled and returned her attention to the pond, to the meditative act of casting and reeling. As she repeated the motion over and over again something inside her . . . came unraveled. Not in the distressing way the phrase generally implied, as in the destruction of a garment one had spent a great deal of time knitting and/ or was relying on for warmth. No, this was an unraveling of something that had become so tangled as to form a solid mass.

Perhaps the better word was unlatching . An unlatching of a gate she normally kept closed, a gate she normally had to keep closed.

The sun was warm on her face—the benevolent fairies were doing their agreeable prickling—and she was struck with the urge to remove her bonnet. She suspected no one here would mind if she did.

“Lord Harcourt,” she said, “would you think it terribly shocking if I took off my bonnet, and if not, will you hold my rod as I do so?”

“No, and yes,” he said mildly.

“I suppose I’ve done things far more shocking in your brief acquaintance with me,” she remarked as she de-hatted herself.

“No and yes,” he said again, drawing her attention.

She had been jesting. She was aware that spending the night in the gentlemen’s borrowed house ought to, by polite standards, be considered shocking. Scandalous. As should impersonating Effie’s sister. Swimming with Effie.

Lying with Effie.

Lord Harcourt’s tone just now had been temperate, but had there been a rebuke in his response?

“It would take a great deal more than a glimpse of your hair to shock me,” Lord Harcourt said as he accepted her rod.

She waited for more, for an explanation of the “yes” part of “no and yes,” but he said nothing further, so she loosened the ribbons of her bonnet and pushed it back off her head.

It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when she had her rod back and was entering again into that state of calm contentment conferred by fishing, that state of un , that Lord Harcourt said, “What I find shocking, Miss Evans, is how well you seem to know our Effie. How you . . . appreciate him.”

“Yes, well, there is much to appreciate about . . . Lord Featherfinch.”

How she hated calling him that. Lord Harcourt had called him “our Effie” just now, but Julianna did not know if she was included in that “our.” It felt safer to err on the side of formality.

“There is, isn’t there?” Lord Harcourt said, again with the appearance of mildness. Yet Julianna felt certain there was an observation underlying the seemingly inconsequential question, perhaps even a warning.

“Effie gives his trust, and affection, so easily,” Lord Harcourt elaborated. “And following on that, his loyalty.”

“I am not sure I agree with that.” It probably wasn’t her place to say so, but the objection wouldn’t stay in.

There, that had shocked him—his eyebrows had flown up. “What do you mean?”

“You may think he gives those things easily, but that may be because you have always had them.”

“Effie is quite close to my wife’s sister, Miss Olive Morgan. They became fast friends from almost the moment they met.”

“I do not think giving one’s affections rapidly is the same as giving them indiscriminately. I believe Lord Featherfinch is in fact quite picky about on whom he confers his regard. His circle seems small, for a peer.”

“Hmm. I suppose my point is that regardless of the circumstances of the bequeathment of Effie’s affections, once bestowed, the recipient has power to injure him greatly.”

“There I concur. Lord Featherfinch is very sensitive. That is what makes him such a good writer. He opens himself to the world, to experience, in a way and to a degree that is really rather remarkable.”

“Yes. Perhaps that was what I was trying to say.”

Julianna waited for more, but nothing was forthcoming. She didn’t need words, though, to understand that there was a warning of sorts being issued. Lord Harcourt didn’t want to see Effie hurt.

She would never hurt Effie.

Would she?

“Oh!” A sharp tug on the line startled her out of her thoughts. Lord Harcourt got a bite, too, and he showed her how to reel the line in slowly, a little at a time.

Effie and Lord Marsden joined them, speaking words of encouragement. Soon, Julianna had a surprisingly large fish dangling from the end of the line. She kept her attention on it as it flopped and fought, its gray-gold scales glinting in the sun.

Effie, who’d come to stand nearby, applauded. “I say, Jules, splendid job!”

He shouldn’t be calling her “Jules.” “Julianna” was one thing, but “Jules,” in front of his friends? Perhaps Lord Harcourt had been correct. Perhaps she had more power here than she’d realized.

Lord Marsden removed her fish from its hook. Lord Harcourt did the same with his, and he threw it back into the pond with a plop that created a big enough splash to dampen the hem of her dress.

“A fine carp, Miss Evans,” Lord Marsden said. “Shall we keep it?”

It had never occurred to her that they wouldn’t. Wasn’t the whole point of catching fish to catch them?

Perhaps this was another quirk of the aristocracy. They wore impractical shoes, and they caught fish only to throw them back. But then she thought of Lord Harcourt’s hook, which had remained unbaited for so long.

“I think,” she said, “that I ought to follow Lord Harcourt’s example and let the creature return to its watery home.”

“Have you had enough fishing, Miss Evans?” Effie asked earnestly. She was back to being “Miss Evans.” That “Jules” of earlier must have been a slip of the tongue. She missed being “Jules,” though she knew formality was for the best.

“I think so, yes,” she replied. The meditative contentment of before seemed far away.

“Then I’ve a proposition. Marsden and I have cooked up a scheme whereby we swap your horse for his. He and Harcourt will take your horse back to the house, and you and I can go for a proper ride. I hadn’t thought through that of course you were going to be mounted aside. I think you would find great enjoyment in riding the proper way. There’s nothing like a good gallop. We can ride together, on the same horse,” he added, anticipating her objection, which was that although she had been keen to try riding in a circumscribed way, she felt quite unqualified for a solo “good gallop.”

She glanced at the other gentlemen. Lord Harcourt’s countenance was friendly and open as he proclaimed his approval of the plan. Perhaps the cautionary issuance she’d perceived earlier had only been her imagination.

“All right, then,” she said. “A good gallop. Though I admit to some trepidation about the ‘gallop’ part.”

“A good trot, then,” Effie said with a smile as wide as the sky was blue.

* * *

Riding, it turned out, was like fishing: rhythmic—almost lulling—and capable of putting one into a deeply contemplative state. It was not dissimilar to what sometimes occurred when Julianna attempted her flame-visualization exercise.

“All right?” Effie said, speaking into her ear. He was mounted behind her. After saying goodbye to his friends, Effie had seated Julianna in the saddle of a pretty white horse called Genevieve and himself behind her. He’d taken the reins, which had the effect of closing her in his embrace as they set out at a sedate pace.

“Yes,” she said. “More than all right.”

“Would you like to try a trot?”

“Would Genevieve like to try a trot?”

He laughed, but she had been in earnest. “Genevieve would like to do what we would like to do.”

“Isn’t it painful, or at least awkward, for her to bear two riders?”

“I wouldn’t recommend we embark on a cross-country journey two astride, or charge into battle, but for this short time, and given that our combined weight is not terribly high, she will be fine.”

“All right, then. Let us trot.”

Trotting was less contemplative than walking, and more jostling. “I am not sure I care for this. I feel as if my insides are sloshing around in a way that is less than pleasing.”

“The next gait is a canter, and although it is faster than a trot, it is smoother. Shall we try?”

She was feeling adventurous. “Yes, but hold on to me.”

“Always, Jules, always.”

The fervency with which that declaration had come out brought to mind her discussion with Lord Harcourt.

Was she . . . doing wrong by Effie?

“Ahh!” She could think no further on the matter for suddenly, they were flying . The wind was whistling in her ears, Genevieve was snorting and breathing, and Effie was, as instructed, holding her tight.

Julianna’s senses filled with cloves and liberation.

She laughed. She wasn’t sure why, exactly. Out of joy, yes, but it was a visceral sort of joy. She felt it in her chest, where her heart thumped at twice the usual pace, as if it were manned by a drummer anxious to get to the end of a song. She felt it in her arms and legs, too, in her fingers and toes—all her extremities vibrated like emphatically rung bells. There was an entire percussion section inside her.

Cantering was not like fishing. Gone was the orderly beat of focused attention, it having given way to a linear, insistent trajectory. It did have in common with fishing that same sense of unraveling, unlatching.

Brighton was making her shed her armor, or Effie was. Or perhaps it was some alchemical result of being with Effie in Brighton.

Riding was ultimately more akin to sea-bathing, she decided. She could go anywhere. Ride away. Float away.

Escape was an illusion, though. Soon, far too soon, Effie did something with his legs and with the reins that prompted Genevieve to ratchet down through the dreaded trot and into a walk.

“We are nearly back at the house. I suppose we ought to get off and walk, in order to keep up the ruse.”

“Thank you,” she said, retying her bonnet as they set out on foot. “That was very exciting. I can’t think when my heart has raced so.”

Effie grabbed her hand and kept it, swinging their arms back and forth as they walked. “Challenge accepted.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Instead of answering, he shot her a wicked look.

“Oh.” She grinned.

“Indeed. I shall endeavor to apply myself this evening to the task of making your heart race.”

She thought again of Lord Harcourt, and her sense that there had been a warning implicit in their discussion about Effie. “Why did Lord Harcourt throw his fish back in the pond?”

“Why did you?”

“Because he did!”

Effie laughed. “Not out of some high-minded sense of morality?”

“No! I was looking forward to eating my fish. I’ve never caught my own dinner.”

“I believe he is persuaded by his wife’s arguments regarding the eating of animals.”

“He must be.” Julianna found this kind of devotion extraordinary.

It must have been the man’s devotion to Effie that had prompted him to issue that coded warning.

“I did not want to distress Lord Harcourt,” she said, “so I followed his example.”

“I don’t think he would have been distressed. He watches Simon and I eat animal flesh at dinner and remains unaffected.”

“What if he were affected? Would you stop?”

“Of course.”

Once again: evidence of extraordinary devotion.

She shook her head, wanting to exit this conversation, though she was the one who’d instigated it. “Well, perhaps I shall have another chance to catch my own dinner.”

She would not, though. It had been a daft thing to say. She was leaving the day after tomorrow. She would never fish again. Or ride again. Or sea-bathe again.

Or lounge in bed with Effie talking about editorial strategy.

This was why it was better not to know what one was missing.

You can’t miss what you don’t let yourself want.

Her old adage wasn’t rolling off the tongue like it used to.

* * *

Effie did apply himself to making Julianna’s heart beat fast that evening. Once again, she left the gentlemen to their port after dinner and retired to her bedchamber. Once again, he came to her after midnight, tapping on her door lightly before letting himself in.

Were two nights enough to constitute a pattern? If so, this was quite an enjoyable one. She very much looked forward to another night with Effie, exploring each other’s bodies and talking about the magazine. And if she followed her own directive to remain in the now, she would be able to abandon herself equally to both endeavors.

Effie broke the pattern, though. Instead of being his usual charming, talkative self, he began shedding his clothing the moment the door closed behind him. There was no “Hello, my dearest,” no earnest confessions, just the swish of silk against linen as he shed his waistcoat, a relatively staid—for him—yellow silk embroidered with tiny white daisies. Then the thud of boots hitting the carpet.

This was . . . unsettling. She eyed him, not sure what to make of this silent, determined version of Effie. Soon, he had disrobed entirely, and as he stood in front of her—she was in bed, reclined against her headboard wearing only her shift—she could not read his expression.

She sat up straight, a little alarmed. Not knowing what Effie was thinking, feeling—she didn’t like it. Inscrutability didn’t suit him, at least when it came to her.

But then he smiled.

Those perfectly mismatched eyes lit up, almost, it seemed, in spite of himself.

He still did not speak, but that was all right. The smile, the light in his eyes, reassured her. As she had done last night, she extinguished half the candles on her night table. She had the vague notion that many ladies preferred carnal activities to occur in the dark, but not Julianna. She wanted to see .

She began working her shift off, struggling with the fabric as it tangled with her arms over her head. She thought he would assist, but he did not.

When she freed herself, he was still standing at the edge of the bed staring at her, seemingly unaware of his own state of arousal, or at least unaffected by such. She might have thought him simple if she didn’t already know him to be the wittiest of men.

The loveliest, too. He was tall and lean, his skin uniformly pale. The flickering of the candles cast his features, which appeared somehow sharper with his short hair, in a warm glow.

A wicked idea took root. He had surprised her by being so silent. Perhaps she could surprise him, too. She eyed his prick. Charles had always enjoyed this.

Before she could think too much on the matter, she shimmied to the far side of the bed and took him in her mouth.

“Dear God!” he shouted, and she smiled around his length. Finally, she had gotten him to speak.

“Julianna!” he exclaimed, and she smiled again at the scandalized tone. Just for a moment, though, before applying herself to the task at hand—the task at mouth.

She wrapped her hands around him, kneading his arse as she worked him over. She wasn’t taking him particularly deep—she and Charles had only done this a few times, and she wasn’t sure how . . . rigorous she was meant to be.

Her inexperience didn’t seem to matter, judging by the noises Effie was making—he sounded dismayed, but she knew better because she knew him . Charles hadn’t made those sorts of noises. He hadn’t made any noises. There was something about this sort of response, so honest and insistent, that made her own desire spiral up and up. She almost thought she might find her release without Effie touching her. Without touching herself.

“Oh, God!” Effie cried, and he took a deep breath in and held it. Pushed her gently off him and spent.

She smiled as his release coated her neck—even as he began apologizing.

“Hush.” She took her turn to gently push him away—he was hovering and making to wipe her neck clean, and she needed a moment to collect herself. “Lie down. Catch your breath.” She had a handkerchief on her night table, and she used it to clean herself.

When she turned back to him, he was sprawled in a way that called to mind her starfish pose. He looked very satisfied, like a cat who’d had his fill of cream. He was a starfish-cat.

“I didn’t know about that,” he said as she lay next to him, propping her head on her hand.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“No,” he said promptly. “Not at all.”

She swatted his chest—or she meant to, but before she could retract her hand he captured it, pressing it against his chest with his own. He was back to being silent, but it wasn’t the stern, impenetrable silence of before. It was harmonious, fond.

She let the quiet unfold for a few minutes as his breathing returned to normal. Eventually, he heaved himself up and shimmied down the bed, stopping when he was lying on his stomach, his head level with her hips.

He pushed her legs open and let his fingers lazily stroke her folds, watching her closely. When he found what he was looking for, she gasped. It was a genuine gasp, but it also seemed to work to signal him that he had arrived at his destination. It made sense. He had spoken yesterday about wanting to find this spot on her body.

And then he shocked her by lowering his mouth to it.

Pleasure—still laced with shock—sliced through her, making her back arch off the bed.

He followed her pelvis with his head, using his hands on her hips to guide them back down to the bed. Reapplying himself, he began kissing her, gently at first and then more insistently.

“How did you know to do this?” she heard herself saying. She wanted to kick herself. Why was she asking this question now ?

He lifted his head. “Should I not be? Is this wrong?”

“Not at all.” Nothing had ever felt more right, in fact, but she couldn’t quite make herself be that effusive. “Please continue.”

“I simply thought that if your mouth on the source of my pleasure was so shattering, perhaps my mouth on the source of yours would be, too. Are you certain I am not incorrect?”

“I am certain!”

“In truth, I have been finding being with you not unlike the act of painting. An image arrives in my mind. In this case, it is an image of you prostrate, me with my head between your legs. The image . . . begins to overtake me. And then I make it manifest.”

“You, my friend, are the most remarkable man I have ever met.”

“If that is true, I worry for the state of men.”

He was back to his usual charming, self-deprecating self. That was a relief.

Wasn’t it?

She put on her best seductive smile. “Perhaps we can debate the state of men later, if you don’t mind.”

She thought he would launch a witty rejoinder, or perhaps flash her one of his signature Effie smiles and return to his task, but he did neither. He cocked his head and stared at her for a long moment before saying, “Will you take your hair down?”

Her hair was still up—somewhat—in the chignon she’d worn to dinner. She worked the pins out and combed through the tangles with her fingers. It was likely to be a curly, wild mess. “All right?”

He nodded, but he sat up and guided her back to the pillow, where he spent a moment arranging her hair against it. She understood now. He was making his painting. Making their painting.

When he was satisfied with his handiwork, he nodded and slid back down between her legs.

“You’ll tell me if I’m doing anything you don’t like, won’t you, Jules?”

She murmured her agreement, and that was the last word she spoke for a very long time.

* * *

Julianna awakened sometime later and reflected upon the fact that she had never fallen asleep as readily as in recent days. There was something about the utter satiation she felt after an encounter with Effie that tipped her right into a deep, dreamless sleep. She let herself return to wakefulness slowly—she was on holiday, after all—luxuriating in relaxation and contentment.

She reached for Effie, but the bed was empty. Cold. She threw on her wrap. Julianna had been given fine accommodations. Her bedchamber was effectively two rooms, a sleeping area connected by a short, boxy corridor of sorts to another space she had used as a sitting room. Though she supposed it was properly meant to be a dressing room—in addition to a settee and a pair of wing chairs, it contained a collection of mirrors in the corner that would allow a lady to examine her reflection from all angles as well as a dressing table where a lady more refined than she would perform her toilette.

Effie, wearing only his breeches, was perched on the latter piece of furniture and staring into the mirror. He didn’t notice her. He appeared melancholy.

She shifted in place a bit and, when that did not get his attention, said, quietly, “Have you had a nightmare?” If so, she felt badly—she had been sleeping too soundly to notice.

He transferred his gaze to hers, via the mirror. It took him a long time—too long—to answer her question. “No nightmares.” His face didn’t change. It scarcely even moved as he spoke. “I haven’t had any since I’ve been here.”

“Well, that is good.”

They continued to stare at each other. For the second time this evening, Julianna couldn’t read Effie’s expression. Before, his signature good nature had eventually reasserted itself. Perhaps she could encourage that to happen again. She held out her hand. “Come back to bed?”

“I can’t,” he said somberly. She hadn’t noticed that the rest of his clothes were on top of the dressing table. He slipped his shirt on. When he was done, he met her gaze in the mirror again. She wanted to tell him to turn around, to look at her , not her reflection, but once again, something stopped her. What was it? This was Effie . Her dearest friend, and for one more day, her lover. Why was she holding back?

She didn’t know her own mind, and she didn’t like it.

Perhaps the problem was that she couldn’t know her own mind without knowing his. Perhaps they had grown that interdependent. It was an alarming thought.

“I can’t stay,” he said again.

She was disappointed, but it was likely almost morning. She must have slept longer than she’d realized. “All right. I shall see you soon, then.”

“Yes,” he said, but there was a sadness in his tone. In his eyes, too. “I shall see you soon.”