Earls Trip

6 - Guess Who’s （Not） Coming to Dinner

6

Guess Who’s (Not) Coming to Dinner

That afternoon, Clementine and Olive and Archie and his friends took a nuncheon, such as it was, on the terrace, such as it was.

Clementine had been worried about whether there would be anything for her to eat. The kitchen seemed well able to supply bread, but she was fairly certain neither Olive nor Archie would allow her to continue to subsist on bread alone. To her relief, Mrs. MacPuddle served baskets of grapes and peaches along with what she supposed were meant to be biscuits. A curious nuncheon indeed.

It was the biscuits that were the problem.

“My goodness,” Lord Featherfinch said after an unsuccessful attempt to bite into one.

“Indeed,” Archie said, making a face and setting his own gingerly back on his plate after a single bite. Clementine had done the same.

Lord Featherfinch regripped his small, hard puck and applied himself to the task anew. After several seconds of chewing, he asked, “Is that . . . anise?”

Clementine popped a grape into her mouth and surveyed the terrace. The setting for their repast wasn’t much more functional than the biscuits, though it was pretty in a ramshackle sort of way. The stone wall between their party and the overgrown gardens beneath them—unlike the remarkable topiary out front that Clementine had discovered on her morning ramble, the back garden appeared not to have been tended in years—was crumbling.

The ground beneath them was in similar condition, as evidenced by the fact that Lord Marsden, who appeared, saying, “Forgive my tardiness; I lost track of time,” tripped over an errant stone and stumbled his way to the table.

“Beware the biscuits,” Lord Featherfinch said as Lord Marsden took his seat.

Olive said, “I’ve consulted with Mrs. MacPuddle and visited the kitchen, where there is but one maid. No cook. Apparently the master of the house does not keep one, not being ‘of a mind to fuss over his food.’”

“Ah, yes, that does not surprise me,” Lord Featherfinch said. “Sir Lionel lives a life of the mind.” He looked around. “Which perhaps explains the . . . state of things.”

“Where is Sir Lionel, anyway?” Lord Marsden asked. “He seems a rather eccentric sort.”

“He is writing a collection of essays on solitude,” Lord Featherfinch said, “so he has gone away to really immerse himself in the sensation.”

“His giant, understaffed Cumbrian castle in which he lives alone not providing enough solitude for the task,” Lord Marsden said wryly.

Lord Featherfinch shrugged. “He has removed to the Outer Hebrides.”

“Mrs. MacPuddle advises that a cook might be borrowed from a nearby estate,” Olive said. “If everyone is in agreement, I shall inquire this afternoon.”

Clementine contemplated Olive, who had been daintily eating a grape as if this were a perfectly normal afternoon in perfectly normal company and not the day after she’d been rescued from a botched elopement with her sister’s erstwhile betrothed.

Everyone was in enthusiastic agreement with Olive’s plan, including Clementine, because this meant her sister would be able to explain Clementine’s unique dietary requirements to the cook. Olive was always attuned to these sorts of domestic details. Clementine smiled gratefully at her sister before remembering that she was, well, not angry anymore, but . . . something.

Regardless, Olive really was going to make some man a marvelous wife someday. Clementine was thrilled that someone was not going to be Theo.

“Shall we reapply ourselves to these beastly biscuits?” Lord Featherfinch asked, and just as they were about to, a slate tile fell off the roof and landed on the stone floor a few yards from them.

“Goodness!” Olive exclaimed. “This is quite the house.”

“It’s haunted, supposedly,” Lord Featherfinch said.

“Truly?” Olive turned, rapt.

“Yes, it underwent a siege during the Jacobite risings and is reportedly haunted by the ghost of a Highlander called Magnus MacCallum.” Lord Featherfinch lowered his voice. “Did anyone hear or see anything unusual last night?”

“Aside from the topiary garden, you mean,” Lord Marsden said drily, and Clementine had to stifle a laugh.

Lord Featherfinch leaned forward, as if he were about to impart a great secret. “I can’t be sure, but I awakened suddenly from the midst of a dream well after midnight, and I could have sworn I heard bagpipes.”

“But mightn’t you actually have heard pipes?” Lord Marsden asked. “Real ones, I mean, not phantasmagoric ones? We are quite close to the Scottish border.”

“Hmm,” Lord Featherfinch said, and Clementine had the sense that he was disappointed by this application of logic. “I suppose we shall have to undertake a bit of ghost-hunting to be certain.”

Olive made a delighted noise and Lord Marsden an exasperated one.

“I propose a walk down to the forest.” Lord Featherfinch gestured to the encroaching wilds. “I understand that the path of the marauding MacCallum clan can still be seen, even all these centuries later. Supposedly, nothing grows over the route their invasion took.”

Clementine had to admit that was a sight she would like to see, not because she believed the spirits of the long-dead MacCallums had salted the earth but because a stand of beech trees near Hill House had fallen subject some years ago to a rapid and terrible blight that had resulted in similar-sounding conditions.

Archie cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention. He hadn’t spoken yet, but Clementine had been acutely aware of him since she arrived at the table. He had a commanding presence she didn’t remember from their youth. He’d always been tall, but he was leaner than he used to be, with prominent cheekbones and a fall of dark hair that made him seem very grown up and very polished. He had grown into his title. “Ghost-hunting is all fine and good for those so inclined, but we have matters to discuss first, do we not?” He looked at Clementine censoriously. “Now that we are all present, shall we get on with it?”

Yes. As much as Clementine wished the ghosts of the MacCallums would seize this moment to spirit her off, she owed these men an explanation. She took a fortifying breath. “I suppose I shall have to tell you all everything.”

“I wish you would,” Lord Featherfinch said. “I have a notion it’s bound to be a most exciting tale.”

“I have a notion that both you and your sister have been grossly mistreated,” said Lord Marsden, his voice laden with kindness and affront in equal measure. “If you would care to tell us what happened, you can rest assured we will do what we can to assist.”

“Indeed,” Lord Featherfinch agreed. “I assure you that my interest, while perhaps not entirely selfless—I am a poet, after all, so human experience is my muse—is not salacious.”

“Thank you,” Clementine said, and she meant it. “And thank you for all you have already done for us.”

“Yes, thank you,” Olive said, reaching for Clementine’s hand under the table.

Clementine let her keep it this time, allowed herself to be bolstered by the gentle pressure of her sister’s hand. She thought of the woods she would escape to after this meal.

“I met Mr. Bull at a party given by some neighbors in London,” she began slowly, thinking back to that unfortunate evening with the benefit of hindsight. “I was in my third London Season, which was for me three too many.” She glanced at Archie, who was watching intently, though he remained silent. “Lord Harcourt will remember that I was never inclined toward Town, preferring to spend my time at my family’s house outside Chiddington, near Mollybrook.”

“Two of a kind you are that way,” Lord Marsden said. “Harcourt’s aversion to London is such that I hardly see him anymore.”

“My father has been anxious that I marry,” Clementine continued, “despite the fact that I realized early on in my first Season that I had no desire to do so. So we have been spending nearly all our time in Town, or in Bath, these recent years. Anywhere my father thinks I might catch a husband.” She paused, trying to think how to put this. “I have not as yet found one I can abide.”

“Ah,” Lord Featherfinch said, “the men of the Upper Ten Thousand are rather a disappointment, are they not?”

Clementine wasn’t sure if he was in jest. Regardless, she might as well tell them the unvarnished truth. “It’s more that I discovered how constitutionally ill-suited I am to matrimony. Perhaps I started too late: my initial Season was delayed two years by my mother’s lingering illness. It may be I was already too formed in my opinions by the time I debuted. Regardless, I have declared my fervent wish to remain unmarried. My father has nevertheless remained insistent, and so we have been at odds.”

“It was our late mother’s dearest wish that our father see us married,” Olive explained. “And that wish runs counter to my sister’s natural inclinations,” she added diplomatically. Hmm. Perhaps Olive had been more observant these recent years than Clementine had given her credit for.

“To put it plainly,” Clementine said, deciding to be direct, “I’m not a good prospect, and Father is growing desperate.”

“Not a good prospect how?” Lord Marsden objected. “You seem a very capable sort to me.”

“It’s not every man who wants a wife who would run away alone to confront a criminal,” Archie said drily.

“I am well aware that my interests and inclinations run counter to those of most well-bred young ladies.” Clementine did not want to enter into a debate about her marriageability. To do so suggested she was entertaining the notion to begin with, which she most decidedly was not. She pushed on with the story. The sooner it was out, the sooner this would be over. Archie’s friends were very kind, but she couldn’t escape the feeling that she was on trial. “Mr. Bull is a proponent of what is deemed vegetarianism—the removal of animals from one’s diet.”

“So we have heard,” Lord Featherfinch said.

“He’s written a pamphlet. It was all the crack early last Season. I read it, and even though I now understand that Mr. Bull is the worst sort of hypocrite”—the image of that plate of roast beef still boiled her blood—“I was taken by his ideas. I’ve always been a friend to animals and have often wished I didn’t have to eat them. His writing was the first time I’d seen anyone put words to the notion that perhaps I didn’t have to. And not only that, but perhaps I shouldn’t. Perhaps no one should.”

She glanced at Archie, who had raised a single eyebrow—she’d forgotten that he could do that—before continuing. “Mr. Bull and I struck up a friendship, and before I knew it, he was . . .” She closed her eyes briefly. It was so lowering. “Well, he was flattering me, I suppose. It happened very quickly, and it was all so . . .” She cleared her throat. “He proposed. He said he was in need of a wife who could be a helpmeet. He begrudged the time he had to spend overseeing the production of his writings and the dissemination of his ideas. If he had someone to whom he could dictate his manuscripts, on whom he could rely to liaise with printers, keep track of social and speaking engagements, and so on, this would liberate time for higher-level thinking. I wanted to be that person. I was enamoured of his ideas. Not just his ideas, if I’m being truthful. I even came to . . .” She’d been going to say that while she hadn’t loved Theo—she didn’t think—she had held him in great esteem. She had been able to imagine a kind of love growing, over time, alongside their righteous shared purpose.

“You needn’t tell us what was in your heart, Miss Morgan,” Lord Featherfinch said—again, with a degree of kindness that buoyed her.

“Indeed.” Olive squeezed Clementine’s hand under the table. “What was—or was not—in your heart is not relevant to how we move forward.”

Clementine took the point. The ease with which she’d fallen victim to Theo’s honeyed words was mortifying, but not an essential part of the story as far as these gentlemen were concerned. “I had been in receipt of offers previously, two of them, and I’d declined both,” she explained, wanting to provide some context.

Archie made a dismissive noise she couldn’t quite characterize. Did he not believe she’d had offers? Or was he, as Father had been, upset that she hadn’t accepted one of them? When she looked to him for clarification, that quizzical-bordering-on-skeptical demeanor of his remained unchanged, though at least the previously rogue eyebrow remained in line with its mate.

She pressed onward, turning to Lords Featherfinch and Marsden, who, unlike Archie and Olive, didn’t know Father. “My father is not the sort of man to force me to accept an offer I find truly objectionable. Or at least he hasn’t been historically. But he is also not the sort of man to give up when he’s set his mind to something. And so our stalemate has ground on, with no apparent end in sight. My plan had been to wait him out, to trudge through however many Seasons it took for him to accept that I was irredeemably on the shelf.”

Olive giggled, drawing everyone’s attention. “Apologies. I was just thinking that, given how stubborn both my father and sister are, we might be witness, years hence, to a thirty-year-old Miss Clementine Morgan, making the rounds of the Marriage Mart yet adamantly refusing to marry.”

Olive had been jesting, but she wasn’t wrong, so Clementine didn’t chuckle along with the gentlemen. Well, she didn’t chuckle along with Lords Marsden and Featherfinch. Archie was unamused, his demeanor transformed from skeptical to stony.

She picked up her story. “I’d begun to fret that I mightn’t be able to keep holding off my father indefinitely. He was exceedingly upset when I turned back my most recent suitor. With Mr. Bull, I was suddenly presented with a way to break the stalemate. A different sort of suit. A marriage, yes, but one that would allow me to do some good in the world. This seemed a union worth settling for, all things considered.”

She hated the way that sounded. While she hadn’t harbored any starry-eyed, missish ideas about making a love match of the sort her parents had—she knew most people were not so lucky—she also did not like to think of herself as someone who could be so calculating, so mercenary, when it came to matrimony. She wasn’t Olive. This wasn’t how she wanted to be seen by Archie’s friends. Or by Archie, whose countenance remained inscrutable. She wasn’t accustomed to not knowing what Archie was thinking. But then, she supposed she wasn’t accustomed to Archie himself anymore, not to this grown-up, unsmiling, imposing version of him, anyway.

“So you accepted Mr. Bull’s hand,” Lord Marsden prompted, drawing her attention from Archie.

“Yes, and my father was thrilled.”

“Oh, he was so happy!” Olive added.

Clementine thought about how to tell the rest—whether to tell the rest.

No. As Olive had said, every detail, every sentiment, need not be aired. All that mattered was the outline of the events themselves, the external shape of them. “After I accepted Mr. Bull’s suit, I came to understand that his interest in me had been largely financial.” She thought back to his questioning about Hill House. “He wanted to know how big our country house was, how many servants we had there, whether it was entailed.” And, oh, how ardent his attentions became after she’d answered that last question in the negative. She should have seen what he was doing. It had all been right there in front of her. As Olive would say, he had been showing her who he was, if she had only cared to look.

“It’s not that I flattered myself he thought me a great intellect,” she went on, trying to explain her actions to herself as much as to the assembled gentlemen, “but it turned out I had vastly overestimated his regard for my ideas, or even merely for my utility as a helpmeet—”

Another of those vague scoffing noises from Archie, but louder this time, so much so that it stopped her mid-sentence and drew everyone’s attention.

“Did you have something to add, Harcourt?” Lord Marsden asked.

Archie made no response other than to gesture for her to continue.

“My father had offered quite a sizable dowry, you see, given how desperate he was for me to marry, and while Mr. Bull had enjoyed a period of acceptance in some society households, he was certainly never going to make a match among the highest echelons of the aristocracy. I was, to put it plainly, the best he could do.”

“And with a cheery nature and the prettiest hair in Town—not to mention eight hundred pounds and an unentailed house—you are no consolation prize, Clemmie!” Olive cried with a tone of affront.

Olive thought she had pretty hair? Clementine’s hand floated up to touch the mass she had tried to tame into a chignon before nuncheon. But that was not the point. Theo hadn’t given a fig about her hair. “I should have seen that the money and the house were what he wanted. I’d been utterly daft not to. The maddening part”—the mortifying part—“is that even if I had, even if I’d fully understood that Mr. Bull regarded me a financial means to an end, and not the helpmeet I wanted to be, I still might have reconciled myself to the situation, for it is certainly true that married ladies enjoy a great deal more freedom than their unmarried counterparts. But then, certain . . . matters came to light. Certain . . . realizations were had.”

She kept returning to Olive’s refrain in her mind. Her audience needn’t know everything. The fact that there had been realizations that inspired her to break the engagement was the salient point; the content of said realizations was not.

“I cried off,” Clementine concluded, hoping that would be the end of it. In fact, there was a way to make sure that was the end of it—or of her part of it anyway, and that was by telling the truth about what happened next. “And the next thing I knew, my sister had run off with him.”

As Clementine had hoped, all eyes swung to Olive.

Who promptly burst into tears.

The gentlemen were greatly shocked, Clementine less so. This happened sometimes, with Olive. Everything would be fine, seemingly, then Olive would be overtaken with a dramatic bout of despair. Sometimes these bouts seemed performative, perhaps even manipulative. Other times, as now—and last night, at the inn—they appeared sincere. These episodes, the sincere ones, were puzzling. Why, for example, was Olive so distraught over Theo when this morning she’d been dismissive and had professed relief at being rescued from him?

“Oh, Olive,” Archie said sympathetically, offering her his handkerchief and patting her arm.

Why couldn’t Archie be kind to Clementine in such a fashion? Why, when it was her turn to speak, was he either stonily silent or else expelling incredulous huffs and skeptical snorts, yet the moment Olive became distraught, he was all chivalry and solicitousness?

“Will you tell me what happened with Mr. Bull when you confronted him?” Clementine asked Archie. “What did you say to him—or do to him?”

Archie turned from Olive and furrowed his brow at Clementine. He was trying to decide how much to tell her, which irkedher.

Though her question had been directed at Archie, it was Lord Marsden who answered. “To put it plainly, we assaulted Mr. Bull.”

“I see.” Clementine appreciated the honest answer. “And are you confident he will not reappear in society?”

“He will not,” Archie said firmly. “He’s bound for America.”

“America!” Olive exclaimed. “I thought he was bound for the Continent.”

“Harcourt gave him—”

“He will not reappear on English soil.” Archie shot a quelling look at Lord Marsden. “Rest assured.”

Clementine tried to tamp down her annoyance. She ought to extend the logic of Olive’s maxim to Archie and Lord Marsden. She needn’t know exactly what had happened. The salient point was that she and her sister were here, safe—and blessedly unwed. “Thank you,” she said quietly, suddenly humbled by the magnitude of these men’s loyalty. Archie’s to her and Olive, and the others’, she supposed, to Archie. “Thank you for everything.”

There was a moment of slightly awkward silence, but Lord Featherfinch punctured it by waving a hand dismissively. “Think nothing of it. We haven’t had this exciting an Earls Trip since the year we accidentally—”

Archie cleared his throat censoriously, but he did it with a smile. His good humor had returned.

“Indeed,” Lord Marsden said. “Featherfinch, are you forgetting the most important rule of Earls Trip?”

There were rules for these trips? How curious.

“Yes, yes.” More dismissive waves from Lord Featherfinch. “My point, ladies, is merely that your travails have lent an air of excitement to our holiday that I, for one, have found positively invigorating. Now, what does everyone say to a walk through the haunted woods?”

Olive was perking up at the prospect of a jaunt, but Archie intervened. “I’ve told the Misses Morgan that they are to stay out of our way as a condition of their continued residence here. This is an Earls Trip, after all, and I am disinclined to upend our traditions more than they already have been.”

“But only two of you are earls,” Olive said, and Clementine shot her a look. “Why do you call it ‘Earls Trip’?”

“Yes, I am a mere viscount,” Lord Featherfinch said. “I suppose ‘Earls Trip’ had a ring to it—I believe the name arose after Marsden inherited. We probably thought two out of three was sufficient to inspire the name.”

“And, Olive, Lord Featherfinch is heir to an earl.”

“Alas,” Lord Featherfinch said, which struck Clementine as curious.

“The relevant point,” Archie said, “is that this is a gentlemen’s trip.” He turned to the gentlemen in question. “So we shall go investigate the woods, which are almost certainly not haunted. Let me just fetch my fowling piece first.”

Clementine wanted to object to the prospect of Archie’s hunting, but felt she hadn’t the right. Happily, her cause was taken up by Archie’s friends, who began vociferously objecting to the notion. More was said about rules.

“Well,” Archie said as the lot of them bickered their way back inside, “I can hardly think that applies anymore. Imagine how differently things might have gone had I not had the weapon at the posting inn yesterday.”

Left alone, Clementine and Olive stared at each other. Clementine found herself entirely without speech.

“I say, Olive.” Archie popped his head back out. “If you’re going to the neighboring estate to inquire about a cook, you can’t go alone. Wait until we’re back, and one of us shall accompany you.” He paused, at attention, as if bracing for objection. Normally, Clementine would have issued one on Olive’s behalf. There could be no harm in walking through the countryside to the next house. But as with the hunting, she was feeling uncharacteristically chastened and without the moral standing to defy Archie’s wishes.

“It’s not a far walk,” Olive said. “I’ll take Clementine with me.”

“I can’t allow it. Clearly, your reputations are safe in this house, but we’ve no idea who resides nearby. What if someone recognizes you?”

“I hardly think that likely,” Olive countered, and Clementine had to smile. She hadn’t been able to muster the will to stand up to Archie, but it turned out she hadn’t had to because Olive was.

“Yes,” Archie said, “but we have so far averted disaster, and against great odds. Suddenly the unchaperoned Morgan sisters are going to show up at—”

“I shall take Mrs. MacPuddle with me,” Olive said. “I was planning to anyway. I can hardly knock on a stranger’s door and demand to be lent a servant. She will provide an introduction. We will call through the servants’ entrance and almost certainly not even encounter the family. If an explanation is required, I shall tell a version of the truth: I am visiting Quintrell Castle with my family”—she gestured to Clementine—“there was a bit of a mix-up regarding staffing, and we are in need of a cook.”

Archie opened his mouth, but Clementine interceded. “Better to err on the side of caution and wait for the gentlemen to return, Olive.” She couldn’t believe she was saying it. Neither could Archie, apparently. His eyebrows—both of them—flewup.

Olive acquiesced, but huffily. “All right.” She performed a put-upon sigh. “But even if we can secure a cook later, when one of you gentlemen can make yourself available to escort me, it will almost certainly be too late for her to remove from here and prepare dinner for tonight, so perhaps we may also venture into the nearest village to purchase something more edible than these biscuits?” She nodded at the unfinished plate.

“A fine idea,” Archie said. He paused as if unsure about taking his leave.

“After today’s outing to procure food—and a person to prepare our meals going forward—you shan’t see us again the rest of your holiday,” Clementine said.

Archie nodded stiffly and departed.

Olive looked as if she were going to say something. Clementine was suddenly so tired of talking. Of people. Of indoors. “I’m going on my own walk.”

“But Archie said—”

“Not to go to the neighbors’ house, and not to go to the village. I shall keep close to the house.”

Olive nodded. Clementine supposed, as she rose from the table, that she ought to ask Olive to join her. But she didn’t want to. In Clementine’s younger years, she had roamed the countryside with Archie without it feeling any different from when she was alone. But with anyone else, the company felt . . . too human. Like a mark of civilization inserting itself between her and the world. It was akin to wearing stays. Even if one managed to avoid being made overtly uncomfortable by them, one always knew they were there.

That was true even of her sister. Perhaps especially of her sister, who had often tried, as younger siblings were wont to do, to follow along after Clementine.

She no longer did that, though. In fact, Clementine had no idea what Olive did with the majority of her time.

Which perhaps did not reflect so well on Clementine as Olive had apparently spent some of her time lately making plans to elope with Theodore Bull.

She should ask her sister to accompany her, but she wasn’t goingto.

* * *

By seven o’clock, Archie was hungry and annoyed. Effie had volunteered, earlier, to accompany the Morgan sisters on the necessary outings to secure dinner for the evening and a cook for the rest of their stay. To Archie’s surprise, Simon had opted to join them. Archie had been imagining pouring a scotch—the absent Sir Lionel didn’t keep much in the larder, but he had quite an enviable scotch collection and had apparently left instructions that they should avail themselves of it—and indulging Simon in an against-the-rules discussion of political matters. It would be Archie’s way of thanking him for helping dispatch Mr. Bull yesterday. Simon had never been a fighter—he favored words over fists when it came to settling disputes—but he had planted a facer on Mr. Bull, stunning him sufficiently that Archie had been able to finish the job.

But no, to Archie’s shock. Simon apparently preferred venturing out with their gate-crashers to a bracing chat about the gold standard.

Archie would have gone, too, except that would have made it too much a party. He was still annoyed at the Morgans for putting themselves in such danger, and, having insisted so vociferously that they stay out of the men’s way, he couldn’t quite see his way through to joining the outing. So, with no one around to tell him not to, he’d gone hunting. He’d come home with a pair of pheasants, and Mrs. MacPuddle had assured him the kitchen maid was up to the task of plucking and roasting them. He hoped she was better with fowl than she was with biscuits.

As usual, hunting had calmed Archie’s mind. When he was stalking through the grass with the intense focus required to shoot a bird, especially without a dog, there was no room for anything else. Hunting made it feel as though his usually frayed attention was being sewn up. He’d been looking forward to dinner with the boys, who had a similar knitting-up effect on his spirit. He pulled his beads from his pocket and settled in to wait.

His stomach rumbled aggressively. Nuncheon had been both inadequate and ages ago. And tea had been just that—tea. The brown steeped liquid and none of the traditional accompaniments he generally found insufficient anyway. Archie’s many athletic pursuits tended to work up quite an appetite. If his friends were any longer, he’d be forced to eat the birds by himself.

“Well, aren’t you looking cross.”

It was Effie. Finally. He clattered into the drawing room with his cheeks pink—and wet, for it had begun to rain—and his voluminous greatcoat still on.

“Where have you been?”

“In Doveborough.”

“For four hours?”

“Capital little village.” This was from Simon, who appeared looking as ruddy and high-spirited as Effie but had taken the time to shed his outerwear. “Lots going on.”

“Excellent modiste for such a small place,” Effie said.

Archie refrained from pointing out that there was “lots going on” in London that Simon usually managed not only to avoid but to actively look down upon—not that Archie blamed him. And that surely London’s modistes were more excellent than Doveborough’s.

What business did Effie have with a modiste, anyway?

“We’ve returned with steak and kidney pies and a bushel of pears—just before the rain really started, so we were well-timed,” Simon said. “Miss Morgan posits that the pears can be transformed into a pudding with very little trouble. She’s at it even now.”

Archie started to object that Clementine, the daughter of a baronet, should not be toiling in the kitchen—the very point of their outing had been to find someone else to do such toiling, had it not?—but he stopped himself. As already established, this household was no threat to Clementine’s reputation. Therefore, it was no concern of his how she chose to fill her days. As long as she filled them far from Archie and his friends.

Which she was apparently doing.

“Well,” he said, shaking himself out of his musings, “shall we dine? I, for one, am fair gutfounded. I shot us some pheasants, so we shall be able to cobble together quite a credible, if odd, feast by the sounds of things.”

“Went hunting, did you?” Simon raised his eyebrows at Archie.

“If the rules of Earls Trip have been completely abandoned,” Effie huffed, “I shall insist upon reading my new sonnet at dinner.”

Archie smirked, but inside he was smiling most genuinely. The trip was being set to rights. Flagrant breaking of the rules usually waited until the second week, but it always happened, and it was always accompanied by banter and feigned martyrdom.

And honestly, Archie adored listening to Effie’s poems. The man had a genuine talent, and more than that, Archie appreciated how his friend’s love of poetry never waned as the years wore on. He’d grown from a boy composing clumsy limericks about exams into a man whose work was published, albeit anonymously, in magazines. Every time one of Effie’s poems was accepted for publication, Archie felt it almost as his own victory.

He would also enjoy listening to Simon drone on about whatever outrage the Tories currently had brewing.

He was proud of his friends and their accomplishments, and he was feeling rather smug about his own ability to seek out and keep the best company.

Though to be fair, that sentiment had to be tempered by his egregious lapse when it came to the Morgans these past few years. Perhaps dinner could also be the start of righting that ship. He vowed to ask Clementine and Olive for details regarding their father’s condition—and for details about their lives, the horrid Mr. Bull aside.

“Where are the ladies?” he asked twenty minutes later as he and Simon and Effie sat at a table large enough that the entire occupying MacCallum clan could have feasted at it—one that was, he noted, only set for three.

“They’re taking their meal in the breakfast room,” Simon said as he shook out his serviette.

“Why?”

“I believe because you told them to stay away from us.”

“I—” He had done exactly that. But . . . “I did not mean they shouldn’t dine with us.” There was a bell on the table. He wondered if it had been set there by Mrs. MacPuddle. Would ringing it summon anybody? He gave it a go.

While they waited, he tried to explain. “I only meant I didn’t want our trip to turn into one long feminine parlor game.”

“Was there ever any risk of that?” Simon asked, wearing a puzzled expression.

“One long, feminine parlor game,” Effie echoed drawing out the phrase as if tasting it on his tongue. He tilted his head and stared off into space, a stance Archie recognized as one associated with his creative process. “I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds terribly compelling.”

“Yes, my lords?” Mrs. MacPuddle arrived and dropped a curtsy.

“Will you ask the Misses Morgan to dine with us?” Archie said, and after Mrs. MacPuddle retreated, he surveyed the table. The pheasants had been roasted to a deep golden brown and dressed with mushrooms and sage. The pies were piled onto a large platter that was flanked with bowls of the same grapes and peaches that had been served earlier. There were no inedible biscuits in sight.

“An odd assortment of dishes, but a rather pleasing one, I think,” Effie said.

“And served all at once instead of in a series of removes, which is also pleasing for some reason,” Simon said. “I suppose it’s that it makes one feel that one is enjoying a reprieve from the strictures of society.”

Archie’s friends had given voice perfectly to his own thoughts. The hearty but simple repast seemed perfectly suited to the occasion; its informality was cheering and its abundance welcome. His mouth watered.

“My lords.” Mrs. MacPuddle reappeared. “The ladies send their thanks for your thoughtful invitation but must decline it, as they do not wish to cut up your peace.”

“No, no; they misunderstand. Miss Clementine Morgan is taking my earlier words about them giving us a wide swath too literally. Please tell them they are most welcome to sup with us.”

“My Heavens, Archie, what did you say to Miss Morgan to scare her away so thoroughly?” Simon asked as Mrs. MacPuddle departed.

“You know, this is like those letters from school,” Effie said. “Miss Morgan would write to you, and you would huff and complain about the burden of reciprocity her letters created, but then you’d follow me around entreating me to help you write her back.”

Archie remembered. This was part of the reason, he suddenly realized, he had fallen out of touch with Clementine and her family. There was the inescapable fact that the two families were almost never in the same place these days, but Clementine had continued to write to him after he was out of school. Without Effie to help him write back, and with Father endlessly and aggressively filling his head with estate matters, Archie’s intentions to answer Clem’s letters somehow always got pushed aside in favor of something more immediate.

And at some point, she stopped writing.

He felt the loss, perhaps more now than he had at the time.

“Yes,” Simon said, “and remember the time she told him she had gone to a dance at the assembly rooms in Chiddington and had been surprised when she was asked to dance not once but twice, but she hadn’t said who either partner was? And then he wrote back and asked her, but an answer to that question was not part of her next letter? He went near mad with the not knowing.”

“It was merely that I, too, was surprised Clementine had danced twice that evening. Clementine in those days was not very . . .” Civilized was the word he wanted to use, but he feared it would sound unflattering in a way he did not intend. He understood how elementally unsuited Clementine was for balls and musicales and teas, but to say so to others would sound like criticism when it was, in fact, the opposite. Other people, even Simon and Effie, wouldn’t understand.

Once again, Mrs. MacPuddle returned. “Miss Clementine Morgan has decided to refrain from the consumption of meat while she is in residence, and Miss Olive Morgan has decided to join her in this endeavor, so they regret that they cannot accept your kind invitation.”

Archie blinked. It sometimes took a moment to understand Mrs. MacPuddle’s thick brogue, which felt somewhat at odds with the formal way she was speaking to them; it was as if she was playing the role of a housekeeper on stage. “Well, they needn’t eat any pies or pheasant.” Though he was strangely disappointed at the notion that Clementine wouldn’t be tasting the fruits of his labors. His friends always praised the spoils of his hunts. In fact, they would probably do exactly that in a matter of minutes—if they could ever start their meal—even as they simultaneously harangued him for having broken the no-hunting rule. “Tell the ladies to bring whatever it is they’re supping on in here. We’ll wait.” His stomach grumbled fiercely, objecting to the ongoing delay.

It wasn’t until a few moments later, when Simon cleared his throat and Effie guffawed, that Archie realized he was staring at the door and drumming his fingers on the table. “I’m hungry,” he said peevishly. “Too hungry to make small talk.”

“Since, as has been well-established, we are not standing on ceremony here, why don’t we just start?” Simon said.

“No, no, if the ladies are to join us, we must wait,” Archie said. “We’re on holiday, but we’re not heathens.”

Effie and Simon shared a look Archie couldn’t make sense of.

“My lords.” Mrs. MacPuddle sighed as she appeared again and dropped into a half-hearted curtsy. She had been a remarkably good sport, what with all the back and forth. “The ladies have finished their meal and reiterate their wish not to disturb you.” She glanced pointedly at the untouched food, and Archie heard her unarticulated censure.

Oh, for Heaven’s sake. He was tempted to suggest they all at least eat the pudding together but feared that to do so would make him look desperate for the ladies’ company. Which he absolutely was not. This was an Earls Trip, after all. “Very well, then. Gentlemen, shall we?”

The three of them made quick work of pies and pheasants both, and if Archie had been out of sorts by being snubbed by the Morgan sisters, he was put to rights by the praise his friends bestowed on him for the birds, even if it was, as he’d predicted, interlaced with a good deal of griping about the attainment of said birds.

“You can’t enjoy the spoils at the same time you criticize the method,” Archie insisted with feigned affront, but in truth he could feel his rough edges being smoothed by the company of his friends just as his hunger had been sated by the feast.

And then the pears came.

“Dear Heavens!” Effie exclaimed after his first bite. “What sorcery is this? Honey, but what else?”

“Walnuts,” Archie said, eyeing the steaming bowl in front of him. “But I’m not sure what the dark liquid is.”

“Apparently Miss Morgan’s disapproval of consuming animals does not extend to consuming the fruits of their labor, given that bees make honey,” Simon said, his first bite on a fork poised to enter his mouth. Once it did, he moaned. “Sorcery indeed. This is the greatest thing I have eaten in weeks. Months.”

“It’s a pear!” Archie protested.

“It’s sorcery,” Effie declared again, but it came out sounding more like “It’s torture me,” since he’d jammed half the fruit into his mouth before speaking. That seemed an apt sentiment. Though Archie couldn’t quite articulate why, he did rather feel as if he were being tortured, and he couldn’t blame the sensation on hunger any longer.

“Well, it certainly isn’t better than the pheasant was,” Archie grumbled, peevishly stabbing a pear with his fork as the other two mused about what the mystery ingredient might be.

He took a bite, and flavor exploded on his tongue, an amalgam of familiar—honey and pear—and darkly mysterious.

It was better than the pheasant, blast it.