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The dowager seemed, via a somewhat impatient hand gesture, to indicate that she did like. Diantha looked at Lord Harcourt.
“You want me to do it?”
She wasn’t sure why he found that remarkable.
“I don’t generally pray,” he added.
That was remarkable. “But you are a man of faith.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“You don’t? You were bound for the Church. You refused my … When we spoke about a certain matter recently, you—”
“The matter for which we don’t require a code word?” he said blithely.
She ignored the teasing. “You said your God would disapprove.”
“Well, he’s not my God.” He paused. “If he exists.”
“If he exists? I beg your pardon!”
Lord Marsden sighed, seeming to signal a capitulation to actually talking, rather than merely teasing. “If I am a man of faith, it is because I spend a great deal of time thinking about faith, primarily the contradictions inherent in living a faithful life.”
“What do you mean?”
“Consider last year’s Earls Trip, which was to Brighton.”
“All right.”
“I wanted to see the Royal Pavilion. I have an interest in architecture.”
“You do?”
“Is that so unusual?”
“It’s just that I thought I knew everything about you.”
“Why would you think that?”
It was a good question, and not one she had an answer for. She made a gesture to indicate that he should continue speaking.
“We met Julianna there—Stonely’s wife, though of course she was not yet Lady Stonely. She secured for us a tour of the Pavilion’s interior. She commissioned me to write a story about it for her magazine, and, not to be overdramatic, but the whole affair caused a minor crisis of faith.”
“The Royal Pavilion caused a crisis of faith?” Goodness, what a mystery Lord Marsden was. He contained so many layers.
“Not the Pavilion per se, but what it represented. Why is it moral for one man, one family, to live in such splendor, when so many want for so much? Why is it moral for me to? And back to the king: Is he truly chosen by God? Is God playing chess? If so, are we the pawns? Or did he call checkmate at some point—perhaps when he realized the endless wars with France were in fact endless?—and abandon us to our fate?”
She was astonished. “You would have made a very interesting vicar.”
“I think I would have made a fine vicar. My personal questions aside, it would have allowed me a simpler, more direct way to do good.”
“But arguably, what you do now in Lords has a much greater impact, affects far more people.”
“Perhaps. And you, Miss Brown? Are you a woman of faith?”
“I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I give God very little thought. I did rail at him in my younger years, at various crisis points in my life. But at some point, I suppose I decided that I could argue with God, or I could get on with my life.”
“What an astonishingly forthright conversation we are having,” Lady Harcourt said, and again Diantha was startled at how easily she could forget herself when she was speaking with Lord Marsden.
