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“Never mind,” Archie said, taking a long draught of his ale.

Were they onto him? Perhaps they hadn’t been as wrapped up in their wives as he’d thought.

He was starting to panic.

“I must come clean about something!” he blurted. He needed a decoy. He wasn’t in the habit of lying to the boys, but this wasn’t lying, exactly. How could he lie when he didn’t understand what was in his own heart? No, he was merely throwing them off the scent, buying the time he needed for self-reflection. And, he consoled himself, he was doing so by telling them the truth. A truth.

Effie and Archie put down their mugs and gave him their attention.

“I can no longer carry around this burden,” he said, playing his role with a degree of theatricality he wouldn’t have thought himself capable of.

“Well, my goodness, Simon,” Effie said. “Out with it, then.”

“This injury to my nose”—he touched the scabbed-over scrape—“was not the result of a shaving mishap. It was, in fact, a reading injury.”

“What in Heaven’s name is a reading injury?” Archie asked.

He explained, and when he was done, a momentary silence settled.

Then they burst out laughing.

“This was exactly why I didn’t tell you,” Simon harumphed, but he was pleased that his diversionary tactic seemed to have worked.

“What book were you reading?” Archie asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Humor me.”

“I believe it was Frankenstein that so injured me.”

“Where did you get a copy of Frankenstein? I don’t think you mentioned its providence when we were talking about it the other day.”

“Miss Brown lent it to me,” Simon said. He had been avoiding saying so the other day, but, he reasoned again, everyone knew Miss Brown was in the habit of lending him books.

“My Miss Brown?”

By God, if Archie didn’t stop calling her that, Simon was going to have an apoplexy.

“Yes,” he said, congratulating himself on what he hoped was a mild demeanor.

“What’s the matter, Simon?” Effie asked.

“Not a thing.”

“I remember last time you called on us at the London house, Miss Brown lent you a copy of Pride and Prejudice. I did not notice Frankenstein pass between you.”

Simon’s face was burning now along with his ears. Excuses, lies—more lies—were bubbling up inside him, but he forced himself to remain silent.

Archie, apparently unfussed by receiving no answer to his query, went on to say, “Since Clementine came to live with us, I have learned that Miss Brown is quite the reader of novels. The two of them are always talking about them.”

“How could you not know that someone who had been a member of your household for so many years was a reader of novels?” Simon asked.

“I … don’t know.” Archie’s brow furrowed. Perhaps the question had dislodged him from the question of the origin of Simon’s copy of Frankenstein.

How could anyone not notice everything about Diantha? That she read books and collected ribbons and was fiercely proud—but not vain, as Miss Austen had said.

That she did have a kind of rage roiling beneath the seemingly placid surface of her.