‘I never liked Miranda.’ Eleanor’s tone was clipped and her features suddenly furious. ‘I always thought her shallow and vain. More concerned with pretty gowns and how full her dance card was than with anything of substance. She went out of her way to ensnare him in the most calculated fashion and I was of the firm belief the only reason she had sunk her claws into him then was because he was a handsome and eligible heir to a wealthy earldom—but I kept my own counsel. When he came home injured, she proved me correct, although it gave me no pleasure to be proved it. He was still bedridden and in agony when she terminated the engagement.’
‘She ended their engagement? Then? How could she?’ Because such a monstrous cruelty beggared belief.
‘Max will tell you he terminated it and technically he did, but only because she put him up to it! Because she couldn’t bear the thought of marrying a man who was no longer the dashing naval hero, but a wounded one—regardless of the title and fortune. She was impatient to be the wife of an aristocrat and was not going to allow his inconvenient injuries to get in the way of her desires!’
‘That’s awful...’
‘Oh, but you haven’t heard the best of it yet! Within two months she was engaged again—which completely broke his heart, of course—and then we had to relive the pain again when she married a scant few months later. And she had the audacity to marry in June. The exact same month she had planned to marry Max because Miranda had set her sights on being a June bride, too, and she had no intention of waiting a year until this summer to do it. In Saint George’s in Hanover Square, of course. The same church they were to be married in. To rub salt in the wound. And now this.’
Eleanor shook her head angrily, tears in her eyes. ‘Yet another blow. A reminder of all that should have been his. He knew she was expecting. Gossip has been rife for months and he diligently reads the newspapers, sometimes I think simply to torture himself, so I should have had the foresight to check each one before he reads it after breakfast. But I didn’t think and he saw it, and he’s taken it badly.’
‘Poor Max.’ Effie’s heart bled for him. ‘And what a truly hateful woman to abandon him in his hour of need.’ She wanted to give the witch a piece of her mind. Right this instant. ‘What sort of a person does that?’
‘The sort who cares more for her own social standing and appearance than she ever cared for my brother! I have never told him...and I probably shouldn’t tell you...’ Eleanor lowered her voice to a whisper ‘...but a few weeks after he had returned, her visits to his sickbed became more sporadic. At first, I believed her flimsy excuses about being under the weather and exhausted from the trauma of it all—until I realised she was in fact back out in society attending every ball, soirée and tea as if Max did not exist.’
‘Oh, my goodness!’
‘And he kept asking after her. It was tragic, She would allow a week to pass between visits and when she did deign to grace us with her presence she never stayed very long. That hurt him deeply, but he never said anything. He stores everything inside, you see.’ She clutched her fist to her chest. ‘And I knew he was worried about it. So one day, I called upon her and tried to appeal to her better nature, citing how much her visits meant to my brother and how I believed they were essential in his recovery and do you know what she said?’ Effie dreaded to think. ‘That she wasn’t cut out to dance attendance on an invalid!’
‘But that is atrocious! After all he’d been through... How could anyone...?’ She was staggered that anyone could be so unfeeling.
‘It gets worse, Effie. I reminded her that the marriage vows stated a wife stand by her husband in sickness and in health and she countered that she hadn’t yet taken the vows and wasn’t entirely sure she was going to—as she felt that Max was no longer the man she had agreed to marry! Can you believe that?’
‘I have no words, Eleanor. None. I am so shocked...’ It really did beggar belief. Aside from the dreadful aftermath of his injuries, Max had lost his career, his ship and his fiancée, too, and all because he had tried to save his crew, then had the audacity to survive. Then another dreadful thought occurred to her. ‘Had your father died at this point also?’
Eleanor nodded and her expression turned fierce. ‘Oh, how I hate that woman and despise everything she has done to my brother. When he first came home he was optimistic and determined to fight, then after things ended between him and that foul harpy he changed. The light dimmed in his eyes and he lost the will to live. I do not think he has found it again since. I blame Miranda for all of it and I do not care if it is small-minded, but I wish her no luck, Effie.’ She gripped her hand and her expression hardened with disgust. ‘If I ever collide with her again, I swear as God is my witness, I shall spit in her eye!’
‘Then you are more civilised than I, Eleanor, because I have never met her or heard of her before today and I already want to wring her neck, then pummel her to a bloody pulp! What a witch! What an evil, malicious, spiteful...’ The fury and outrage she felt on his behalf burned hot in her gut and she didn’t realise she had leapt from her seat and started pacing until she stopped dead and pointed a quaking finger. ‘How far away is this Prittlewell House? Perhaps we should go there right now and give her what for?’
Through the tears, Eleanor smiled, her bottom lip quivering before she enveloped her in a hug. ‘Oh, I do love you, Effie! Max needs someone like you on his side.’
That simple, affectionate gesture touched her beyond belief. ‘Of course I am on his side. I am his friend. Or at least I hope I am. With Max it is hard to be sure.’
‘He plays his cards close to his chest. Too close nowadays but, and if you will forgive the irony, he has been badly burned in more ways than one and finds it so very difficult to trust anyone any more. He never used to be like that. He never used to be so cynical, either, or so pessimistic. But since the accident and after Miranda ran roughshod over his heart, he has built walls around himself which he has allowed nobody to breach. Not even me. It worries me so much.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Locked in his study, where I suspect he will remain for at least a week if his reaction to her wedding is anything to go by. This is a massive setback... When he was doing so well. I was beginning to see glimpses of the old Max. He seemed almost happy again and I credit you with that entirely, but...’ Eleanor slumped back into her chair and put her head in her hands. ‘We are back to square one again and heaven only knows how long it will take him to get over this latest blow.’
Effie wrapped her arm around her shoulders and squeezed in reassurance. ‘If he knew she was expecting, then chances are he was prepared for the news. Today it might have all got on top of him, but perhaps tomorrow he will rally?’
‘I was going to go home tomorrow. Just for a few days...’ The older woman shook her head before blowing noisily into her handkerchief. ‘I am sorry. I shouldn’t be dumping all my woes on you, Effie. I was just looking forward to seeing my family... Selfish, I know, but never mind. I am being silly. They will still be there in a few more weeks when hopefully this latest crisis has past...’
And now her heart wept for Eleanor who had stepped into the breach and coped with it all for so long. ‘You should still go see them. I can look after Max.’
‘No. I daren’t leave him. He needs me here. He might not appreciate that, and will undoubtedly disagree with it, but he needs me still. Maybe he will surprise me as you say and bounce back in a day or so.’ Her brave expression was unconvincing. ‘Once he has stopped lashing out at me, of course.’
‘And festering in self-pity.’
‘Yes. And that, too. You do seem to know him well.’
‘Do you think it would help if I tried to talk to him?’
‘I doubt he’ll see you, Effie. Or anyone. Not today at least. It’s too raw and he won’t appreciate the interference. Perhaps tomorrow?’
Chapter Thirteen
Two
hundred and twenty-four squares of
panelling...
Max stared at the wall and prayed the loud ticking clock upon it would somehow tick quicker and get this damned day over with. He was furious for feeling sorry for himself after all this time and livid that he couldn’t seem to stop.
He sensed her before her dark head poked through the study window and he cursed himself for not locking the damn thing the moment he had heard her in the hallway an hour before. How typical she would encroach where she was not wanted! Something he had suspected she would do because the damn woman had no boundaries. Which was probably exactly the reason why he had left it open on the off chance she might come. Heaven help him...
‘I found an axe head. A big one. Probably used for chopping wood rather than for battle judging by the shape of the blade. Battleaxes are a lot more showy and this one is nothing but practical. Of course, you would know that if you’d visited the dig site today...but as I can see, you are inordinately busy.’ She allowed her eyes to wander to the spot on the wall he had been staring at so intently. ‘What were you counting? Cracks in the plaster?’
‘Go away, Effie. I’m not in the mood.’
‘So I gather.’ She balanced one hip on the sill and settled her back against the frame so that he knew she had no intentions of going anywhere and bizarrely he felt inordinately relieved at the prospect. He needed something to be angry at other than his own inability to face facts and he needed Effie. Had been craving her comforting presence since he’d read that damn newspaper this morning. ‘But your long-suffering sister is worried sick and...’ he sighed and her pretty, insightful eyes locked with his again ‘...and so was I.’
She was just being kind, he knew that deep down, yet it didn’t stop his silly heart from soaring for a moment that she cared enough to be worried about him.
‘You might have sent word you weren’t coming. I packed a huge lunch and, with the heat, half it is now thoroughly spoiled and wasted.’
‘I never asked you to pack it.’
‘No, of course you didn’t, because that would have involved you making a commitment and we don’t do that, do we? You would much prefer to moan when I haven’t brought enough food when you inevitably turn up and still eat more than your fair share.’
Something he couldn’t deny.
‘Eleanor told me about Miranda.’
‘I’ll wager she did.’ And doubtless rendered him a pathetic, maligned and helpless victim in the process, damn her, when the last person he wanted to be pathetic for was Effie. Even if he was.
‘I think it is only fair, before this conversation progresses any further, that I state here and now I already despise her and think you are probably much better off without her.’ Max braced himself for the inevitable platitudes and pity. ‘Not that I expect you to see that, you silly man. You’re not the least bit ready to see sense yet and I am sure you are much preferring your romantically martyred view of it all.’
‘Martyred?’ That brought him up short. ‘Martyred?’
‘When used as an adjective it means to act in a manner showing affected or exaggerated suffering to evoke sympathy.’
‘I know what it means, Miss Nobody-asked-your-opinion. And you are wrong. I seek nobody’s sympathy!’ The very suggestion was—
‘I am not wrong and you know it.’
‘You have no right to...’ One shapely leg swung over the sill. ‘No! Stop...’ He stood, outraged, his finger pointed like a weapon, feeling much like King Cnut must have felt when faced with the incoming tide, but still in denial it might roll in. ‘I forbid you to climb through that window!’
‘Oops.’ She shrugged and then grinned as her feet hit the parquet. ‘If only you’d bought those dogs you’d threatened, eh, Max? Then you could set them on me for my gross impertinence. Or is this technically trespass?’
He was positively looming over his desk, incensed, but typically his anger did not faze her at all. She sat herself on top of it, uncowed, and stared at him levelly. ‘But let’s not digress from the topic at hand. We were discussing your martyrdom and how you are absolutely convinced that the lily-livered turncoat Miranda you proposed to is so much better off without you now you carry a few scars that you prefer to punish yourself for getting them rather than be furious at her for not loving you enough for them not to matter. That’s the long and short of it, isn’t it?’
She hadn’t loved him enough. He knew that. He’d always known that. Yet he had loved her enough for both of them and her rejection and her revulsion had destroyed all that had remained of his self-esteem in one fell swoop. ‘Get out, Effie, or I swear to God I will throw you out!’
‘She wanted someone titled, rich and handsome. The dashing naval hero and sought-after bachelor she could boast about. And now that your accident has left you merely titled and rich you simply do not pass muster any longer. Her rejection broke your heart and spurred you into becoming a recluse...’
‘I’m warning you, Effie...’
‘And because wallowing in your own self-pity has become quite the habit, you use every little excuse which comes along to justify being a selfish, self-indulgent pain in the neck to everyone who cares about you.’ She jabbed him hard in the breastbone with her finger. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Maximillian Aldersley. Your poor sister is beside herself and worried sick.’
‘My sister has—’
‘Your sister has done nothing but be at your side for eighteen long months. Come hell or high water. She has sacrificed her time, her family and I dare say her sanity trying to selflessly drag you kicking and screaming back into the land of the living and she deserves better than this. And so, you near-sighted, stubborn idiot, do you!’
‘Coming from the woman who settled for an old man rather than wait for the groom she deserved!’ A low blow, but he was floundering. He had expected empty platitudes and unpalatable pity, not an argument stripped bare of both. An irritatingly sound one. Damn her!
‘A fair point. But I had to consider practicalities which you do not.’
‘Practicalities?’
‘The world is not an easy place for a woman on her own. Rupert could offer me a more secure future than I would have had as a spinster all on her own and accepted me for what I am. He was not going to try to change me and, believe me, I have tried changing umpteen times and always failed miserably so that was a huge weight off my mind. I entered into the agreement with my eyes wide open. I knew it wasn’t love and so did Rupert. But you thought yours was all about love, and for you perhaps it was, but it wasn’t for her and seeing as she has been married to someone else for an entire year now, it is past time to accept it and move on.’
‘Move on?’ As if it was that simple!
‘Are you intent on repeating everything I say, Max? Because I am already finding it tiresome.’ She was worse than a bane. Certainly the most maddening woman he had ever had the misfortune to lust after. ‘Yes... Move on. Your wounds have healed and, by your own admission, you aren’t in physical pain any longer. It is time to let your soul heal, too.’
‘Are you an expert on the human soul now as well? Are you going to quote me learned studies? Statistics, perhaps?’
‘I am an expert on what your own mind can do to you when it gets bored. “Idle hands are the Devil’s tools.”’
‘Good grief, are you seriously resorting to quoting the Bible at me? Is that the best you have, Miss Ninnyhammer?’
‘It is Chaucer, actually, I believe. If you are going to take issue with the attribution, at least get it right.’ She shot him the saucy smug smile she always wore when she was being insufferably smart, then it softened and she sighed. ‘With nothing external to occupy it other than grief or self-pity, the human mind will turn inwards and that is a dangerously slippery slope. Trust me—I know. My mind sends me mad unless it has purpose so I do whatever I can to keep it meaningfully occupied.’
/>
‘You dig. Even though nobody cares what you dig up.’ He was irritating himself now with the well-aimed but churlish darts.
‘Yes, I do. And I persevere. I keep trying. I do not wave the white flag of defeat and give up like the Society of Antiquaries wants me to because their opinion of my work is grossly wrong and one day, by hook or by crook, I shall prove it. It matters. I matter.’ She stuck out her chin defiantly. ‘I care about it and for now that has to be enough. When faced with adversity, we all have a choice, Max. We can either face it fighting or let it beat us and win.’
Effie was a fighter. She stoically faced every obstacle thrown at her and was determined not to be the insignificant woman society expected her to be. Which made him...what? A coward? The thought left a bitter taste in the mouth. She took his silence as permission to dissect his character some more.
‘If I might be so bold as to make a suggestion...’
‘As if I could stop you!’
‘You might start at feeling angry with Miranda. I dare say that would be quite cathartic as well as wholly deserved, then stop fixating on everything you have lost and the past and start deciding what you are going to do with all the time you have left. Eleanor says the navy would be delighted to have you again. Or maybe you should spend some of your new fortune on your own fleet of ships?’ He could feel himself scowl as she poked that raw nerve. Feel the wrench in the pit of his stomach. The call of the sea. The freedom of the ocean. The lure of adventure which had always set him at odds with his father...
‘Or maybe do something entirely different? A new challenge, perhaps? You have this huge new estate and a veritable army of tenants. Lord Richard was a good landlord, but he wasn’t a forward-thinking one and was most resistant to any new ideas. Experiment with new crops or breed horses. Become a magistrate?’
Each comment was accompanied by a prod of her finger.
‘Take up your seat in the Lords and practise politics, perhaps? Study. Travel. Invest in stocks and shares. Speculate. Start a business.’ Her finger jabbed him again and he caught it and held it to stop it doing any more damage to both his battered breastbone and his wounded pride. ‘You might have a few scars, Max, but you are as fit as a fiddle now and still a man beneath them, and a rich and titled one to boot.’ She snatched her finger from his grip to throw her palms in the air. ‘The world is your oyster. How I wish I had your choices! Yet you squander them to count the seconds on the clock face and punish those who become rightly exasperated with your self-indulgent belligerence.’
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