Page 63

“It’s about work.”

Oh. That was … a bit disappointing? “What about it?”

“I said I was proud of my work. Are you proud of yours? I imagine you must be.”

“I am.”

“But do you enjoy it? That is what I truly want to know.”

“Not particularly,” he said, choosing not to overthink his answer. “Much of it is deadly dull.”

“But you seem so terribly devoted to it,” she said, laughingly, and there were those crinkles he had wanted so badly to see. They were worth the wait.

“I am devoted to my work, but that doesn’t mean it’s not dull.” He smiled. There was something delightful about being so forthright.

“Then why do it so earnestly? You could be a more typical peer, showing up for votes, swanning off the rest of the time.”

“I consider it my duty. And I’m not saying that just because something is dull, it’s not worth doing. In fact, sometimes the dullness feels like the whole point.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” she said.

“There’s a devotional aspect to tedious work.”

“Devotional?”

“Oh, don’t listen to me,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s not as if I am doing the Lord’s work.”

“I think I understand what you mean. It’s not unlike tending to Lady Harcourt. The days are all the same. Even when they’re different, they’re the same, which I realize makes no sense.”

“It makes sense. A committee discussion of the Warehousing Bill is, technically, different from a committee discussion of the Silk Manufacture Bill, and yet … it is not.”

“Precisely. Singing ‘Sally in the Valley,’ which, as you know, her ladyship is currently fixated on, a dozen times is different from singing ‘Over the Hills and Far Away,’ which was the prior preoccupation, a dozen times, and yet it is not. I think that must be the nature of devotional endeavors—repetition can feel weighty, perhaps even holy, when it is in service of something important.”

“Yes, precisely.” He was pleased by how aptly she was summarizing a position he had struggled to articulate. “May I ask what has brought on this line of questioning?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I have been pondering the question of why I do what I do. I know why I did it to begin with—you heard that sad story. But why do I keep doing it?” She waved a hand as if dismissing an answer he was about to make, but he did not have one at the ready.

He’d been trying to puzzle through if there was a deeper meaning to all her questions.

“Of course,” she said, “I do it because I have nowhere else to go. I have no one to keep me.”

I have no one to keep me.

Simon felt the sentence echoing in his chest, pinging around and hitting tender, hidden flesh.

“Oh, don’t listen to me,” she said. “I am talking nonsense. Let us speak of happier things. I always knew you and Lords Harcourt and Stonely were bosom friends, but I must say it is a delight to see you in action. How lucky you all are to have each other.”

“Yes,” he said, for it was true, though he wondered how she had come to that conclusion. He hadn’t spent much time with the boys since the ladies got here. The arrival of their wives had distracted them.

“What do you think is the most important trait in a friend?” she asked.

“I suppose it must be compassion. Understanding.” Those were the traits Effie and Archie had in spades that Simon most benefited from.

“Hmm.”

She sounded skeptical. “You do not agree?”

“I don’t disagree, but for me the answer would be loyalty.”