‘Thanks for your heartfelt sympathy.’ She rolled her eyes at his annoyingly churlish sarcasm and both things galled. What was the matter with him? Why couldn’t he move forward? Especially when he felt so mired in the past he was well and truly sick of it.
‘You don’t need my sympathy, Max. You’ve had far too much of everyone else’s and, frankly, today you don’t deserve it. I am livid with you! You made poor Eleanor cry!’
‘I did not mean to make her cry...’ And now he felt wretched as well as frustrated and betrayed. Somehow more wretched than he had when he had read that damn newspaper and been slapped in the face with Miranda’s happiness.
‘I know. You were hurt and you lashed out. But you cannot keep doing that. It is unfair.’ He abhorred mirrors nowadays, even metaphorical ones, but she was holding one up to his face regardless and making him evaluate what he saw. It wasn’t pleasant. ‘Now she doesn’t feel as if she can go home tomorrow...’
‘She never mentioned she was going home?’ He wasn’t being fair to Eleanor. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
‘Well, she isn’t now and wild horses will not drag her from here on the back of this no matter what either of us say. But she had thought you were making progress and felt she could risk taking a step back. The poor woman misses her family.’
‘And I feel guilty for keeping her from them. It is one of the reasons I left London in the first place. That and the constant mollycoddling.’ And the pity and the platitudes. The staring and pointing. The newspaper story confirming blasted Miranda’s confinement. ‘This morning was a shock and I handled things badly.’
‘It wasn’t a complete shock, Max. You knew she was with child and were probably counting the days until it arrived.’ Effie was much too intuitive. Clearly she saw right through him. ‘You live in Cambridgeshire now because you claim to be tired of London, yet diligently read the London newspapers—and not, I’ll wager, only for the important news if you were concerning yourself with the birth, marriage and death announcements.’ She did more than see through him! The blasted bane could read his mind!
‘One doesn’t have to be a genius to work out you were actively looking for the notice.’ Which, of course, he had been. ‘Which beggars the question as to how you intended to deal with the news, Max? Or did you just accept today’s tantrum as a given and had no plans beyond that?’
A few months ago—hell, a few weeks ago—he’d have bellowed his denial from the rooftops. Yet the anger he usually felt at the mere mention of Miranda or his scars or his behaviour had apparently fizzled out because it was the bane who had done the mentioning. ‘I live from day to day, Effie. I do not think or plan beyond that.’
The absolute truth. Admitting it aloud gave him palpitations, but in a strange sort of way. Admitting it to her also made him feel less alone.
‘Understandable given what you have been through. You have been grieving so many things—’ She reached across the desk and lay her palm over his hand. Something about her touch made him feel instantly better too. ‘But mourning officially lasts a year, Max. Any more is unhealthy. It’s time to cast aside your widow’s weeds.’
She was right. He knew she was right—but the prospect of doing it was daunting. ‘I am not sure I know where to start.’
‘We both know you have already started. Your mind is craving purpose again and once that begins, everything else gradually follows. Your soul will not repair itself overnight—but it will mend, Max. I promise.’ Her hand squeezed his and he suppressed the urge to turn his palm and lace his fingers with hers where they belonged.
Belonged? Where the hell had that stupid thought come from?
‘Go and apologise to your sister and invite her lovely family to visit.’ She stayed his instinctive rejection with her finger on his lips and he forget everything he had intended to say. ‘For the sake of her soul, my Lord Recluse—not yours. And then, if you still need some purpose today, I have a pickaxe urgently awaiting your attention.’ She severed the contact and slid off the table, leaving his lips tingling and a comforting puff of roses and lilacs in her wake which surrounded him like an embrace. ‘I happen to know Mrs Farley’s fruitcake won’t have been spoiled by the sun because it is steeped in enough brandy to preserve a corpse.’
She was right about everything. He knew and felt strangely humbled by her insight. Yet he also felt afraid. Looking forward terrified him, but there was nothing positive to be gained in constantly glancing back. Not when the die was cast and, as much as he might wish it, he couldn’t change it. But perhaps with Effie’s help he could move forward. He wanted to.
So wanted to.
‘You know I am putty when it comes to Mrs Farley’s fruitcake. Why didn’t you mention it sooner? It would have saved you the lecture.’
‘Where would the fun be in that?’ Rather than open the door, Effie left via the window she had arrived through. She smiled and was less than a few yards away down the garden when he realised he wasn’t at all ready for her to leave.
‘Wait...’ She turned on the path, her dark head tilted in question, the copper in her hair shimmering in the sunlight. The bane of his life and the balm to his soul. ‘Was this all a ruse to get me to do your dirty work, Miss Not-above-knavery-to-get-her-own-way?’
She beamed, then shrugged, unrepentant, before sashaying away. ‘You have half an hour, Max. Then I am eating all the fruitcake myself.’
Chapter Fourteen
Dig day 798: no progress whatsoever, thanks to three interminable days of torrential rain. But the sun is out now. Which is just as well...
Effie was no stranger to remorse.
When one frequently spoke or acted without thinking, which she did as a matter of course most days, remorse reliably often followed. However, this dose was niggling worse than usual because it hadn’t come about because her mind had raced ahead before her mouth caught up, it had come about by telling a lie.
A big, fat and dishonest lie which she wasn’t entirely sure what to do about.
The rain had had a bearing because she hadn’t been able to dig for days, which in turn meant she was all alone at home with her noisy brain going slowly mad. And with idle hands, the Devil had apparently made use of hers.
Although in her defence, not that she could really defend the indefensible, she had not set out to lie. With nothing better to do, she had resorted to busying herself by properly organising and expanding her notes on the dig site, which had rapidly turned into another research paper to send to the Society of Antiquaries. She then followed it by writing a heartfelt letter, passionately explaining the significance of her find and pleading with them to at least read the paper. Then, in a moment of uncharacteristic dishonesty borne out of sheer frustration at their continued and stubborn blatant ignorance, she had taken Eleanor’s advice and not signed it Miss Euphemia Nithercott.
Instead, she’d used a pseudonym.
One she was certain they couldn’t ignore.
Maximillian Aldersley—the Tenth Earl of Rivenhall.
Then, before she thought better of it, she had dashed out in the downpour and managed to get it to the post office just in time to make it on to the mail coach. The first pangs of remorse had twanged as she had watched it be spirited away. Two days on and they were still twanging because she had no idea how to break the news to Max. Or if she actually should. There was every chance they would recognise the handwriting, or the location of the dig site, and realise exactly who had really sent the letter and send it back unopened like they always did.
But what if...? She already knew Max wouldn’t take it well.
As if her thoughts had conjured him, two large booted feet appeared at the top of the trench she was crouched in.
‘I am in hell, Effie. Utter hell and I blame you for it entirely. It is a sorry state of affairs when a man looks forward to suffering hours of your incessant talking in a muddy trench
doing backbreaking, menial work, simply to get some peace.’
‘Your niece and nephew have settled in, then?’
‘Indeed they have. Alongside their nanny, their father, his mother and one blasted puppy who hasn’t stopped yapping since it arrived. Of all the puppies in the world, what possessed my brother-in-law to get them that one? It is a menace.’ It all sounded idyllic to her.
‘Perhaps it’s nervous. A change of scenery can do that to an animal. Or so I have read. What do your family think of Rivenhall?’
‘The brats seem to love it. Which is a concern as already I am terrified they will never leave now that Eleanor has lured them here upon your flawed instruction.’
‘You did not have to take my advice.’
‘Yes, I did, or I’d never have heard the end of it! So I justifiably blame you entirely for the death of my peace and, thanks to the rain conspiring with you and Eleanor against me, what is left of my blasted sanity.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be for your sanity. It was entirely for Eleanor’s.’
‘The trouble with my sister is when you give her an inch, she takes a mile. Just like you, as a matter of fact. Give me a crew of men to manage any day over a couple of meddlesome and manipulative women.’ He huffed out a sigh, looking thoroughly put upon, gorgeously windswept and distractingly all manly. So much so, she was constantly having to remind herself she was a committed cynic regarding men and a pleasingly broad pair of shoulders, strong back and sinfully pert bottom did not alter the fact that Max was as male as the next man and, by default, inherently doomed to disappoint her in the long run. Even if he was her friend and she was unwisely fond of him. ‘Did I tell you she spent the week preparing the nursery? And trust me, it is a little too prepared for a short visit from the brats.’
‘But not too prepared for many short visits. Eleanor said you are their favourite uncle, so it is only natural your niece and nephew would want to spend time with you—and only proper you should have the facilities to welcome them.’
‘I am their only uncle, so it is not as if either of us has a choice in the matter.’
‘Regular visits from them will be good for you. Little people are good for the soul.’ So, apparently, was confession. She had to tell him what she had done even though she knew he was bound to explode in outrage.
‘And little feet, I have discovered, also make a great deal of noise on those old oak floors. So do little paws for that matter. I blame you for both.’ He crouched down, bringing his distracting muscular thighs level with her eyes. ‘Your trench appears to be filled with bilge water. We can’t dig that until it dries out.’
‘I know.’ She tapped the wooden pail sat half-full beside him. ‘I thought it might aid the drying if I removed most of the water but it’s proved futile. As fast as I remove it, it fills up again. Clearly, man can drain the Fens all he wants, but the moment they are fed with a little rain they return to type and flood. I blame the peat beneath the soil. There seem to be more old peat bogs around this dwelling than over by the Abbey... But then I suppose the Abbey needed to be built on solid foundations and a wooden house would not.’
Stop procrastinating and tell him. Fall on your sword. Beg for mercy.
‘Are they all as bad?’
‘Fortunately, thanks to your covers on the other side of the dwelling, those trenches seem to have avoided the worst.’ Max had predicted the storm several hours before it had happened and then appropriated every piece of oilskin, canvas and wood at Rivenhall to cover the most important trenches which had yielded the most finds thus far.
‘Then let’s work on them while the weather holds. It is bound to rain later. Just look at that sky.’ He pointed upwards at the single paltry, dark cloud in the sky.
‘It is not going to rain, Max.’
‘I might not know my Iceni from my Catuvellauni, Miss Naysayer, but like any good sailor worth his salt I know my weather and I smell another storm.’ He offered his hand to haul her out and then frowned in disgust when he saw the state of hers. ‘Good lord, you are filthy! I mean, you are always filthy so I’m used to it, but that is a new level of muddiness, even for you. Yet despite the mud, I can still see you are wearing odd shoes. How hard is it to match a pair of shoes, Effie?’ He walked off, shaking his shaggy dark head and leaving her ankle deep in water.
‘Don’t mind me. I can get myself out.’
‘Probably best.’ He returned with the wheelbarrow which he deposited next to one of the covered trenches while he watched her clamber up the sticky mud. ‘Did you have the foresight to bring a towel?’
‘Of course not. But I brought cake.’ His favourite, as a sweetener in the hope it would make him less inclined to hit the roof when he learned she’d used his name without permission.
‘Mrs Farley’s...?’
‘Well, I certainly did not bake it.’
‘Did I tell you I am thinking of marrying that woman? What she can do with a humble currant and a bag of flour is a miracle. Is she single, perchance?’
‘Not yet. But Mr Farley is seventy-seven and as such could feasibly turn up his toes at any moment. Mind you, at seventy-six, so could she.’
‘If you are expecting me to baulk at that, I should warn you, I’ve always been partial to an older woman.’ He had bent over to remove the pegs from the canvas protecting trench sixteen, allowing her to admire his spectacular bottom unencumbered. ‘There is an earthiness to them which is...’ She could hear the wistful smile in his voice and groaned aloud in mock disgust. The disgust might be false, but the pang of irrational jealousy felt very real.
‘I have no desire to hear about your many conquests, Max—old or otherwise.’
‘To be fair, seventy-six is a bit old. I always drew the line at late forties. After that, gravity tends to have taken its toll.’
‘Ugh!’
‘And how old was Rupert? Eighty? Ninety?’
‘Fifty-nine.’
‘Fifty-nine! You really were going to marry an old man! I assumed, when you said he was older, it was by less than twenty years. But fifty-nine, Effie...?’
‘You sound as though you disapprove.’
‘Of course I disapprove. What sort of a marriage would you have had with a man old enough to be your father? When you are so full of life...’ His voice trailed off and she watched him shake his head in disbelief before his big hands spanned her waist and he effortlessly lifted her into the trench. Which once again put her eyes level with his distracting buff-clad thighs and reminded her of the hard muscles which pleasingly upholstered his strong arms and broad shoulders.
I am a cynic! A weak-willed and easily waylaid one.
‘I told you—it wasn’t a love match. It was more a marriage of convenience. He wanted a wife...’
‘What for? To bring his slippers? To polish his ear trumpet? To keep him company in his dotage?’
‘And I wanted...’ To feel part of something. To feel like a woman first rather than an oddity. Feel a baby grow in her empty womb. Watch it grow. Love it with all her heart and never be lonely again. She shrugged, not wanting him to see how depressing it was to know her one chance at having what every other woman of her acquaintance took for granted had passed her by and she would never know what any of those longed-for things felt like ‘...more than what I have now.’
‘I know—you wanted the security of marriage because life is so difficult for a woman on her own. I understand that—’ He didn’t look like he did. ‘But those same securities would also come with a younger man. Could still come with a younger man. Preferably one still with all his own teeth. You were selling yourself short, Effie, and that is so sad.’
‘One cannot sell oneself short if there is only one bidder, Max.’
He scoffed as he rummaged in the wheelbarrow. ‘Do you seriously expect me to believe you were Miss Never-been-kissed before you met my uncle’s decrepit fr
iend? Because I won’t have it. Oddness aside, you scrub up well.’
She decided to take that as another compliment because his tone had sounded flatteringly incredulous and despite being a little back-handed, it still made her tummy go all fluttery. ‘Hardly never. In fact, as long as I disguise my natural self from the first moment I meet a gentleman and talk about superficial things like the weather, they have always seemed rather eager to kiss me initially.’
‘So why the blazes didn’t you marry one of them?’
‘Getting them to kiss me has never been the problem. It’s getting them to want to continue kissing me after they discover the truth about me that’s always been the struggle. They seem to forget I am a woman the moment the real me slips out of my mouth...’ She paused, waiting pathetically for another compliment which never came while he continued to rifle noisily in the wheelbarrow with more concentration than she felt it warranted in view of the gravitas of what they were discussing. Then, in a moment of pathetic weakness and to her abject horror, she accidentally said what she was thinking out loud into the void.
‘I think I emasculate them.’
She saw his body stiffen before he turned, lips parted, and she realised she had shocked him. She found her hand slicing backwards and forward. ‘I didn’t mean by actual castration, Max.’ Another poor choice of word when his groin was mere inches away and she was now thinking about it. The size, the shape, the form... ‘I meant that their desire for me withers...’ Good grief, the inappropriate words were coming thick and fast now! ‘I mean it deflates...’ It was like a disease of the jaws! It was his fault. His shaving soap, his arms, his thighs and the intimate proximity of his masculine parts were scrambling her wits. ‘What I mean is...his desire, not his...um...desire.’ To compound her misery she found her finger was pointing south and felt her face combust.
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