But if he wasn’t averse to indulging in a third kiss, which she sincerely hoped he wasn’t, should she broach the subject of all the other things she had lain awake thinking about then incessantly pondered still or was it too soon? All-encompassing new feelings, desire, outright curiosity—and the future. Would such things scare the daylights out of him? She’d never had anyone to ask.
Common sense told her of course it was too soon even though she might feel the moment was right. What did she know about such things anyway? She usually got this sort of stuff wrong as her extensive lack of real friends and woeful shortage of eager beaus was testament to. Just because she was feeling all of these heady, thrilling and all-consuming things, just because she was tumbling head over heels into love, did not mean he was. In fact, so early into their ever-changing relationship and only two actual kisses in, there was every chance he hadn’t given any of it much thought. Max was clearly an expert in kissing and she certainly wasn’t his first. Therefore, it stood to reason that what they had shared thus far wasn’t the least bit significant as far as he was concerned.
Besides, and to give him the benefit of the doubt for his potential lack of similar angst, he’d had his hands full since yesterday pretending to be something he wasn’t. He’d been too busy charming Lord Denby into agreeing that her roundhouse was indeed a roundhouse, that one could clearly discern the remains of the long-rotted-away post holes in compacted mud and that the amazing finds which had emerged from the site so far indicated the Celtic dwelling was considerably older than the Roman ruins nearby.
And he was doing all that for her. Which suggested he must care in some way, although it was which way he cared that consumed her. She sincerely doubted Miranda would have needed to ask. Or needed any reassurance of her abilities to snare him. She would have known—or perhaps assumed, as Eleanor had intimated. Maybe that was what was needed here?
Perhaps if she behaved a little more like the sort of woman Max was obviously drawn to—the confident, flirty, effortless seductress rather than the clueless oddity with her head buried in a hole—then she might convince him to be similarly besotted with her.
How hard could it be to be a seductress anyway?
She had the basic equipment if the compliments were anything to go by and she had certainly read enough romantic books to be able to mimic some of the techniques from the pages. She could start right this second by using this time to rehearse her words. Not questions which demanded answers but assumptions which told him in no uncertain terms that a third heated kiss and everything beyond was a foregone conclusion.
Hello, Max... I’ve been waiting for you.
Too bold?
Hello, Max... I couldn’t sleep.
Which sounded as though that was his fault—which might be good. Or it might come across as pathetic and whiny. It was probably all in the tone and the facial expressions. She practised a few sultry looks in the mirror and, when she found one she liked which involved her twirling her finger in her hair, she rehearsed her lines again, dropping her voice to a breathy whisper.
Hello, Max...
Perfect!
Ambiguous, but hinting at promise...except... Drat it! She’d knotted her finger in her messy hair! Thank goodness this was just a rehearsal as the calculated Miranda would have known she should have brushed the tangled mess first before fiddling with it.
Effie had only just unknotted her finger and grabbed the brush when she heard his feet on the stairs, then practically jumped out of her skin as nerves took over. This was it! There was no more time to procrastinate. No more time to prepare herself. It was time to make him fall in love with her.
Wide-eyed, she took a last look at her reflection in the mirror and her heart sank at the ridiculous state of her hair. What had she been thinking to take out all the pins and destroy a perfectly lovely hairstyle?
In desperation, she gathered it all up and twisted it into a knot, then blindly rummaged for her hairpins. She jabbed a few in, but when they stubbornly refused to work resorted to her trusty old faithful. He had said he preferred her pencil and so a pencil it would have to be! She cast her eyes frantically about for the slippers she had kicked off the second she had entered the room, but when she located only one realised she had no choice but to go to him barefoot.
Bare feet and a pencil! Heaven help her if those were the only weapons she had in her seductress’s arsenal! At this rate, they’d never bump faces again.
She heard his door click shut and realised she was in grave danger of losing the moment. If she left it any longer, he’d be in bed and that certainly wouldn’t be proper.
Proper!
As if anything about this was proper.
She inhaled deeply before wrenching open her door and inhaled once again before she knocked on his. To her surprise, it opened straight away, almost as if he’d expected her.
‘Hello, Max. I’ve been waiting for sleep and couldn’t.’
She cringed and immediately prayed for death as his handsome face scrunched in confusion.
‘Couldn’t what?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ The confident seductress had clearly been shot in the paddock before the race. ‘I just thought we should discuss...um...your evening... Make sure we are presenting a united front.’
‘I am glad you are awake. I’ve been wanting to speak to you about last night.’ His suddenly serious expression killed all her last hopes of seduction stone dead. ‘Come in for a second.’ Just a second. Disappointment settled in her stomach. ‘This is not a conversation for the hallway.’
Effie stepped in on leaden feet, urgently rehearsing her nonchalant face in her head. If he was going to break her heart, she’d be damned if she allowed him to see it. He closed the door and leaned his back against it.
‘What did you mean when you said it was obvious I regretted the last kiss?’
‘The bumping of faces?’ She had not expected him to start with that question. Or any question to be frank when she was expecting a polite let down.
He winced. ‘I said that, didn’t I?’
‘You also called it a big mistake.’
‘Not my finest hour. But in my defence you had just knocked me sideways and I was...’ He sighed as he turned away and then gazed at her sheepishly though the heavy curtain of his hair. ‘I didn’t mean it, Effie. Any of it. That first kiss was special. Last night’s was spectacular.’
‘Oh...’ She had no earthly idea where this was going.
‘And I would very much like to do it again... Right this second, in fact...in case you were wondering.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Two beautiful big brown eyes...
It had been an odd day. So odd that even at this late hour he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. There were so many things to think about. So much indecision it was all sending him mad. He didn’t have all the answers—but what he did know, with complete certainty, was that he needed Effie.
She looked so lovely in the candlelight, bare toes just poking out from under the hem of her unbelievably distracting coral evening gown, nothing but a pencil holding up her hair and blinking back at him as if he’d just spoken to her in a foreign language rather than admitting he was desperate to kiss her. ‘May I?’
To his utter delight she answered by launching herself at him, knocking him back against the door as her lips greedily found his. It was this honesty he adored about her. There was no artifice about Effie. No deception. No games. She wanted to kiss him and he desperately wanted her to. It was strange—a few short weeks ago he had been convinced no woman would ever want to kiss him again and he had mourned all those faceless, voiceless, soulless women as if he known each one personally, yet now he couldn’t care less because none of them interested him. Why would they when the only woman he could ever imagine kissing again was the one currently in his arms? He’d craved this all day, which w
as no mean feat when one considered the day he’d had, but it was true. She had possessed him, thoroughly bewitched him, and despite the war currently being waged in his head he had counted every second just waiting for the chance to hold her again.
He felt her hands burrow beneath his coat and smiled against her mouth. He hadn’t misread her desire yesterday. She was as desperate for the contact as he was and he felt gloriously alive again. Perhaps not entirely whole, not at all his old self, but not the shadow he had been when he had come here to Rivenhall completely broken. Something was shifting. He was changing. But she was here and nothing else mattered.
Which was a dangerous game while her passionate exuberance was scrambling his wits and driving his body mad with longing.
Not ready to put a sensible stop to it yet, he poured his heart and soul into the kiss, wrapping his arms tightly around her and not entirely sure if he would ever let go. Almost immediately, things got out of hand and he revelled in that, too. She ground her hips against his arousal, moaning as his lips found her ear. Her neck. Her shoulder. At some point, he must have lifted her and reversed their positions, because Effie’s legs wrapped themselves around his waist as he held her suspended from the ground using only the door and the hard press of his body, losing himself entirely in the moment. Losing himself in her. The urge to tear the buttons from his falls and plunge himself deep inside of her was the only thing which brought him up short.
He tore his lips away and rested his forehead against hers, gulping for air, his body aching for release and his head whirling like a frantic spinning top.
‘Did I do something wrong, Max?’
The bark of laughter came out of nowhere. ‘No, Miss Naive. You did everything right. Too right—when I am desperately trying to be a gentleman and about to fail miserably.’
‘Oh.’ She was pleased with herself. He could hear it in her voice and he liked that, too. No games. No lies. Just Effie.
He gently lowered her to the ground and stepped back, trying and failing not to notice how scandalously wanton she looked with her lips all swollen, those sultry dark eyes molten and one sleeve hanging off her shoulder as her straining breasts rose and fell against the silk. Thank the lord the pencil had held or he’d be completely done for, although it looked precarious. ‘Perhaps we should talk for a little while.’
‘About what?’
‘About...’ He considered suggesting something inane to do with the antiquarians or the dig, but knew there were more important things which needed to be said. ‘About me.’ Max exhaled loudly to calm himself, feeling more vulnerable than he had since those first months in his sickbed after his world had fallen apart. ‘Because I have all these confusing thoughts suddenly crashing about in my mind and I cannot make head nor tail of them. And seeing as you are the cleverest person I have ever met, I was hoping you could help me make sense of them because I have to face them, Effie. I don’t want to, but I know I must.’
‘All right...’ Her concern was instant and genuine. ‘We should probably sit in that case...’ She wandered to the bed and was about to lower herself on to it when he held up his hand.
‘Not there! Have a care, woman! How am I supposed to have any sort of rational, let alone important conversation with you sat on my bed looking like temptation incarnate?’
She smiled as if he had just given her the most beautiful compliment and took herself to the chaise near the window instead. ‘Is this better?’
‘Only slightly, but it will have to do.’
Max propped a hip on his mattress and racked his brains as to where he should start. ‘Because I kept catching him staring, I told Percy about my burns this morning and he said the strangest thing...’ It was probably the wrong place entirely, but as his insightful comment had come directly after Effie’s outburst about Max regretting their first kiss, it joined with it to plague him and make him question everything he thought he believed. ‘It was quite philosophical, actually—he said he didn’t doubt an experience like that put everything else into perspective... And it set me to wondering, because I used to be level-headed. I used to be pragmatic and philosophical and optimistic, but I have no clue exactly where my perspective on things went because I am no longer sure I have any.’
‘Hardly a surprise. There is nothing like a traumatic event to shift perspective on its axis. It is hard to be any of those things when fate deals you a blow. After Rupert died, I was so lost and distraught, I didn’t know which way was up or what I was going to do. I’d put all my eggs in one basket, mapped out my life and had no contingency plan. It took a while to find my feet again and to find a new path. That was the power of one single traumatic event. You were dealt a succession of blows, Max—the burns, the loss of your ship, your crew, your career, your father and your fiancée. And perhaps even your dreams. All in quick succession. Each one of those has the power to tear the ground from under the feet. Combined, I should imagine they are devastating and each would need adequate time to heal.’
He hadn’t thought of it like that. There had been a series of separate catastrophes, some inextricably linked to be sure, but all bundled together into one indigestible mass. Yet in the last few weeks, it had felt as if a fog was lifting and he no longer saw the mass as much as sensed there were separate components to his grief. And she was right about that, too. It was grief which had overwhelmed him. For so many things he hadn’t known where to start mourning them all. ‘I’ve started to contemplate the future again.’ The truth tumbled out. Truth he had not realised until he vocalised it.
‘That’s good. Does it involve the sea?’
How did she know him so well? ‘I think so... Not the navy any longer. I was done with that before the fire.’ Another truth he had not seen coming. ‘Ships, I think... Cargo, perhaps. Or passengers. Maybe both. It’s hazy. Not properly formed. Starting small...’ Some of the tangled thoughts began to unravel and he felt strangely lighter.
‘From little acorns...’ She smiled wistfully. ‘That’s wonderful, Max.’
‘It’s terrifying. I am not sure I am ready to go back out into the world.’
‘You are more ready than you were when I first met you almost two months ago.’
‘True...’
‘And I dare say Eleanor would corroborate that by confirming you are much more ready than you were a year ago.’
That was also true. A year ago he had been in a very dark place. He wasn’t in that infinite pit any longer. More a hole a little deeper than one of Effie’s trenches—but he could see some light now. Quite a bit of it. One of the brightest shining beacons was sat right in front of him. How could he sail the seas and leave her behind? Yet another tangled thought to swirl among the mess. ‘It’s probably all too soon.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I still can’t see the wood for the trees. Still can’t make much sense of it all.’
‘Scientifically speaking, the best way to work through a difficult problem is to break it into chunks and go through it systematically. Start at the beginning and work from there.’ She settled back, her cheek propped against her hand. ‘Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate some of those things and look at them with fresh eyes? The fire happened, what, a year and a half ago? Do you have misgivings about what you did?’
‘No. I wish it hadn’t happened, but it did and I had to do what needed to be done to save the ship and the crew. We were all in the thick of it.’
‘And after that?’
‘Six months of blurriness. Pain, laudanum and stupor.’
‘Then do you recall where you were a year ago?’
‘Eleanor’s house. Feeling very alone and very sorry for myself.’
‘Why?’
He slanted her a disbelieving look. ‘All of the above.’
‘That’s not true, is it? Your sister told me once the worst was past and the threat of death was gone, you were full of fight and o
ptimistic about your recovery. What changed?’
‘I saw myself.’ A lie. That had come after and he suspected Effie had worked that out already. ‘Miranda...’
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’
No. But how could he ever move forward if he didn’t? ‘Nelson was an ugly bugger. A great man, but nowhere near as pretty as his portraits would have you believe. He’d lost most of his teeth to scurvy, so his face had caved in. He was blinded when a shell exploded and, aside from ruining the look of that eye, it also ripped his entire eyebrow off and took a chunk out of his forehead. His arm was missing and he had more nicks and scars on his face than a face should carry, but both his wife and Emma Hamilton still loved him to distraction. He wore those scars like medals—proud badges of honour—and nothing kept him down. That inspired me. I assumed my face would heal, my stunning fiancée would still marry me even with a few battle scars and I’d be back sailing the high seas in no time. But Miranda recoiled in horror the first time she saw me.’ He’d tried to hold her hand. Had needed to know everything was going to be all right. ‘I assumed it was because it was all such a mess...the wounds were still open, some were festering, it must have been disgusting.’
‘You hadn’t seen it, then?’
‘No... Unbeknown to me, Eleanor had forbidden anyone from giving me a mirror in case I was so horrified by what I saw, I wouldn’t be able to cope.’ He felt his throat constrict at the memories he had tried so hard, but never entirely been able, to bury. ‘As time went on, they healed and the threat of infection was over, but Miranda still recoiled. I could see I disgusted her, but...’ He felt the bile rise at the memory. She had made him feel hideous.
‘You still gave her the benefit of the doubt.’
‘I thought things would improve. Clung to that thought. My father died then. We had never been particularly close because he was a difficult man as I’m sure my uncle would testify. He tried on several occasions to heal the breach between them, but my father would have none of it. I have no idea what they fought over, but I do know he never forgave me for running away to sea rather than going to university and training to be the Earl I was destined to become. We rarely saw one another when I came home on leave. I preferred to stay at my sister’s house and he preferred to avoid me when I did. We never ever sorted it out or mended the breach between us either...even when I was on the brink of death myself. I recall he visited me twice and both times he was adamant none of it would have happened if I’d obeyed him as I was supposed to... And then it was too late. I was still too ill to attend the funeral and while Eleanor went, she asked Miranda to sit with me. And it all came out. She was dreading the prospect of marrying me, even admitted gazing upon my face made her feel physically sick. She claimed she needed time and, because I still foolishly hoped she would come around, I offered her a termination of our engagement.’
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