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He could think of nothing that wouldn’t sound ridiculous. And had he not just decided on forthrightness? “I was planning to move it elsewhere after I returned from the holiday on which I am about to depart, but now . . .” He turned his palms upward in a wordless appeal.

“Think no further on it, my lord. I shall go round back and confer with the grooms. I am certain we can find somewhere else to stable the horses for now. Where had you been planning to move the press?”

“To the home of the Earl of Harcourt, Number Four Hanover Square. Of course, he is also holiday-bound with me, but if you explain that the press is from me, the countess will receive it.”

Clementine would, he was all but certain. He could only hope her sister was not in residence. But if he had to choose between Olive’s discovering he’d bought a printing press and Father’s discovering the same, he would choose Olive a thousand times over.

“Consider it done, my lord.”

Effie allowed himself to relax a touch. “Thank you, Mr. Nancarrow. Be warned that the press is quite heavy. You’ll need several men. And it’s broken, so there are . . . bits and bobs loose. Take care.” Beware the ghost of Hamlet’s father.

“If I may say, my lord, that is a fine bird you’ve got there. Is it a hyacinth macaw?”

“Oh, yes!” Effie had momentarily forgotten that he was carting Leander through this crisis. “You must know exotic birds, given that you identified him on sight.”

“ Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus ,” Mr. Nancarrow said. “Native to South America, I believe?”

“Ah . . . yes.” In truth, Effie did not know. He’d procured Leander from the same merchant who’d sold him Sally, and he hadn’t been made aware of any providential details.

“Studying birds is a particular hobby of mine,” Mr. Nancarrow said. “Though I’ve never seen a bird as fine as that outside the pages of a book. Does he talk?”

“Go!” Leander said, as if on cue.

“He says a few words,” Effie said as Mr. Nancarrow laughed in delight.

What a curious creature—Mr. Nancarrow, not Leander.

Whatever relief Effie had experienced in Mr. Nancarrow’s easy company disappeared as they reentered the foyer. Effie felt as though his ribs were calcifying, making his movements awkward and unnatural. He edged along the wall as best he could so as to not draw Father’s attention to Leander. With a small nod at Effie, Mr. Nancarrow slipped out the door.

When Archie, who was still quizzing Father about southern Italy in the summer, caught sight of Effie, he said, “What good luck to have encountered your father. He’s made several improvements to my hypothetical itinerary.”

“How fortuitous,” Effie murmured, smiling blandly as his father looked up, brow knit. Effie knew that look. Father was trying to remember if Effie had been standing there all along. It used to wound him, when he was a boy, to know he was that forgettable in his father’s eyes. For as a boy, he generally had been standing there the whole time. As he’d grown, though, he had come to understand that invisibility came with benefits that could be exploited—for example, the opportunity to arrange for the covert relocation of a printing press.

“If we want to make Brighton by nightfall, perhaps we ought to make haste,” Effie said, affecting a nonchalance he did not feel. “Perhaps you can call on our return, Harcourt, and continue your discussion. Will you still be in residence, Father?”

“Brighton?” Father said, frowning. He looked rather . . . yellow. Put out, though Effie could not imagine why.

“Yes,” he said, “our annual trip.”

“Annual trip?”

Effie didn’t say, Yes, Earls Trip 1822 . The fanciful appellation for their holiday would not go over well with Father, who, in addition to lacking any sense of humor whatsoever, would almost certainly have pointed out that Effie was not an earl but a mere viscount. He was the heir to an earl. A very unpromising heir. To put it mildly. Which, to be fair, Father would do, given that they were in company.

Effie didn’t say anything, just smiled blankly.

Archie said, “Yes, sir, the three of us have developed a bit of an annual tradition—a fortnight of holiday in September.”

Never mind that this was the ninth annual Earls Trip and Father had just now noticed.

Father’s eyes traveled down to Effie’s feet and back up to his face. “What on earth are you wearing, boy?”

Boy . Effie winced. He was eight-and-twenty. He was not a boy. He felt the word as the prick it was meant to be, the y at its end a sharp pin sliding into his guts. But to complain, to react at all, would only prove him deserving of the moniker. It was a paradox he often found himself in with Father.

Chartreuse skies , he reminded himself. Chartreuse skies.

The answer to Father’s question was that he was wearing a dismayingly unremarkable pair of buff pantaloons, a perfectly acceptable black coat, and a wildly ridiculous waistcoat of pink and violet striped sarsenet. But Father had eyes, so the boy said nothing.

“I’ve brought Mr. Nancarrow to Town,” Father said after several beats of silence, perhaps after not getting the reaction he’d wanted, though Effie would allow for the possibility that he was overestimating how much thought his father expended for him.

“Yes,” Effie said, because he had eyes. He did rather wonder what business the steward of the family’s Cornish estate had in London, but as long as some of that business involved the relocation of a printing press, Effie didn’t see that it was any concern of his. Father had made it quite clear matters to do with the estate, with the title, generally weren’t.

“Thought I’d acquaint him with the goings-on here in Town,” Father said.

“I thought you were in Italy,” Effie said.

“Just long enough to see your mother and Sarah settled.”

“I see. Well, we must be going,” Effie said quickly, but he immediately regretted the almost desperate tone that had crept into his voice. He didn’t like this feeling that he was slinking away. He didn’t know what to do about it, though, other than to follow his instinct to pull Leander’s cage out from behind his back. It was incredible that Father hadn’t noticed Leander to begin with.

“Go!” Leander screeched, attaining a heretofore unheard-of pitch, and Effie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. At least he was no longer hiding.

“I hope I may count on your support for a gaols act next session,” Simon said to Father, as if there wasn’t an overlarge blue macaw screaming at them.

“I’ll consider it,” Father said tightly.

He would not consider it. Effie could tell from his tone.

One compensation for when Effie inherited the earldom was that he would vote however Simon told him to.

They made their goodbyes, Father wondering aloud where Mr. Nancarrow had gotten to. Effie led the way down the front steps, all but threw his valise at the waiting footman, and flung himself and his bird into Archie’s coach.

The boys joined him, and they all sat in silence for a moment until Simon said, “That was very . . .”

“Painful?” Effie supplied. “Uncomfortable? Anxious-making? Odd?”

“I haven’t seen your father for a long time” was Simon’s only answer.

“Nor have I,” Effie said. He turned to Archie. “Change of plans. The printing press is—one hopes—making its way to your house. Ought we to detour there and warn the countess?”

“Will she be told it’s from you?”

“Yes.”

“Then we needn’t bother. Clementine will take it in stride.”

Effie, too, had thought Archie’s wife would be unfussed by the arrival of a broken printing press to her fine London townhome. It was part of what made her such an excellent person. “Is your wife’s sister staying with her at the moment?”

“No. Olive and Sir Albert are at Hill House,” Archie said, naming his wife’s family’s country house.

Good. With any luck, Effie’s secret was safe. Though it wasn’t luck, was it? It was Mr. Nancarrow. Which was rather remarkable given that Effie’s secret was several hundred pounds of iron and wood. Effie allowed himself a degree of relaxation. It would take a while before he could unbend fully. But respite was coming. That was the beauty of an Earls Trip.

“Let us go ,” he said. “Let us go now .”

“Go!” Leander agreed.

A footman stuck his head inside before they could do that, and Effie’s heart sank. Another delay. What could this mean but that Mr. Nancarrow’s mission had failed?

“We are going ,” Effie said in a low voice to the boys. “Whatever happens, we are going on the trip.”

“Why would we do otherwise?” one of them asked. Effie wasn’t sure who, because he was occupied bracing himself. He straightened his spine and raised his eyebrows at the footman, trying to affect a pose of aristocratic impatience.

“A letter has just arrived for Miss Turner, my lord.”

Effie fell over himself lunging for the letter, belatedly regretting the fervor with which he received it.

“Thank you.” He tucked the letter into his pocket, the effort of not immediately tearing it open almost too much to bear. Usually, he fell on one of Julianna’s letters like a hungry vulture at its first meal in days.

He turned to Archie. “Let us go.”

Archie gazed back at him for several silent beats.

“Please,” Effie added, allowing a note of the desperation he felt to creep into his tone.

Archie nodded, rapped on the ceiling, and they rumbled blessedly off.

“Who is Miss Turner?” Simon asked.

Archie, for his part, said nothing, just regarded Effie with a quizzical expression.

When Effie didn’t answer, Simon pressed further.

“Turner was your mother’s maiden name, was it not? Are you corresponding with a relation of hers?”

Effie knew the question was disingenuous. The footman had said a letter had come for Miss Turner, not from Miss Turner. Simon was as quick as they came. He hadn’t missed that.

After a moment of silence while Effie floundered silently, Archie, who had continued to gaze at Effie with a curious expression, said, “Perhaps we ought to stop at my house, after all,” He turned to Simon. “What do you think?”

“I think you were right the first time,” Simon said. “The countess will be surprised by the arrival of a printing press, but she will find a place for it. She’s quite unflappable.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Archie said.

Simon had brought a newspaper into the coach, and it was resting on the seat next to Archie. Archie picked it up and handed it to Simon and got out the beads he worried with his fingers as a way of keeping his mind calm.

Effie had the sense that Archie, with the question and the newspaper, had been purposefully distracting Simon from the matter of the identity of Miss Turner. Effie was grateful.

Grateful and a little guilty. He didn’t like to hide things from the boys. They didn’t do that.

He was ready to confess. But he needed that drink or four, the quiescence that only an Earls Trip could provide. They would settle in at their destination, and once he’d got the rhythm of the place, of the holiday, he would tell them about it.

About her .

The letter in his pocket felt warm, which he understood was impossible. But it was crying out to him. It wanted to be read.

He ordered himself to hold off. Did he want to read the letter hastily and surreptitiously in a close carriage, or did he want to savor it? Let his fingers trace the embossed header on the cream-colored stationary?

Miss Julianna Evans, Editor

Le Monde Joli

Before diving in, he would allow his gaze to slide languorously over her sharp, small hand. Her ur s were always formed so similarly to her w s, making turn into twn . Her uppercase G was nearly indistinguishable from her uppercase S when she was exercised over her topic and therefore writing quickly.

Next, he would jump ahead and take in her signature, which for quite some time now had been simply JE . He still remembered his elated shock the first time she had signed off that way. The familiarity implied by the use of mere initials never failed to give him a thrill.

So, yes, he would wait and read the letter in Brighton.

He eyed the boys. Both were still engaged in their solitary pursuits. Leander, whose cage was on the floor near Effie’s feet, had fallen asleep, lulled by the rocking of the coach.

To distract himself from Julianna’s letter, Effie decided to work on his “Advice for Married Ladies” column for the December issue of Le Monde Joli . It was due the middle of next month and would have to be posted shortly after he returned home.

The coach was too jostley for him to write, but he took out the letters he intended to answer. He would reread them. Ponder the predicaments presented therein, and in so doing, return to himself.

Dear Mrs. Landers,

I am the mother of two daughters and four sons ranging in age from ten years to two months.

Dear lady , he thought. Stop right there. I already know what your difficulty is, but I fear there is no settlement. He returned to the letter.

My husband is a barrister and works long hours. I am grateful for the living he provides our family, but by the end of the day, I am at my wit’s end. Everywhere I turn there is a child in want of something. Small hands always grasping, grasping, grasping. Yesternight, I asked my husband to hold the baby so I might step into the garden and breathe the first fresh air of the day, even as day became night. He refused, telling me that child-rearing is women’s work. It’s not that I disagree, but what woman will be around to do said rearing when I have lost my wits?

My dear Mrs. Landers, I am in despair, and that is understating the matter entirely.

Yours sincerely, Bound for Bedlam

He smiled at the moniker she’d chosen. When “Advice for Married Ladies” debuted a year ago, the initial batch of letters they received had been signed with their writers’ real names. Julianna had decided to use descriptive pseudonyms, and they’d had fun naming their correspondents. Gradually, correspondents had begun naming themselves.

He flipped to the next letter.

Dear Mrs. Landers,

My son spilled castor oil on two of my husband’s three shirts. The oil will not come out. Have you any advice? Cordially, Mrs. Frank Lewiston

That one would be easy enough, though he would have to name her. “Oily,” perhaps. On he went.

Dear Mrs. Landers,

Is there ever a circumstance in which a wife might be justified in spending Christmas with her own family? My mother is taken quite ill, and I fear this Christmas may be her last. I should like to spend it with her. The dilemma is that my husband is equally bent on spending the holiday with his family, as we always do. I have offered, variously, to take the children with me, or to leave them with him—his reasons for needing me to be at his family’s home have changed from not being able to look after the children on his own to not wanting to be away from the children on Christmas—but he isn’t having it.

My mother is my greatest champion and confidant. I do not know what to do. Please help.

Cordially, Home for Christmas

Poor lady. Yet how lucky she was to have a parent she considered a champion and confidant.

Dear Mrs. Landers,

I must confess from the outset that I am not a married lady. I was to be. If everything had happened as it should have, I would have been married last week.

My betrothed did not appear at the chapel at the appointed time. We—my sister, my parents, the vicar, and I—waited and waited. Eventually, my father dispatched a messenger to the home of my erstwhile betrothed—his family is from the next village. The man came back and reported on a conversation he’d had with my fiancé’s parents. They said he had left on a tour of the Continent, and what’s more, they knew nothing of a wedding—or of me.

I fear I am losing my grasp on sanity. This was the same man who’d met my family numerous times, who made quite an impassioned speech when he asked for my hand—after securing my father’s permission. And now he is gone without a trace.

I have read your column with great interest since its debut. I always find myself agreeing with your advice, and I have no one whom I may ask this question. My mother is horrified and intent on pretending the betrothal, not to mention the wedding-that-wasn’t, never happened. My father paces the drawing room muttering about bounders. My sister seems to be worried that being left at the altar is infectious and will somehow damage her prospects—she is eleven. No one seems to care about me and the ghost of my betrothed.

Is my heart broken forever?

Sincerely, Miss Heartsick

“What are you reading?”

Effie was startled out of his epistolary reverie by Simon’s question. He shoved the letters into his satchel. “Nothing.”

Simon narrowed his eyes. Fair enough: his skepticism was entirely justified.

“I am reading a letter,” Effie amended.

“From whom?”

“I have . . . a few correspondents.”

“Such as?”

“Olive Morgan.” It was true. Since they’d struck up a friendship on last year’s Earls Trip, Effie and Olive had written each other long, heartfelt letters, and in fact, he had her latest with him as he intended to answer it from Brighton. Olive was the only person alive who knew about Effie’s feelings for Julianna. That was because Olive was also a “Miss Heartsick.” She and Effie had commiserated on the matter of having given one’s heart to someone impossible.

“That looked like more than one letter,” Simon said. “Are they all from Miss Morgan? And who is Miss Turner? You never answered that.”

Goodness, Simon was inquisitorial today. “Does anyone know if the king is in Brighton?” Effie asked by way of distraction.

“I sincerely hope not,” Archie, whom Effie had thought wasn’t paying attention to the conversation, said. “The possibility of such is the potential fatal flaw in our plan this year.”

His Majesty had long been devoted to the seaside town of Brighton, and, in fact, his ever-growing palace—which was the raison d’être of this year’s trip—was Brighton’s crowning jewel. But the same royal favor that had made Brighton a destination also made it . . . a destination.

“I’m sure we’ve never been anywhere so fashionable on an Earls Trip,” Effie said. “By all accounts, the king’s dinners last for hours. It sounds as if quite a society has been established. Did you know there are balls at both the Castle Inn and the Old Ship? Apparently the proprietors have agreed to alternate nights.”

Simon made a strangled noise.

“Indeed,” Archie said wryly.

“Well, what if the king is in residence?” Effie said. “It isn’t as if we must make ourselves known.” Of course, Mother would have an apoplexy if she learned Effie had been in Brighton the same time as the king and had not gotten himself an invitation to court. “We can skulk around and see the sights incognito, evading all inducements to join society. I suspect the balls are more summertime amusements, anyway.”

Once again, Effie could hardly believe he was hearing himself plot to avoid a ball. Fond as he was of fashion, art, and dancing, he was generally not one to miss a party.

Was he?

Perhaps the problem was that Effie did not know who he was anymore.

“We could devise disguises,” he added, trying to interest himself as much as the others. “That would be diverting, would it not?” Goodness knew, he could use a diversion. Existential crises did grow tiresome.

“I share an aversion to crossing paths with any of the Upper Ten Thousand, much less the king,” Simon said. “If it hadn’t been for my fervent desire to see the Pavilion, I’d’ve picked somewhere far less populated.”

The friends took turns planning their holidays, and this year’s had been Simon’s.

“Well, I for one am heartily in favor of the indulgence of fervent desires,” Effie said. Simon in particular had so few of them. Or perhaps it was only that he expressed so few of them.

Simon pulled a folded bit of newsprint out of the book he was reading. “The spherical dome is built on a cast-iron framework weighing sixty tons. Isn’t it remarkable? How can something so heavy appear to soar toward the sky?”

Leave it to Simon to have fervent desires related to engineering.

As Effie made noises of appreciation, his attention snagged on Simon’s book. “What are you reading?”

Simon snatched up the book, but it was too late.

“A novel ? And one of Miss Austen’s at that!”

“It was lent to me by Miss Brown,” Simon said defensively.

“My Miss Brown?” Archie asked.

“She’s hardly your Miss Brown, but yes.”

Miss Brown was Archie’s mother’s companion, a young lady with a scholarly bent. Effie wondered when Simon had been in a position to receive a book from Miss Brown but concluded that Simon, not caught up in self-inflicted melodrama as Effie was, had no doubt been diligent about calling on Archie’s mother when the family was in Town.

Chastened, he slumped against the squabs and looked out the window. Archie and Simon conversed a bit about the book in question, for Miss Brown had also recommended it to Archie’s wife. Eventually, as silence fell inside the coach, the rumbling of wheels and snorting of horses the only sounds, Effie patted his pocket where Julianna’s letter was smoldering and allowed himself to indulge in the sentiment he usually reserved for late at night, under cover of darkness.

Longing.

He closed his eyes and imagined a chartreuse sky. A woman with eyes a few shades darker.

“Ahem.”

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Archie’s throat-clearing pulled him back to the corporeal reality of the journey. The landscape had changed. They were surrounded by farmland, the cobblestones of Town having given way to a rutted dirt road.

“Oh,” Effie said, “is it time for the rules?”

“It is,” Archie said, “but I wonder if we ought to scrap them, or amend them.”

“Why would we do that?”

“Well, I’m not sure there’s any point in trying to prohibit you from writing poems and Simon from talking about Parliament.”

“You’re just saying that because you’ve brought a gun.” Effie wagged a finger at Archie. “That was ill-done of you. You can’t be waving a gun around Brighton.”

“I haven’t brought my fowling piece,” Archie protested.

“He hasn’t brought his fowling piece,” Simon said to Effie. “But you will note he hasn’t said he hasn’t brought a gun generally.”

“I did note that,” Effie said as Archie made vaguely indignant noises.

“Do you recall that we’re staying in Hove?” Simon asked.

Effie did not recall. “What’s Hove?”

“A fishing village a few miles west of town. We’re staying in a house owned by a friend. It’s empty this year.” Simon smirked. “But unlike last year with you at the helm, I have established that it is provisioned and staffed.”

“Yes, yes.” Effie waved a hand dismissively. “We had a fine time last year in the end.” He narrowed his eyes at Archie. “Some of us more so than others.”

“My point,” Simon said, talking over Archie’s grumbling, “is that the house is rather isolated. It’s on the edge of town and has access to a secluded beach.”

“Oh, so Archie has brought his guns.”

“I have not!” Archie protested, throwing up his hands. “I haven’t hunted since last Earls Trip.”

Effie chuckled. That was the influence of Archie’s new wife. The Countess of Harcourt, née Clementine Morgan, loved animals so much she refused to eat them. “When was the last time you had a pork chop, or a leg of lamb?”

“It has been a very long time,” Archie said, “and I am looking forward to consuming both this fortnight.” He paused. “I think.”

“As for the rules,” Simon said, “we ought to have the ceremonial recitation of them even if we’re being rather more relaxed about infractions these days.”

“Yes,” Effie agreed. “It’s tradition.”

And wasn’t having traditions with people you adored one of the sweetest parts of life?

“All right.” Archie passed out tumblers and sloshed a few fingers of port into each.

Effie marveled at how he never spilled a drop when he did this, despite the lumbering of the coach. That was Archie: graceful, agile, athletic.

Archie cleared his throat theatrically. “Gentlemen. Welcome to Earls Trip 1822. Allow me to remind you of the rules. Number one: every time Marsden says the word ‘Parliament,’ he must down a dram of whisky. Number two: Featherfinch is strictly prohibited from writing poems, unless they are naughty ones. And should you be harboring any concerns that I fancy myself above the law, we come round to number three: Harcourt is not permitted to shoot anything.” He rolled his eyes. “Which there is no danger of, because he hasn’t brought a gun.”

Effie and Simon jeered good-naturedly.

“And finally,” Archie continued with a flourish, “the most important rule of Earls Trip . . .”

They spoke in unison. “What happens on Earls Trip stays on Earls Trip.”

Leander awakened and added, “Go!”