Reluctantly, he tied Drake’s reins to a sturdy branch and started towards her. Now that he had reassured himself she was quite safe, he wanted to get his apology over with quickly and get as far away from her as it was humanly possible to be. She unnerved him. Perhaps a tad more than the rest of the world currently unnerved him. He would be quick. Concise. Apologise for the delivery, but explain the sentiment remained the same.
I appreciate you were given certain privileges by my uncle on this land, but times change and I have plans for it now...
Plans! As if counting the ruined stones she put so much stock in, in an pathetic attempt to distract him from his lonely pit of despair, could feasibly be categorised as plans. He would just tell her the truth. He wanted to be left alone and needed the reassuring ring of three hundred acres of empty parkland to be assured that he was. This was his land—not hers!
Max was a few yards away when, clearly oblivious to his presence, she suddenly sat back on her heels and he instinctively darted back into the shadows, not quite ready to face her just yet.
Coward! My land! Not hers! Just apologise!
She stretched, her back arching, and her bosom he had tried not to think about jutted seductively against the soft linen of her shirt as she raised her arms in the air and rotated her shoulders. The sight made him forget his lofty purpose and he simply stared and, to his complete horror, yearned until he ruthlessly suppressed that pointless emotion. He could yearn all he wanted. No woman was going to yearn back.
To further taunt him, she rearranged her body to lie on the ground, her head and arms disappearing into the hole, her booted feet braced as she wriggled from side to side. The fabric of her breeches pulled taut on the rounded flesh of her delectable behind. He could hear her little grunts of exertion as she wrestled beneath the dirt and wondered, as he looked his fill, why the blazes there weren’t laws forbidding the wearing of breeches by females. Especially females who filled them as exquisitely as the troublesome Miss Nithercott.
‘Stop being so stubborn.’ She was talking to herself—or perhaps to her beloved pot—and with a sigh groped for the discarded trowel on the ground beside her. ‘You know you will lose in the end...’
Was it wrong to watch her so intently without her knowledge? Thinking less-than-pure thoughts? Probably—only he couldn’t seem to stop. There was something strangely charming as well as alluring about the sight. The stupid pot must mean a lot to her if she was prepared to go to these lengths in the middle of the night for it. Digging by candlelight couldn’t be easy.
Guilt pricked again. Because of course he knew this meant a lot to her.
He had seen the panic and desperation in her eyes when she had pleaded with him to allow her to dig and he had ruthlessly ignored it out of self-preservation. Then, determined to impose his will, he had loomed over her, intent on putting the fear of God into her, too.
Which was the only reason he was here.
She was owed an apology and then he would send her on her way with the pot and that would be the end of it. If they never crossed paths again it would be too soon and Max never wanted to have to smell her blasted intoxicating perfume again. Despite several feet of distance, the subtle scent of it assaulted him now. The heady aroma of lilacs and roses. Of lazy summer days and warm summer nights. Why the hell was she wearing perfume while her head was shoved in the mud?
Making sure his hair covered the worst of the damage on the left side of his face, he stepped out of his hiding place and was about to let her know he was there and get the cringing awkwardness over with, when she started to mutter again.
‘Come on... Come on... That’s it...’ Several frustrated yet determined grunts and a great deal of torturous wiggling later a single fist pumped the air as his feet came level with the edge of the hole. ‘Yes! Got you!’ She scrambled to her knees, grinning, and then promptly shrieked as she spotted him beside her, falling back on to her delightful bottom as she clutched at her heart, the silly lenses magnifying her rapidly blinking eyes.
‘Lord Rivenhall! Are you trying to give me an apoplexy?’
‘Sorry for startling you...’ Although it was technically she who should be sorry for trespassing again rather than looking irritated at his intrusion as she was now. Of its own accord, his hand reached out to help her up and to his horror she took it. The effect of her touch was staggering because he felt it everywhere as he pulled her to her feet before hastily letting go.
‘If I had been holding the pot, I might have dropped it! What were you thinking creeping up on me like that?’
‘If your head hadn’t been under the ground—my ground—you would have heard me.’
And he most definitely should have alerted her of his presence sooner. That he hadn’t had been down to damned cowardice again. Alongside the fruitless yearning.
Get it over with, man!
‘Actually, I came down here to...er...’ Max felt his toes curl with embarrassment inside his boots. ‘Apologise for my overly...um...aggressive tone when we last met. And the looming, of course.’
‘The looming?’
‘Yes. That was unnecessary and I am sorry if I frightened you... Both then and just now. I should have said something sooner, but...’ Good grief, he was babbling and feeling more uncomfortable by the second. He’d been staring at her. That’s why he hadn’t made his presence known sooner. ‘But I could see you were busy.’
‘How did you know I would be here?’
‘Because as you rightly pointed out the other day, I am not an idiot, Miss Nocturnal. Granted you hid the evidence of your clandestine visits reasonably well these past two days—but sadly the pot gave you away.’
‘Ah...’ She had the good grace to look sheepish as she stared down at her boots through those ludicrous spectacles which did nothing for her.
‘Ah indeed. Unless it had begun excavating itself, it did not take a genius to work out you were creeping here under the cover of night to continue doing what I had expressly forbidden you to do.’
‘I couldn’t very well leave it half-exposed.’
‘Couldn’t or wouldn’t?’
‘A bit of both. In my defence, and despite your looming, I did intimate I was not going to take particular heed of your warning until the task was finished. You threatened to build a wall, remember.’
‘I did.’ He rather admired her tenacity and her unapologetic forthrightness. She was an honest trespasser as well as an annoyingly persistent one. ‘I also recall threatening to set the dogs on you, yet neither appeared to have worked—because I see you are here. Again.’
‘That’s because I knew you had no dogs and I would have scaled a twenty-foot wall if I’d had to just to get my pot.’
‘You mean my pot, surely, seeing as it has come out of my land?’
‘Semantics. If it is anyone’s, my lord, then surely it is the nation’s pot, as it is of the utmost national importance? A missing part of our history which provides new avenues for us to study. Whose land it happened to come out of is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things.’ She was smiling again. Teasing him. In a good-natured, not-the-least-bit-intimidated or bothered-by-his-presence way. Nobody had dared do that in quite a while. Not even his sister who had lived to tease him. Before...
The past slammed into him and sullied his surprisingly pleasant mood. Surprising because he couldn’t recall the last time he had felt anything other than bleak. To cover the onslaught, he stared down into the neat hole she had dug and the crudely made pot sat proud and whole at the bottom of it.
‘Now that your precious pot has finally been liberated, can I assume I am finally to be rid of you?’
‘I’ve removed the last of the soil.’ Her eyes dipped, avoiding his, and, more pointedly, the second part of his question. ‘Now I need to lift it out. Which is the tricky bit...pottery is notoriously delicate after centuries in the mud. But I ha
ve at least completed all the close work.’
‘Is that what the bizarre magnifying contraption is about?’ He gestured to the lenses tied to her head and, as if suddenly remembering she was still wearing them, she hastily tugged at the ribbon until they fell to rest about her shoulders like an ugly necklace. Bizarrely it suited her, although to be fair, even sackcloth would suit her.
‘Er... Yes. I liberated them from my father’s effects, but they kept falling off as I worked. Anyway...’ Clearly intent on continuing with the task regardless, she strode to her wheelbarrow and retrieved an old blanket which she arranged like a nest next to the hole. ‘This bit could take a while...’ She flicked him a dismissive glance. The sort he used to use on his men to great effect when they stepped out of line and needed knocking down a peg or two. It was a bold move when she had absolutely no right to be here. ‘But I promise I will be gone before dawn.’ When he failed to budge, her brows furrowed in irritation. Another bold response when she was the one entirely in the wrong. ‘There is no need for you to stand guard, my lord. I will go.’
‘But will you come back, Miss Nosy? That is the bigger question.’ One he feared he already knew the answer to.
‘Beneath the pot is a large slab—sandstone, I think. Possibly a hearth of some kind, although I haven’t found the edges of it yet to discern its exact size. But a hearth would suggest we are currently standing inside an ancient dwelling of some sort, don’t you think?’
He stared back at her blandly.
‘Wouldn’t that be exciting?’ The smile died on her lips when she finally accepted he had no intention of smiling back. Then she sighed and finally stared him straight in the eye, her expression achingly sad and the previous excitement tragically missing from her voice. ‘There is so much more to uncover here, Lord Rivenhall. Would it be so terrible if I continued my work?’
‘Miss Nithercott, I...’ Max didn’t want to feel suddenly sorry for her. Did not want to feel guilty or cruel for denying her. He wanted peace. Space. Endless open fields blessedly free from people. The wind in his hair and the sun on his ruined skin. ‘I came here to be left well alone.’ This estate was a poor substitute for the vast expanse of the ocean or the endless horizons he still pined for, but it was all his and he had missed being outside. Was so tired of feeling suffocated by the walls and ceilings he endlessly stared at.
‘I would leave you alone. I promise to keep well out of your way. In fact, I shall even hide if I catch the merest glimpse of you. I can continue to dig at night and...’ The thought of that had him holding up his palm in defeat, but she misconstrued the gesture and her face fell and her slim shoulders slumped, making Max feel like a brute all over again even though his resolve to evict her was already waning and all his hopes for peace evaporating.
‘Please, my lord... This place... This work... It is everything to me. All that I have.’ And, God help him, he believed her. ‘I beg of you not to take it away.’ And suddenly she looked lost and he couldn’t bear that because he knew exactly how that felt. He had been lost since the day he awoke in laudanum-blurred agony on that Royal Navy frigate over a year ago and hadn’t found any trace of himself in the interminable months since. ‘Please...’
Max tore his gaze away from her eyes, hating the desperation he saw in them when he much preferred the sassy and indomitable Miss Nithercott to the one his self-preserving, selfish actions had created. Perhaps with strict boundaries, allowing her to dig her blasted holes wouldn’t be the end of the world? But they would have to be very strict boundaries indeed. He did not want to have to see her. Talk to her. Smell her. Even think about her. Or anyone for that matter. He just wanted to be left alone.
He turned to her again, ready to give her a list of stipulations. ‘If you promise to keep to the confines of the Abbey...’
‘Oh, thank you!’ She grabbed his hand again and the rest of his planned list of rigid rules and parameters died in his throat. ‘I promise you will never know I am here!’
Max instantly extricated his hand and, because his nerve endings mourned her, fisted it behind his back where she couldn’t see it. ‘No night digging. I expressly forbid that. It is not safe for a woman on her own to be all alone in the dark.’ Not that he wanted to contemplate exactly why she was on her own whenever he encountered her, why she wandered around unchaperoned at apparently all hours of the day or night. Or why there was no ring on her finger. Nor did he want to explore why he had the compelling urge to stand guard over her now, when now was absolutely the opportune time to escape. He’d assuaged his conscience with an apology and had a rational discussion with her and both things had left him feeling off kilter.
She made him feel off kilter.
‘I shall escort you home, Miss Nithercott.’ Not at all what he had intended to say.
‘There is no need. It will be light soon and it will take at least that to get the nation’s pot out of the ground.’ To prove her point, the first hints of dawn whispered in the distance.
‘Then I shall bid you a good day, Miss Nithercott.’ Before the unforgiving daylight made him more disconcerted than he already was.
Chapter Four
Dig Day 763: hearthstone—if it is indeed a hearthstone—is round!
There was only one metal Effie knew of which did not tarnish underground and that was gold. Although where this ancient Celtic civilisation had gold in Cambridgeshire was anybody’s guess. Cornwall perhaps was the closest place, or Wales. Both hundreds of miles to the west—not that she was an expert on British gold deposits. Yet the heavy, perfectly twisted bracelet in the palm of her hand was undoubtedly made of solid gold and completely unlike any other old jewellery she had ever seen or read about.
Judging by the sheer weight of the metal, and ancient provenance aside, it was also incredibly valuable. An inescapable fact which presented a dilemma. While Lord Rivenhall might not care about pottery or hearthstones, precious metal was another matter. It had come out of his land and so by rights it was his. Not telling him she had just uncovered a huge chunk of solid gold was dishonest.
She had to tell him.
Which necessitated breaking her agreement to stay well out of his way. And might irritate him all over again and potentially damage their truce. But what other choice did she have? Right was right, after all, and hopefully he would be reasonable enough to understand that.
She wrapped the bracelet in a handkerchief, tucked it into her battered satchel and set off in the direction of the house.
Smithson was, understandably, horrified to see her and she apologised profusely for putting him in the unenviable position of telling his unpredictable master she needed an audience. However, to the great surprise of them both, Lord Rivenhall apparently took the news well and suddenly appeared in the doorway of the drawing room looking extremely wary.
‘Miss Nithercott.’
That he did not invite her to join him in the drawing room or make any move to come towards her was telling.
‘Lord Rivenhall, I apologise for disturbing you, but I have found something I need to give you.’ Effie rummaged for the bracelet and held it out. ‘It’s gold, my lord. A very substantial piece of gold.’ The dark eye she could see dipped to the bracelet before fixing back on hers.
‘And?’
‘And I thought you should have it. It is obviously very valuable.’
The dark eye widened as she walked towards him and offered it. ‘I found it a few feet from the hearth all on its own, which leads me to believe it was accidentally dropped or buried, perhaps to keep it safe, much like Samuel Pepys did his Parmesan.’
‘I’m sorry...?’
‘Pepys...’ What had possessed her brain to jump forward fifteen hundred years in one sentence? No wonder Lord Surly looked confused. ‘The seventeenth-century diarist? He buried his cheese in his garden during the Great Fire of London.’ He was staring at her now as if she were mad, as people wer
e prone to do when she allowed her brain to speak freely without tempering her words. ‘Because Parmesan was expensive in sixteen sixty-six. I suppose it still is now, although I cannot say I know the exact price of it...’ She huffed out a sigh and gave her odd mind a stiff talking to. ‘Anyway, I digress... I suspect this bracelet is of a similar age to the pot. Which would make it at least two thousand years old. Perhaps more. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
He reached out and took it and she found herself contemplating his hands. They were big, making the substantial bracelet appear almost delicate as he held it. Hands which had obviously seen real work once upon a time, rather than the typically genteel, idle hands of the aristocracy. The strong, blunt fingers were tipped with neat, clean nails which made her feel self-conscious about the state of hers after a long day of digging. So embarrassed, she hid them behind her back and felt compelled to fill the silence. Typically, the only thing she could think to fill it with was history.
‘The presence of gold in such an ancient dwelling here indicates that the Celtic tribes which lived on this island before the Roman conquest traded as well as fought with one another—and perhaps even with other tribes across the sea. It suggests a civilisation which was both advanced and thriving. That bracelet is not a crude piece of jewellery either. It takes great skill to smelt the gold, hammer it into a perfectly round cylinder and then twist it with such precision before seamlessly welding the join. Something which contradicts many of the Roman accounts from the time of the invasion which state the Britons were basically savages. No savage moulded that bracelet. That is a high-status object created for someone of great importance who must have been devastated when they lost it.’
‘I thought they buried it. Like Pepys’s Parmesan.’ He said it with a straight face, but for some reason she got the distinct impression he was poking fun at her.
Redeeming The Reclusive Earl (HQR Historical) Page 4