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“I guarantee it won’t.”

“It will! Plum! Feel how light and pleasing it is to say. Plum!”

This time, Archie dismissed the ludicrous name not with words but with water. Soon, the three of them were engaged in a splash fight, as if they were children.

When the battle frittered out, they were all panting.

Archie pushed back his wet hair. “At least that exertion provided a bit of a warming effect.”

“Speak for yourself.” Effie hoisted himself out of the pool. “I can endure this torture no longer. I cannot fathom how the air can be so warm and this water so cold.” He looked down at himself. “This temperature does not present certain aspects of a man’s anatomy in the most advantageous light.”

Archie snorted, heaved himself out, and grabbed the shirt he’d left by the edge of the pool. “I started a fire, even though it’s still light.”

Simon followed their lead, dressing quickly and stooping to pick up his spectacles and the book he’d left by the side of the pool.

“Did you think you were going to read in the water, Simon?” Effie asked.

“I had a mind to. I wasn’t expecting the proceedings to be so boisterous.”

“Only you would be able to read in such an uncomfortable setting. It’s as if you can divorce your body and your mind.” Effie dragged one of the chairs that encircled the firepit closer to the flames. “Oh, that is nice. Almost makes the cold worth it.”

“What are you reading these days?” Archie asked, adding another log to the fire.

Simon held the book up to show them.

“Frankenstein!” Effie exclaimed.

“Yes, it was just published in a second edition. The first edition was published anonymously, but this edition bears the name of its author—Mary Shelley.”

“You seem to have developed a fixation on lady novelists,” Archie said.

Simon had made a strategic error. Questioning about the book would lead to questioning about when and where he had acquired it, which of course had been on his unreported visit to Miss Brown. No, his visit to the dowager.

He should have said something about that visit. It was strange that he hadn’t.

“I’ve read novels by two ladies,” he said. “Miss Austen, and now Mrs. Shelley. I’m not sure that constitutes a fixation.”

“Hmm,” Archie said, and was he putting together that Miss Brown had lent Simon the book?

“So what if I am fond of lady novelists?” he said by way of distraction. “I think it is possible that ladies have a unique view on the foibles of society.”

“Do you?” Effie asked. “Why?”

“I suppose because many of them are relegated to the edges of society, of power. They are the proverbial wallflowers, if you will. It affords them a vantage point from which to observe.”

“I think you are correct,” Effie said. “But from what I hear about Frankenstein, it can hardly be attributed to the observations of a wallflower.”

“No, I suppose not,” Simon had to admit.

“Perhaps I ought to take up novel reading,” Archie said wryly. “It seems everyone around me is doing it.”

“Novels are quite diverting, it turns out,” Simon said. “Especially the more fantastical ones. They distract one from one’s worries—utterly. Though I am not sure ‘distract’ is a strong enough word.”

“What did you think novels did?” Effie asked with amusement.

“I don’t know! I hadn’t read one since school. And those I remember as rather a slog.”

Effie turned to Archie. “I have to say, I didn’t have ‘Simon Discovers Novels’ on my agenda for Earls Trip 1823.”