Redeeming The Reclusive Earl (HQR Historical)

by Virginia Heath

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I try not to think. Like you, I find my thoughts exhausting.’

  ‘Digging helps. Although it is physically impossible to dig all day and, once I stop, off those thoughts go again.’ Effie drew a spiral on her temple with her index finger. ‘Spinning wildly. I have to keep myself constantly occupied or they send me mad.’

  ‘I’ve been counting things. Patterns, forks, clouds...’ He sighed. ‘It is not a particularly effective method of keeping them at bay. I’ve been thinking for some time I need another method.’

  ‘If you find a way which works all of the time, please pass it on.’ They had something in common. Something real and tangible in common. Something few others would understand and that warmed her. ‘I find the nights the worst...’

  ‘When your body is crying out for sleep and your mind isn’t done playing with you?’

  ‘You, too?’

  He smiled in response and something peculiar happened as she smiled back at him. For the first time in her life she felt a true connection with another human being, although she couldn’t put her finger on exactly why that was, other than to feel unjudged and able to be completely herself for a change rather than pretending to be the diluted version she always strove to be in the company of others. Even with her father, dear understanding Rupert and Lord Richard—the three closest relationships of her life—Effie had often guarded her words. Yet with this strange, changeable, complicated man whom she barely knew, but felt she did, she already realised she did not need to do that. More bizarrely, for the first time, her over-active mind was quiet. Calm.

  Content.

  ‘Digging might well be a distraction, but it’s thirsty work, Miss Nettlesome. I don’t suppose you brought any water with you?’

  ‘I did better than that.’ She stood and brushed the dust off her breeches. ‘I brought lunch. It’s in my satchel and I am happy to share it with you seeing that you have practically demolished that pesky wall for me.’

  ‘Then don’t dither, Miss Nithercott. Bring it hither from thither before I wither.’

  ‘My name seems to bring you much amusement, my lord.’

  ‘It is such a dreadful name, I feel the near-constant urge to change it.’

  ‘Agreed. It is dreadful. Rare nowadays—but I am not surprised it is dying out. I should imagine all the other Nithercotts were only too happy to abandon it as soon as an opportunity presented itself. The grooms as well as the brides. Unfortunately, my first name is no better so I am doomed on both counts. Euphemia.’ She pulled a face as she tugged the food parcel from her bag. ‘Euphemia Nithercott... I’ve always hated it. Such a convoluted, tongue-twisting mouthful. No name should require seven whole syllables. Two would be ideal. Perhaps three at a push. Something innocuous which would help me to blend into the background—or at least try to.’ Until she opened her mouth, of course. ‘Like Jane Smith or Anne White. Two instantly forgettable names consisting of two perfectly bland syllables.’

  ‘Try living with eight.’ He used both his hands to push himself to sit on the edge of the trench. ‘Maximillian Aldersley. The ink runs out on the quill before I can finish my signature, which always makes it look untidy.’

  They had that in common, too. ‘Eight is greedy—but Max is nice.’ She lowered herself to sit beside him so they could share the food. ‘That one syllable suits you.’ And now she was sitting much too close. They were almost shoulder to shoulder. She could feel the heat of his body through the soft linen of her shirt. Smell the same comforting aroma of his shaving soap as she had when he had solicitously wrapped her in his coat the other night. Just as it had then, something about it unnerved her and called to her at the same time.

  ‘Then I give you leave to call me Max. Especially as my lord doesn’t seem to fit any better than my damned skin just yet. It’s too new. Too formal.’

  ‘Whereas Captain is so very informal.’

  ‘I do not recall asking you to call me Captain, Miss Nit-picker.’ He tore off a crust of bread and nudged her playfully with his elbow. Something she was pretty certain no one had ever done before. ‘This is the part where you give me leave to call you Euphemia instead...’

  ‘It’s Effie.’

  ‘Effie...’ The way he said it, his deep voice lingering softly over the vowels as if testing the sound of it, sent shivers up her spine. ‘I like it.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Three eight-foot trenches...

  ‘It’s definitely another post hole.’

  Effie was gazing down from the edge of the enormous cavity they were currently working on, studying the darker circles in the mud she had just uncovered with her trowel. This slight discolouration, she proclaimed, came about when the wooden posts which once sat in the holes had decayed and altered the composition of the soil. Max wasn’t inclined to argue and really did not know enough about digging up the past yet to try if he were. To him, mud was mud, but he was prepared to concede that while one dark circle was coincidence, three the exact shape, size and formation might well prove her hypothesis correct.

  ‘Which leads me to believe this building was either entirely made of wood or, more likely when one considers traditional old English building methods of yore, maybe even wattle and daub. Of course, if that is the case and I am correct in my assumption that this dwelling predates the Roman invasion, it completely contradicts Cassius Dio’s account of the ancient barbarian tribes indigenous to this area, don’t you think?’

  ‘I think, in order to form an opinion on the fellow, I would first need to know what the blazes Cassius Dio said. Which I don’t, by the way, in case you were wondering. I’ve never even heard of the blighter.’

  She smiled and rolled her eyes, totally oblivious to how gorgeous she looked bathed in sunlight. Flecks of copper shimmered in her dark hair where it had escaped its pins. Not that she was really one for pins, preferring to anchor the messy knot to her head with a pencil than spend unnecessary hours ruthlessly taming it with curling irons and fussy styles when she had holes to dig and treasure to find.

  There was nothing fussy about the woman stood before him in well-worn breeches and practical shirt and he liked that about her. When she dined with them at Rivenhall, which she had done twice since the first awful meal, she always wore a lovely gown and made more effort with her hair, yet as beautiful as she looked in a dress, it was this Effie he preferred. This one who encroached on his dreams at night and regularly consumed his mind when he wasn’t with her. The one he allowed himself just two hours a day with, at random times, always pretending he and Drake happened to be passing by when he counted the minutes until each casual visit.

  Max tried to rationalise his obsession using common sense because the facts were undeniable. Firstly, she was a stunningly attractive woman. Secondly, he hadn’t had a woman in nearly two years so his rampant lust was only to be expected. And thirdly, she was the only woman in his current acquaintance who he wasn’t related to and the only person he had allowed a little into his life since leaving London. Therefore, it was hardly a surprise she had come to feature so much in his thoughts.

  However, regardless of all those pertinent and undeniable facts, he had had enough affairs in the past to know there was something unique about Effie which called to him in a way which was entirely different from all those other women. Even his former fiancée, who he was certain he had loved with all his heart.

  Yet the way he felt about Effie was different. It wasn’t love. Love hadn’t felt like this. Nor had simple lust. The first had made him want to pick flowers, then parade Miranda all over town so everyone could see how lucky he was to have won the heart of such a sought-after woman and the second was always short-lived and entirely carnal. While he felt lust for Effie, he also felt affection. Friendly affection because he enjoyed her company. That was new, too. He had never had a female friend, aside from Eleanor and as his sister she
didn’t count. Max had always been a man’s man. Or maybe he had merely been that because there weren’t any women to befriend in the Royal Navy? In which case, perhaps that explained his bond with Effie?

  Her mind fascinated him. Never in all his thirty-four years had he ever witnessed anything quite like it. The way she worked her way through problems by asking herself questions was astounding, coming to reasoned and substantiated conclusions in minutes when most would take hours deliberating such complicated things. But then most people would have to seek out the answers in books and tracking down the exact piece of research in a book was usually a mission in itself. But if Effie had read it—and lord only knew the woman must have read every book on antiquity in existence—then it was already stored in her cavernous head so she did not need to bother.

  ‘Cassius Dio was one of the great Roman historians. He wrote eighty mighty volumes of the history of the Roman Empire spanning its conception one thousand years before the birth of Christ to the end of the second century. There are other eminent Roman historians, of course, but his work is one of the few which includes their early occupation of our island. He records the Celts as possessing “neither walls nor cities nor farms”. He describes the tribes as aggressive, warlike and nomadic in nature. Hunter-gathers rather than civilised or advanced enough to grow their own crops. In Dio’s books—which are written in ancient Greek, by the way—the Celts are little better than savages who lived in tents without clothes or shoes. But I have always taken issue with that. The English climate is not at all conducive to nudity for at least three-quarters of the year, so unless they were all covered in a thick pelt of hair they would have frozen to death in the winter. And if they were indeed hairy beasties, which not one of the old histories suggests including Dio’s, then the Celts wouldn’t have painted themselves blue because I sincerely doubt the paint they used would cover dense fur that well.’

  ‘Blue?’

  ‘They used woad as a dye and painted themselves blue when they went into battle to frighten the other side.’

  ‘Gracious! And they used paint instead of clothes?’

  She nodded emphatically, causing the loose tendril of hair next to her cheek to bounce in a very becoming fashion. ‘I think we can be pretty certain they fought naked because both Julius Caesar and Herodian mention it alongside bold blue tattoos, so I think the paint was used rather like ships use flags...’ Her eyes always sparkled when she spoke about something which interested her, which was most of the time. She had the most expressive and beguiling eyes. ‘To allow others close by to determine which tribe they belonged to.’

  Images of naked, patterned, blue men filled his mind. Then a few naked women wandered in. Followed by a naked Effie with a pencil in her hair. ‘Were the ladies nude and blue, too?’

  She nodded. ‘If they were fighting, it is entirely plausible.’

  ‘Well, that would certainly distract the enemy.’ He’d be so dumbstruck he’d be cannon fodder, especially if she was one of the warriors.

  The vast wealth of diverse and complicated knowledge crammed into her head was boggling. Sometimes, Max just asked her obscure questions simply to hear her answer. And when she answered, it was never with one simple word. It was long and convoluted, addressing every possible variation and permutation, every existing theory considered, dismissed or upheld with yet more evidence while she argued with herself, until the entire scope of the topic had been explained to him in staggering detail. More often than not, it left him open-mouthed in wonder—but he was always amused, too. There was something about Effie which constantly sailed dangerously close to the ridiculous, which was a place he had always enjoyed. Or at least he had back in the days when he hadn’t been so bitter and twisted and he’d had a sense of humour.

  ‘Can I ask you a question, Max?’

  ‘You can always ask me anything, Effie. In fact, I insist upon it. I find your honesty and your undisguised curiosity refreshing.’

  ‘Then that is a first. Most people loathe it.’

  ‘Then most people are daft. What’s the question?’

  ‘Are we friends now? I feel as though we are, but I am never entirely sure. And experience has taught me that if I assume, then I am doomed to be disappointed when my perceived friend starts to avoid me.’ She said it so matter of factly, but his heart wept for her. It was so ill deserved. Effie was a breath of fresh air, not an irritation.

  ‘I suppose we must be.’

  Her delighted smile was like a balm to his soul. ‘That’s nice. And you don’t mind all the questions?’

  ‘I don’t want you to ever think you shouldn’t ask questions, Effie. You can always ask me anything...’ Which might well open some potentially awkward floodgates. ‘As long as you appreciate I might not always answer them.’

  ‘That strikes me as very fair. Do you think Boudicca painted herself blue? I am certain I have never read any account to suggest she did.’

  ‘Perhaps she was so fearsome, she didn’t need to?’

  ‘Perhaps?’ She shrugged as she considered. ‘Even so—I might do some research tonight just to be sure. It will only keep me awake otherwise.’

  As clever as she was, and he sincerely doubted there was anybody on the planet cleverer, she was also chaotic.

  Keeping time seemed to cause her a great deal of difficulty—no doubt because her mind had distracted her—and she seemed to struggle with the everyday sorts of decisions which most people did without thinking. But she was reliably late to dinner and, when she arrived, would inevitably have always forgotten something crucial, whether that be a sensibly warm shawl to go home in as she had that first fateful night she had dined at his house and challenged him about his behaviour, the mismatched boots she frequently wore while digging when there were plainly two pairs because some days she wore the brown boot on her left and other days she brought its right friend instead. Or her entire wheelbarrow of tools, as she had this morning. Apparently, she was halfway across the meadow before she realised and arrived at the site after he had ridden past it six times in his quest to happen upon her casually, looking delightfully flustered but in matching boots this time for a change.

  ‘If they built a wattle-and-daub structure, driving thick posts deep into the ground as the frame, then the people who built this dwelling were not nomadic at all. Dio was wrong! Or at least he was wrong about the tribes here in Cambridgeshire. They were obviously much more sophisticated than the barbarians he painted them as. Perhaps their paint distracted him exactly as you said... That would make sense. The Romans were invaders so they would only initially see the Celts on the battlefield and formed their opinions based on that!’ Her grubby fist pumped the air in triumph that she had worked the problem through. ‘Why do people always judge solely on first impressions, Max? Especially when they are invariably always wrong. Take you, for instance. On first impression you were loathsome and now after a few short weeks of acquaintance you are...’

  ‘Tolerable? Invaluable? Wonderful?’

  Mischief danced in her eyes while she made him wait for her verdict. ‘A little less loathsome, but very handy with a pickaxe.’

  ‘I am touched.’ He fluttered his hand in front of his face as if overcome with emotion and she laughed out loud. Effie’s laugh was as delicate as she was—in other words, not delicate at all. It was loud and exuberant and refreshingly impossible to fake. ‘Such gushing praise will go to a man’s head, Miss Never-one-to-beat-about-the-bush. What’s for lunch?’

  Her face wrinkled as she slapped her palm to her forehead. ‘I forgot to pick it up from the kitchen table.’

  ‘You mean there is nothing edible in your satchel? Not even a slice of Mrs Farley’s famous fruitcake?’

  ‘Perhaps one of these days you will surprise me and turn up with some food yourself for a change rather than like a sullen bad penny, complaining you are only offering to help because you are so eager to hasten my d
eparture from your land.’ They both knew that was a pathetic excuse and he came because digging with Effie was a much more effective distraction from his black thoughts than counting the floorboards in his study. He hoped she had no clue that he also came because he needed to see her.

  ‘Besides...’ she wagged her finger ‘...you’re the one with the battalion of staff and the enormous kitchens. If you are hungry, you can take your mind off it with some digging. I need another trench here.’

  ‘But I have to go. I’ve wasted two hours suffering your presence already.’

  ‘Another two will only hasten my eventual departure from your land and you are so very good with a pickaxe.’ She walked saucily to an unspoilt piece of grass and jumped on it then grinned when Max tugged his forelock before going back to stare into their latest trench to contemplate the post hole and ponder its secrets.

  Even silent, he could hear her brain working and while he understood that many might find her intelligence intimidating, for reasons he could not fathom because his own official education had stopped at twelve, Effie did not intimidate him. Bizarrely, he understood her.

  She was endearing and charming, funny, alluring and irritating all at the same time and quite unaware of all of it. Max, on the other hand, had never been quite so aware of a woman in his life or quite so smitten by one. He couldn’t deny the smitten part was a worry, but as he had absolutely no intention of ever daring to act on the attraction for fear of more catastrophic humiliation, he tried to push his concerns to one side and simply enjoy having something other than his own woes to occupy his mind.

  ‘That’s three post holes in total so far and all exactly three feet apart.’ To make doubly certain, Effie paced the distance again which was always entertaining to watch. She couldn’t just pace the distance like a normal person, she had to do a funny half-marching, half-high-kicking pace which she had explained was deliberate as it gave a near exact twelve inches and negated the need to bring a measuring stick—which she doubtless had always forgotten in in the first place. Then she stopped and held one arm out straight like a blade and stared down it. ‘But they do not seem to be straight.’