His heart is a fortress.

And she’s trespassing!

After losing all he holds dear in a horrific fire, Max Aldersley, Earl of Rivenhall, shuns the world—until he catches Effie Nithercott digging holes on his estate! He banishes the intrepid archaeologist and the unsettled feelings she rouses within him. But she returns even more determined and infuriatingly desirable than before! He wonders just how deep she’s prepared to dig—so far she’ll reach the man beneath his scars?

When VIRGINIA HEATH was a little girl it took her ages to fall asleep—so she made up stories in her head to help pass the time while she was staring at the ceiling. As she got older the stories became more complicated—sometimes taking weeks to get to their happy ending. One day she decided to embrace her insomnia and start writing them down. Virginia lives in Essex, UK, with her wonderful husband and two teenagers. It still takes her for ever to fall asleep…

Also by Virginia Heath

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Redeeming the Reclusive Earl

Virginia Heath

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90134-9

REDEEMING THE RECLUSIVE EARL

© 2020 Susan Merritt

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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For Emily Lawrence.

Who never fails to make me smile.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One
Three hundred acres...

‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’

The grubby boy scrambled back to a sitting position and blinked up at him through the thick lenses of his spectacles. When Max had first spotted the lad kneeling on the ground, he had assumed he was a poacher and was about to ride by, not caring if a few of his pheasants were liberated for a poor family’s cooking pot. Just because he no longer had any appetite didn’t mean the rest of the population couldn’t eat and he’d never had a taste for pheasant even when he had enjoyed his food, so it made no difference to him. But as he had crested the small rise near the eastern boundary of his new estate in his quest to fill some time, he spotted all the holes in the ground, the shovels, tools and wheelbarrow, and realised the intruder was digging.

‘I asked you a question!’ He practically spat in annoyance, aggrieved that he had to make the effort to actually converse or to concern himself with another human being and their peculiar business when he was in no mood for either. The boy’s spectacles magnified his dark eyes. They were the oddest spectacles Max Aldersley had ever seen. Instead of arms, the unsightly frame was tied around the back of his head with a bright red ribbon secured in a bow. Perhaps his first guess about the direness of the lad’s financial circumstances had been correct if he had to go out looking like that. His gaze drifted to the paintbrush and trowel in the boy’s hand, then fixed on the hole he was crouched before. Half-exposed in the mud was a dark object. Spherical, like a pot, which was either being buried or exhumed. All very odd and all entirely unwelcome. All much too much effort. ‘Why are you trespassing on my land?’

‘My land?’ The boy didn’t sound like a boy and instantly Max felt his hackles rise in panic at his own curious stupidity. The trespasser stood and his stomach plummeted to his toes.

Now he could see significant evidence that the boy was a woman which really made his blood boil. When he had first spotted her scratching around in the mud he had assumed her to be a young man—an easy mistake to make, considering she was dressed in breeches and work boots. Odd work boots. One black. One very definitely brown.

‘Oh, hello! You must be the new Lord Rivenhall.’

It was so much easier to be an abomination in front of a man.

Had he known that she was female, he wouldn’t have brought his horse so close no matter what she had been doing on his property. But now Max could see the trousers hugged her female form like a second skin and there was no getting away from the fact that the hips which flared from her waist were as unmanly as it was possible for hips to be—more was the pity. Worse, the capacious linen shirt tucked haphazardly into the top of the waistband also did little to disguise the fine bosom beneath. The wench had a body that was made for sin. Unfortunately, there was very little evidence that the rest of her lived up to that promise. Which, all things considered, was probably just as well. His sinning days were well and truly over.

The floppy brown felt hat she wore hid her hair and it was anybody’s guess what the strange spectacle affair was all about, but it did a very good job of hiding her features. What the large round lenses did not cover was hidden behind a thick smear of wet dirt. She smiled cheerfully as she idly patted his horse’s muzzle with one hand and shielded her magnified eyes from the sun rising behind him with the other.

‘We are neighbours, my lord. I called upon you yesterday and twice more last week to introduce myself, but you were indisposed. I am so glad we have finally met. I am Miss Euphemia Nithercott, daughter of Doctor Henry Nithercott of Hill House.’

She stuck out her hand for him to shake. It might as well have been a cobra as far as he was concerned, but he hid the visceral claw of fear of human contact behind what he hoped was a bland, surly mask, ignoring her friendly gesture and her hand to loom taller in his saddle menacingly. ‘I have a deep well of loathing for the medical profession.’

‘Not a medical doctor. He was an academic, specialising in the translation of Anglo-Saxon texts. Papa was a don at Cambridge for thirty-five years.’ She was also still waffling on in the false assumption that her words mattered. When nothing mattered any more and all he wanted was to be left alone. Something he had hoped to be able to do with impunity on this sprawling estate miles from anywhere. Yet here he was, only two weeks in and already burdened with unwanted company.

Max curled his lip, letting her know in no uncertain terms he didn’t hold academic doctors in much higher regard either, and watched in relief as she withdrew her hand awkwardly and clasped it in the other one behind her back as her cheerful smile melted from her face under his intense scrutiny. ‘He was highly respected in his field.’

Responding with anything sounding remotely like interest would only open the floodgates for more inane chatter. ‘Miss Nithercott, this is private property and you have no right to be on it. Leave. Now.’

‘Actually, I was just going. However, I do have permission to be here. I am not a trespasser, my lord.’ She offered him her best this is all a misunderstanding smile and went back to petting his horse. ‘Although I understand how you might have been a little alarmed to see someone here so early in the morning. The previous owner of this land, your uncle Richard, granted me access to dig around these ruins years ago. Perhaps he mentioned me to you in his letters?’

‘He did not.’ As his uncle and his father had been estranged for the entirety of his life, there had been no letters as far as he was concerned—bar the one from his uncle he had read posthumously, months after both his father and the uncle he had never met had both left this mortal coil, expressing sympathy for Max’s loss and his bitter regret at never healing the breach. At the time, he had barely registered the loss himself. He’d been too busy fighting for his own life. When he had finally emerged from that agonising pit of hell into the new darkness of his life, he grieved his indifferent father alongside everything else—albeit grieving everything else more. He still grieved it and cursed fate daily for not taking him, too.

‘Oh...well... Never mind.’ She swatted the detail away with one muddy hand. ‘Lord Richard was fascinated by all the things I found and took a great interest in the ancient history of Rivenhall. As you can see...’ she made a sweeping motion of the extensive dig site with her arms ‘...I have found a great deal of important archaeology here. There has been a settlement at Rivenhall Abbey for at least a thousand years and I have been gradually excavating its secrets for the last decade. It is so very interesting.’

Max gave the rocks and stones sticking out of the ground a cursory glance. He could make out the odd suggestion of a long-fallen wall here and there, but apart from that there was nothing about the area that she was gesticulating towards so enthusiastically that he found even remotely interesting. Not that he had expected to be interested. He had lost all interest in everything and everyone a long time ago.

‘If you would care to dismount, my lord, I would be more than happy to show you everything I have found so far.’

He would rather gouge out his eyeballs with his own thumbs. Cut off his toes with blunt shears. Curl up in a ball and feel sorry for himself. He hated himself for that, but could not seem to haul himself out of the deep pit of despair he languished in. ‘Your permission to dig here is now revoked, Miss Whatever-your-name-is. Pack up your things and get off my land.’ His voice was flat and suddenly emotionless as the familiar hopelessness swamped him. ‘If I catch you here again, I will set my dogs on you!’ He managed somehow to give the idle threat the gravitas it deserved before he quickly turned his horse until his back was fully to her and then began to ride away as if she deserved no more of his consideration, vowing to buy some dogs at his earliest convenience in case she called his bluff.

‘You cannot do that! This site is of great historic importance...’ He could hear her work boots thump the ground as she jogged after him. Smelled the faintest whiff of rose petals as she came alongside. ‘I have to dig here. There is so much still to uncover. Can’t you see that?’

He should have ignored her. Should have—but couldn’t. He tugged on his reins to bring his mount to a stop and turned to stare at her, then regretted it instantly when he saw the hope in her eyes.

‘Go home, Miss Nodcock.’

Please, for the love of God, go home.

‘It’s Nithercott.’ She shrugged without offence, which he couldn’t help but admire when he was trying hard to be so very offensive. ‘A bit of a mouthful, I know, but it is what it is and there aren’t many Nithercotts left in the world. The name comes from Somerset originally, but Papa moved here to Cambridgeshire before I was born. Which was fortuitous for me as I doubt I would have found anything quite as inspiring to dig as Rivenhall Abbey. Let me show you the site... I guarantee you will find your history fascinating.’

‘I wouldn’t place a bet on that.’

‘The Abbey goes back to the fifteenth century.’ She was pointing to the broken, empty shell of a building in the distance, the one he knew had given Rivenhall Abbey its name. He knew this because he had managed to read an entire chapter of a book about it in his new library the day after he arrived, before he had tossed it angrily aside to stare at his new walls and continue to wallow in self-pity. Something his sister was convinced he over-indulged in. Max agreed, but did not possess the strength or the desire to stop. At the very least, self-pity gave him something to do during the interminable hours of the day. ‘Although the earliest parts of the knave are obviously Norman. There have been some very interesting medieval finds in and around the Abbey walls. However, it was only when I began to excavate a little beyond the immediate boundary of that building that I began to discover evidence of an earlier settlement here.’

A soft breeze materialised out of nowhere, ruffling the hair from his face, and she saw the scars. Her dark eyes briefly widened behind the ridiculous lenses she wore and for just the briefest moment he saw her smile falter before she politely nailed it back in place. It was a good approximation of a friendly smile, better than most managed when they first encountered his deformity, but still tinged with the awful polite and pasted-on smile of pity he had come to loathe with every fibre of his being. He felt sick to his stomach and ashamed that she had seen it.

Instinctively, he twisted his body and his horse away so that she could see only the undamaged side of his face in profile, then speared her with his most irritated gaze, keeping the hideousness safely out of view even though he knew she had seen it and there was no point trying to fool himself she hadn’t.

She was smiling again, trying to appeal to his better nature, and that galled because it was a pretty smile and it did appeal. She was one of those people who spoke with her hands. They were waving wildly, pointing to this and that or making strange shapes in the air while she continued to assault his ears with her chatter and offend his eyes with her femininity while beneath his ribs his heart wept.

‘Those walls over there, for instance, are definitely Roman, the size of the buildings suggest that they are the small dwellings of the poorer citizens and I have already amassed an extensive collection of everyday artefacts from the period which paint a vivid picture of what life was like here then. In the last year, I have been digging on this eastern boundary in the hope of finding a temple or villa—something substantial that would explain why there were so many smaller dwellings in such close proximity, but my investigations have only recently taken a decidedly different course from the one I anticipated.’ Two magnified brown eyes blinked back at him in excitement through the thick lenses as she beamed up at him. She reminded him a little of a barn owl. ‘In actual fact, I believe I am on the cusp of proving that the settlement actually predates the Roman conquest. Lord Richard would have been thrilled to know about that. I cannot wait to uncover it all.’

Good grief, the woman could talk. Max had barely been in her company for a few scant minutes and already his ears were ringing. He avoided conversations now. Had less time for them then he did people. This unwelcome onslaught would need nipping in the bud right this instant if he was ever to get the peace and solitude he craved, as it was quite apparent the academic’s daughter cared a great deal about all the holes she had dug and wanted to continue digging them. Something that was entirely out of the question. The last thing he needed or wanted was a woman on his grounds. Or anybody come to that.

‘I am not sure how to break this to you...’ Sarcasm had become a second language. Another line of defence to hide all the hurt. ‘But Lord Richard is dead. Which means any agreements you had with him to dig up this land are also dead.’ As she furiously blinked back at him he noticed her thick, dark lashes were also ridiculously long. Each blink caused them to sweep across the inside of the glass lenses like tiny paint brushes. Max felt himself frown because the sight of them offended him. He was done with noticing attractive details like eyelashes. That part of his life was over and the sooner he accepted it the happier he would be. Then, because clearly she had not unsettled him enough, one muddy finger tugged at the ribbon behind her head and the thick lenses dropped away to reveal a lovely pair of eyes the exact same colour as aged Scotch whisky. They were much too lovely and much too intelligent as far as he was concerned as they stared back at him levelly.

‘Get your things and get the hell off my land, Miss Nithercott! I do not want to see you here again.’

She bristled instantly, those insultingly fine eyes shimmering with a stubborn flash of temper which suddenly burned in her golden-flecked irises, and her hands positioned themselves staunchly on her generous hips, drawing his eyes reluctantly to them before he tore them away. ‘Now see here...’

Max held up his palm to stop whatever tirade she was about to launch into. He really had no patience for politeness any more, nor did he see the point in it. The need to behave like a gentleman died the exact same day as his face and his dreams.

‘We are done, Miss Nincompoop. Take your shovels, and whatever all that other nonsense is, and go. From this point forth, you are banned from setting one foot on Rivenhall Abbey and, as I’ve already told you, all agreements you once had with the uncle I never knew have been rescinded.’ He did not bother to wait for a reaction, instead, desperate to escape, he nudged Drake in the ribs and let the big horse gallop away as fast as he could make it.

Chapter Two
Dig Day 756: no progress whatsoever due to entirely unforeseen circumstances...

Despite her best attempts at being calm Effie was so incensed, even the pretty two-mile walk from Hill House to the Abbey had done little to soften her temper.

How dared he be so rude and obnoxious?

How dared he try to ban her from excavating the past? When the past was her everything and she couldn’t imagine what she would do with her days if she didn’t have the Abbey and all its hidden secrets to keep her occupied. What had begun as a diversion to avoid the despair of her strange lot in life had rapidly become her salvation. The only place she truly felt as though she belonged now.

Horrid man! What difference did it make to him if she dug around the ruins anyway? It was on the furthest edge of his land, the soil too filled with the deep foundations from a bygone era to be of any agricultural use and a good distance from his house. He had plenty of better acres to ride his big horse in. He was simply being difficult and unreasonable. Two traits she had little time for under the normal course of things.

However, legally Lord Rivenhall actually had a point. He was under no obligation to honour a neighbourly agreement made by his uncle years before because the land was now his to do with as he pleased. There was no written contract—there had been no need of one between friends—and as far as she understood things, a gentleman’s agreement died with the gentleman. Unless Effie could negotiate otherwise with their surly new neighbour, Lord Rivenhall was completely within his rights to prevent her from digging up his land.

This prospect angered her even more. How dared that awful man be so...insensitive to the important work that she was doing at the Abbey? Did he seriously expect her to abandon her study just because he said so? She had half a mind to march right up to his front door, demand an audience and give him a piece of her superior mind. Of course, if she did that then she could wave goodbye to any further investigation of the site alongside her purpose and her sanity.

If her father had been alive, typically, he would have urged restraint and caution.

‘Effie,’ he often said when her frustrations got the better of her or she had rubbed people up the wrong way. ‘Appeal to their better nature. Argue your corner using sound logic and reasoning, not emotion. Do your best to find a compromise. Compromise is always key. And remember, as Benjamin Franklin said, “Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.”’

He had been fond of learned quotes, probably because he hated arguments of any sort, whereas Effie was more than happy to have an argument if she felt the situation warranted it. The obnoxious Lord Rivenhall warranted it. If he had not been the custodian of the very land she needed to dig, she’d have brought one of her shovels along to clonk him over his thick head with it. Horrid man!

Thanks to him, she was wasting her morning on a wholly unnecessary mission of diplomacy when what she really wanted to do, what she had spent all of yesterday and most of the long, sleepless night impatiently itching to do, was to excavate the rest of the magnificent pot still partly submerged in the ground. Unfortunately, a great well of patience was not a virtue that she naturally possessed.

In all the years she had been digging at Rivenhall she had never uncovered anything which had looked quite like the treasure she had discovered yesterday. Just thinking about it made bubbles of sheer excitement fizz and pop within her. Not liberating it from the soil for further study and not thoroughly digging around its current location would be a tragedy. She paused a few yards from the horrid Earl’s front door and forced herself to inhale several slow, calming breaths before she marched into the breach.

‘Tart words make no friends.’

Not that she currently had any friends left, but that sad fact had little to do with her occasional tart mouth and more to do with her unique peculiarity, but the new Lord Rivenhall wouldn’t know about that yet. Unless the good news had already travelled to him via the gossips or his servants, which in itself made a bit of a mockery of being a recluse.

Hoping her father’s often-repeated words of wisdom would calm her, Effie said the phrase over and over in her mind. Not that the house intimidated her. She had been visiting the previous Lord Rivenhall alone since she had been about ten. The old man had always been thrilled to see her and took an active interest in her passion for antiquity. She had had free rein to explore his vast scholarly library as well as dig in the ruins. Right up until his death twelve months ago, Effie had taken tea with him at least twice a week. Unfortunately, this wasn’t tea with her father’s old friend. It was critical to all she held dear and her fate rested entirely in the hands of his scowling curmudgeon of a nephew.

Out of politeness to the new master, Effie knocked on the imposing front door rather than let herself in through the kitchens as usual. In the spirit of friendship, she also carried a basket of freshly baked cakes for the surly Earl as a peace offering, hoping a few sweet treats and the fine bottle of brandy from her father’s old stash might make him more agreeable.

Smithson, the butler, appeared amused that she had done so and even more bemused by the sight of her in a frock, but embarrassment soon clouded his face, his darting eyes saying much more than his mouth. ‘I believe Lord Rivenhall is indisposed again, Miss Euphemia. Perhaps you would like to leave your basket and I will tell him that you called?’ His wary gaze was pleading now, begging her to leave.

Effie had expected this. The village was awash with gossip about how the new owner of Rivenhall Abbey had refused to see anyone thus far. Aside from her, the vicar and his wife had been turned away both last week and the week before when they had called to welcome him to the parish. So, too, had the local magistrate and the physician, Dr Samuels. Although after her run-in with Lord Surly yesterday and his curt ‘I have a deep well of loathing for the medical profession’, she wasn’t particularly surprised the latter gentleman had been denied an audience. But he would see her today.

By hook or by crook, he would see her today!

She had even donned a dress for the occasion, something she rarely needed on the long and solitary days filled with digging, but she knew from bitter experience the male of the species always reacted more favourably towards her if she resembled what they expected a gentleman’s daughter to resemble. As if the mere presence of skirts and ribbons somehow made her less intimidating or odd. To that end, and because he was new to the parish, she had also vowed to disguise the bulk of her intellect, too. Nothing terrified or aggravated a man more than an excessively clever woman—even if she wasn’t in breeches.

She smiled at the butler apologetically. ‘No, thank you, Smithson. I shall wait here until His Lordship is disposed. Can you please tell him that I have taken root in the parlour and will not be budged until I have an audience with him?’

Smithson nodded slowly, a slight wince on his face. ‘I will try, Miss Euphemia.’ Then he leant closer to whisper, ‘Although I do not fancy your chances. He is not the most sociable sort and prefers privacy.’

He moved off down the hallway, so she showed herself into the parlour and sat in her preferred seat nearest the large French doors which overlooked the beautiful garden, wishing she was outside working rather than stuck indoors wasting valuable hours on this ridiculous errand.

The butler returned in minutes, obviously agitated. ‘I am to tell you that His Lordship is indisposed and will remain so for the foreseeable future, Miss Euphemia. Furthermore, I am to remind you that you have been...’ he looked down at his highly polished shoes as he swallowed uncomfortably ‘...banned from setting one foot on this land henceforth. I am so sorry.’

Effie rolled her eyes, then pasted a cheery smile on her face. ‘Thank you for appraising me of His Lordship’s position, Smithson. But as I have already stated, I am quite determined to wait.’ Because everything hinged on him granting his permission. Effie wasn’t cut out for the traditional spinster’s life and she certainly wasn’t marriage material. Experience had taught her that as well. Her unusually active brain would send her mad if she was forced to embroider or knit, or, heaven forbid, sit through endless polite teas pretending to care about the typical inane nonsense ladies talked about over tea. Her brain needed constant feeding with new knowledge and challenges, not tired, well-worn gossip. ‘No matter how long that takes.’ She sat primly in her seat, attempting to look every inch the lady for once while poor Smithson visibly paled.

‘He is not going to take that well. I am under strict instructions to get rid of you.’ And it was patently obvious the servant much preferred to get rid of her, the woman he had known since she was baby, rather than deliver this unwelcome news to his belligerent new master.

Effie shrugged then offered the butler a regrettable smile in apology. ‘Then tell him if he wants me gone, I shall be gone quicker if he sees me. And while you are about it, please tell him I believe we got off on the wrong foot yesterday and that I wish to make amends for upsetting him. Tell him I come bearing gifts.’ Only the most hardened, rude curmudgeon could refuse both an apology and a present. ‘Edible gifts.’

Smithson nodded and she watched his shoulders slump a little as he went off to impart the bad news. Less than a minute later she heard Lord Rivenhall’s explosive reaction echo down the hallway.

‘Get rid of the blasted woman now! When I told you that I do not wish to see anyone I meant it, Smithson. How dare you come to me and tell me that she will not budge? You should never have let the chit in! Get a couple of burly footmen and throw the wench out.’

Effie knew the house too well not to know his bellowing shouts came from the study. She also knew that she was not going to stand by and allow the man to abuse one of his servants so abominably on her behalf regardless of the need to butter up the new Earl. She stood decisively and marched out of the French doors gripping her basket, determined to take the mountain to Mohammed. The quickest route to the study was outside and around the rose beds to the side. The study also had a pair of French doors connecting it to the garden. His Lordship would certainly not expect her to use them.

Steeling herself to do polite and reasonable battle, she slipped outside and dashed past the roses. Fortunately, the doors were cracked open to let in the fresh spring air. She grabbed the handle and, before she sailed through imperiously, reminded herself of her mantra.

Honey, not vinegar.

‘Good morning, Your Lordship.’

The butler gaped at her intrusion. Effie had no idea how Lord Rivenhall initially reacted because he had his back to her. She watched his shoulders stiffen before his head whipped around. Despite the tousled, long black hair practically covering his face like a shroud, she had the satisfaction of seeing he appeared to be temporarily lost for words.

‘Isn’t it a lovely morning, my lord?’

‘Have you no respect for either etiquette or boundaries, madam?’

‘Usually—but I urgently needed to speak you.’

‘And you assumed barging into my private study was appropriate when you had already been refused an audience?’

‘Desperate times call for desperate measures and I knew you were in because I heard you shouting.’

‘If you heard me, then you should already know I have no inclination to suffer your presence, Miss Nuisance.’ Lord Rivenhall turned his back rudely and addressed the butler instead as he started towards the hall. ‘Show her to the door and make sure she uses it!’

‘If you wish to be rude to someone, my lord, I would appreciate that you direct it at me. It is not Smithson’s fault that I have refused to leave or encroached on your privacy. And to be clear, I have no intention of leaving until I have said my piece, Lord Rivenhall, so you might as well hear it. Seeing as you are plainly here...’ she let her eyes travel around the pristine study until they settled on the completely clear desk. ‘...and hardly strike me as particularly indisposed.’

He paused mid-stride and slowly turned, clearly unsure of quite how to react to her bold statement. Bravely, Effie smiled, then walked towards the big, mahogany desk and sat in the chair opposite his vacant one to emphasise her intention to remain exactly where she was. Lord Rivenhall did not move from his spot on the Persian rug, piercing her with a glare which could have curdled milk.

‘Thank you, Smithson,’ she said, dismissing the servant with a smile she did not feel. ‘I shall see myself out once I am done. It shouldn’t take long.’ She fixed her gaze defiantly on her new nemesis. ‘Or at least I hope it won’t.’

The butler eyed them both warily, then bobbed his head once and swiftly fled the room at a speed that was not at all dignified. Lord Rivenhall let the silence hang ominously, but made no move to approach the desk. Instead, he folded his arms insolently and positively glared at her as he tapped one large booted foot impatiently. Effie decided to take his lack of shouting as a good sign.

‘Forgive the intrusion, my lord, but I felt it imperative to apologise for yesterday.’

Honey, not vinegar. Honey, not vinegar...

‘With hindsight, I imagine it came as quite the shock to see a stranger digging up your land so early in the morning, so it is hardly surprising we got off on the wrong foot.’ For good measure, she wiggled the basket now resting on her lap before sliding it on to the desk. ‘I brought fruitcake and brandy as a peace offering. A bottle of my father’s finest and one which goes particularly well with our housekeeper Mrs Farley’s famous fruitcake. It is her own secret recipe and she guards it with her life—much to the consternation of the rest of the village who would kill for it. But she baked this one yesterday upon my instruction. Just for you.’

‘That...was very kind of her...and you.’ He practically had to choke out the simple pleasantry through gritted teeth as it appeared to take a great deal of effort—but at least it proved he did possess some gentlemanly good manners and was capable of using them if pushed. ‘But wholly unnecessary.’ She watched his jaw set stubbornly. ‘It changes nothing.’

But changing the subject might give her a few more minutes’ leeway. She beamed as if she hadn’t heard his latest refusal. Pretending not to hear insults or see the pointed looks was second nature to her nowadays and certainly made life easier than chastising herself for being so unnaturally different. ‘What I urgently need to talk to you about is a pot.’

‘A pot?’ As she had hoped, the abrupt and seemingly bizarre change of topic confused him. ‘Why the hell should I care about a pot?’

‘Because this is not just any old pot, my lord.’ Her cheerful smile was met with open hostility. She could feel the anger at her intrusion shimmering off him in waves despite his statue-like, wary posture. But she would persevere regardless. What other choice did she have? It was only her entire reason for being he was determined to deprive her of. ‘This is different. Unique. In the two years I have been seriously digging around the ruined Abbey, I have never seen anything quite like it.’ While she apparently had the floor, there seemed little point in pausing. It would only give him the chance to dismiss her out of hand, when he needed to realise first exactly what it was he was dismissing. Whether he wanted to or not.

‘I discovered it purely by chance yesterday in the new trench I have started on the eastern boundary. I am not even sure what possessed me to dig there when there are still such rich pickings coming out of the ground near the Roman settlement by the western foundations...’

‘Roman? As in Ancient Roman?’ Curiosity was getting the better of him, something which clearly disgusted him as he remembered to follow his question with another scowl.

Beyond the scowl, she could not help but notice the Earl of Rivenhall was a handsome devil in a brooding sort of way, when she had been trying so hard to avoid noticing such pointlessly futile if pleasing aspects of the male form. Two dark brows furrowed in consternation over equally dark hooded eyes. A straight nose, strong jaw. The unfashionably dark and windswept hair only adding to his mysterious appeal. Excessively broad shoulders filled his coat and made him appear almost menacing from her angle in the chair below, although why he was buttoned into such a warm coat, the tall points of his shirt collar swathed in a cravat practically tied to the chin when the weather was unseasonably warm was beyond her.

Then she remembered the scars she had seen only briefly yesterday and felt oddly compassionate towards him. Effie had seen similar scars before on a blacksmith in Teversham. They were caused by burns, which must have been agonising to receive, yet while the blacksmith’s tight, gnarled scars had been on his arm, from memory and the briefest glimpse of them yesterday, Lord Rivenhall’s marred left cheek below the eye had scars which probably travelled down his neck, too. Hence the high collars and the long curtain of hair. And perhaps the open hostility?

She understood what it was like to feel different from others. Most people, in her experience, could be quite judgemental and wary of things they were unfamiliar with—like scars or unusual intelligence. And tactless. As if the person who had the misfortune to be different through no fault of their own was immune to their stares or unsubtle whispers, or, if the people were particularly thoughtless, the insulting words uttered directly to one’s face. In all her years on the planet, she had never quite found a way to truly cope with the phenomenon beyond ignoring it. Perhaps Lord Rivenhall’s natural form of defence to being different was attack?

‘Indeed. This area is teeming with Roman history. We are sandwiched between Duroliponte, the old Roman name for Cambridge, and their English capital Camulodunon—modern-day Colchester. The Abbey was built on the original Roman foundations of what I suspect was once a fort of some sort, judging by the nature of the artefacts I have found. The Normans did that sort of thing a lot and who can blame them? Why waste months digging and laying fresh foundations when there are already perfectly sturdy ones in situ? Colchester Castle and indeed the Tower of London, too, were both constructed on the original Roman foundations and still stand just as strong to this day. They were excellent builders, the Romans. Excellent at everything really. Such an advanced civilisation...’ She was losing him with her impromptu, rambling history lesson rather than charming him. She could see his impatience to be rid of her mounting and she had still not told him what she had come here to say.

‘Anyway... The pot I began excavating yesterday is particularly exciting. Or at least it has the potential to be. So far, it does not have the finesse expected from a piece of Roman or medieval pottery, appearing to have been shaped by hand rather than thrown on a wheel by a skilled potter. It’s rudimentary in construction, practical and lacking in any attempt to raise it from what it was made to be.’ All the Roman pottery she had previously found around the foundations of the ruined Abbey bore intricate painted decoration, carved inlays or raised reliefs. Even the very plainest medieval pottery from the site had turned rims and a glazed finish.

‘Therefore this pot has to be older. Significantly older.’ She paused for effect, offering her most dazzling smile. ‘If I am right, it is an artefact of unprecedented importance because we know so little about the people who occupied our islands two thousand years ago. It needs to be studied by the Society of Antiquaries. Therefore, you need to allow me to dig it up.’

‘I need do nothing, madam. This is my land.’

‘And I would only be digging on the furthest edge of it. The ruins are a good mile from here. Well out of your way and—’

‘No.’ His back was towards her again, his big, vexing, impatient feet already heading towards the door.

‘But...’

‘There is no but, Miss Nitwit. Leave. Now.’

Two years of hard work, everything she cared about, her entire purpose, the only thing she had left was being callously torn away. Unfamiliar panic made her heart race. ‘Really, my lord, if I could just explain...’ She couldn’t allow that to happen. Couldn’t contemplate exactly what she would do without it. Aside from drive herself directly to Bedlam. Her rapid, constant thoughts like an itch she could never scratch. ‘The site is truly of the utmost historical importance.’ And to her personally. It was all she had left. Her future and her sanity. Should she beg? Desperation and fear made her sorely tempted to. Pride made her set her shoulders and apparently took over her vocal cords.

‘Your uncle understood all that. But then he was a reasonable and affable man—not a bully.’ So much for honey. ‘Frankly, and if I might speak plainly...’

Do not speak plainly. Whatever you do, do not speak plainly. Whenever you do, it never ends well...

‘You should be ashamed of yourself for your boorish behaviour both yesterday and today!’ And now she was positively dousing the brute in vinegar. ‘It is most unneighbourly and without provocation.’

He stiffened and she winced at her forthrightness, yet couldn’t quite bring herself to apologise for her outburst. It was unneighbourly. Effie had never been particularly good at remembering either her place or her sex. She blamed that failing on her excessively large brain and growing up with a father who had always actively encouraged her to use it. Nor had she ever had much patience for wilful ignorance or downright unfairness. She had been perfectly polite to him up until now, but that forced politeness only stretched so far. ‘Have you no respect for history sir? For your legacy or for knowledge? You do not strike me as stupid. Or anywhere close to being an idiot.’ That, she was prepared to concede, was undoubtedly a step too far. Slowly, he turned and beneath the cloak of his hair she saw his mouth was partially open at her insolence. ‘So I fail to understand how you can wilfully stand in the way of progress!’

‘I am the stupid one? I asked you to leave, madam.’ This time his voice was icy calm and, frankly, quite terrifying as he slowly stalked towards her. ‘As I am well within my rights as the owner of this property to do. What part of that instruction are you struggling with?’

‘I am not easily intimidated, Lord Rivenhall.’ It was a lie, she was exceedingly intimidated now that he was stood less than a foot away, but she felt her delivery of the lie had been reasonably convincing thanks to her legendary stubborn streak and unhelpful lack of diplomacy in trying to convince him to see sense. She had never had much patience for blind ignorance.

Honey, not vinegar.

‘I should like us to have a rational discussion about the future of the dig like mature and polite adults.’ The stubborn streak made her lift her chin defiantly and fold her arms like a petulant, sulky child—although, to be fair, she was only mirroring his stance.

‘Then you give me no other choice, madam. If you continue to outstay your welcome, I shall have to remove you forcibly from my premises.’ He leaned until their eyes were level, scant inches apart, intent on intimidating her. Intent on letting her know in no uncertain terms he meant business and was heartily unimpressed with both her and her arguments to sway him to the contrary. ‘I think I would enjoy that.’

‘Am I supposed to be terrified now, Lord Rivenhall?’

Despite all the bluster and noise, all the overtly hostile evidence to the contrary, she somehow knew that this man would not lay a finger on her. Knew that in her bones. How odd, because she wasn’t usually one for nonsense like feeling things in her bones. Yet she was so certain he was harmless, her eyes locked on his brazenly as he continued to stare and remained so when he gripped the arms of her chair to lean closer, making no effort this time to conceal the scars marring his cheek. Almost as if he expected her to recoil disgusted at the merest sight of them.

‘If you are expecting me to burst into tears and scurry away, then I must tell you that you are doomed to be disappointed.’

He blinked, looked away and hastily stepped back. She smiled again because she could see he was confused by her reaction and perhaps a little uncomfortable with his own attempts to intimidate her, if his sudden inability to look her in the eye was a gauge. He was clearly all bluster. Just as she’d suspected. A lion with a thorn in his paw.

‘I need to excavate that pot and will not be deterred from that goal.’

‘And I need to be left alone, madam.’ His arms were crossed again and he stood far too tall and much too close for comfort. ‘Do I need to build a wall encasing my land to keep you off it?’

‘You have a lot of land, my lord. If you start building it today, it might be finished in three years and by then, I can assure you, the pot will be long out of the ground.’

However, the rest of the Abbey’s secrets would still be buried there—taunting her. Effie tried to ignore the way he overwhelmed her and pretended to look nonplussed while her clever mind ran every possible scenario through to the end in the hope of finding a way to make him see reason and concluded, with her customary rapidity, she had to face facts.

Thanks to her poor efforts at diplomacy, he wasn’t going to budge today—in reality, if she continued to push he would only dig his heels in deeper. Something she had quite the knack for making people do even when she tried not to.

He might not budge at all come to that, but the scant remains of the former optimist she had once been and the strategist in her refused to believe she couldn’t get him to ever see sense once he listened to her superior and irrefutable arguments. In truth, he really didn’t strike her as an idiot. Surely between the pair of them they could come to some agreement—when he had calmed down, of course, and was more agreeable. And there was more than one way to skin a cat or excavate a pot for that matter. The pot was her most pressing priority now that it was exposed to the elements and nature and clumsy horses’ hooves. For now, though, it was probably best she retreat and allow the dust to settle, then approach him again when he wasn’t feeling so belligerent.

‘I can see I have inadvertently called upon you at a bad time, putting you in another bad mood with my irritating over-enthusiasm for the quest I hold dear. Something which was never my intention. Nor was insulting you with my forthrightness. Occasionally, I forget myself and I apologise.’ It took a great deal of strength to get those insincere words out without sounding as disgusted by them as she felt. But she managed another magnanimous smile regardless for the sake of the pot. ‘When would be a more convenient time for our discussion?’

‘Never.’

She found herself smiling ironically. He might well be obnoxiously rude, but at least he was predictable. She could work with that. Or around it. He might not be an idiot, but he was unlikely to be cleverer than her.

According to Papa, nobody was.

Her curse and the root cause of all her problems and isolation—but occasionally it came in handy. ‘Enjoy the cake, Lord Rivenhall. And the brandy. I can see myself out.’

Chapter Three
Four hundred and twelve crystals...

Max knew that already because he had counted every damn droplet on the chandelier above his bed twice this week when sleep evaded him. For once, he had someone else to blame for his restlessness. The tart-mouthed, not easily intimidated new bane of his life: Miss Euphemia Nithercott.

He would lay good money she was out there. Since laying siege to his study and frightening the life out of him two days ago, he knew full well she was still digging despite his expressly forbidding her to do so. Annoyed, he threw the covers back and padded to the window, staring sightlessly at the darkness, impatiently willing dawn to break an hour earlier than usual.

He knew she was out there because he had become unhealthily obsessed with checking up on her. Each morning since, as soon as the sun came up, he rode to her haphazard cluster of holes in his ground and each time he had seen as clear as the sparkling crystals on his bedchamber chandelier her dratted hole was getting bigger. Although she was taking her own sweet time about it as only a few inches of dirt had been neatly scraped away from her stupid pot. Why she hadn’t taken a shovel to the earth to get the damn thing out once and for all was beyond him. That she hadn’t strangely intrigued him.

So much so, the chit had apparently taken root in his thoughts since—although Miss Nithercott was hardly a chit. She was, he estimated, probably nearer thirty than twenty and undeniably all woman. And a damned attractive one at that. The entire time he had been forced to look at her in his own study and inhale the sultry scent of her perfume, his senses had been assaulted with that unfortunate fact. And despite the addition of an entirely respectable pretty dress, his imagination kept conjuring up the image of her lush curves encased in the tight breeches and softly worn shirt he had first encountered her in, when he was certain her femininity had not been tamed by the rigid restrictions of a corset. It was a memory he visited often.

Those errant but ultimately futile thoughts only served to depress him. Max did not want to contemplate Miss Nithercott’s corset, any more than he wanted to contemplate Miss Nithercott. But contemplate both he did with alarming regularity.

Aside from his morning reconnoitres, he had also taken to riding past the ruins every afternoon and evening around sunset, too, and finding no sign of the wench. Which meant she had to be doing her digging in secret in the dead of night like a grave robber, much too close for comfort.

Damn and blast it all to hell! Why couldn’t she just leave him alone as he had asked?

Or threatened, more like.

He huffed in disgust and thumped his head against the cool pane of glass. Actively trying to intimidate a woman was a new low, even for him. Max still winced each time he thought about the way he had loomed over her and wished he’d handled the entire situation differently. Been more reasonable, commanding and resolute as opposed to a snarling, panicked mess. But she had caught him off guard and unprepared and he’d lashed out. Lashing out had become a bit of a habit and another thing about himself he had come to loathe. Not that the intrepid Miss Nithercott had listened one jot.

All credit to her, she had neither run nor screamed, or even looked slightly intimidated by his irrational performance. If anything, she had seemed amused, almost as if she saw right through him before she had pierced him with the perfect set down to bring him up short and remind him his behaviour was wholly unacceptable no matter what the provocation.

Am I supposed to be terrified now, Lord Rivenhall?

Words which had haunted him since. Not his finest hour and not a memory he could easily forget thanks to his constantly niggling conscience which ensured he felt heartily ashamed of himself. It was one thing being bitter and twisted and unpleasant to be around, it was another entirely to be a bully to boot. There was never any excuse for that. To have sunk so low as to have attempted to bully a woman was beyond the pale.

Shameful.

He had scarcely slept a wink since.

He’d even given serious consideration to apologising for his ghastly treatment of her—but hadn’t. Out of cowardice—pure and simple. Because apologising meant seeking her out, which inevitably meant leaving the sanctuary of this sprawling estate in the middle of nowhere. Exposing himself and feeling vulnerable. Enduring the curious stares. The pointing. The unsubtle whispers about the horrendous state he was in as if the flames had rendered him deaf as well as hideous and devoid of all human emotion.

It also meant having that reasonable discussion she wanted, when he really wasn’t up for one of those either. A discussion required extended conversation which he had lost the knack for. It was hard being erudite when you knew all focus was on the ugly scars rather than his sentences and being reasonable might open the floodgates and before he knew it, every Tom, Dick and Harry would assume they could call on him unannounced and engage him in conversation. A prospect which was, frankly, terrifying. Besides, the people of Cambridgeshire were already proving themselves to be an over-familiar lot. At least one new neighbour took it upon themselves to traipse up his new mile-long drive every day seeking an audience. So much so, it was becoming a job of work simply avoiding them. All much too neighbourly for Max’s liking. All much too intrusive and overwhelming when what he wanted was to be left well alone to lick his wounds in private and find a way to reconcile himself to his future as he mourned the past.

Not that he was alone now because she was out there. He could sense her even though he couldn’t see her. Not that he could really see anything tonight. With the moon and the stars obliterated by cloud, it was as black as pitch out there and would be for the next hour at least.

He groaned aloud this time when his conscience pricked. While he shouldn’t care, the thought of a woman all alone in the dark bothered him. That she was all alone in the dark thanks to his boorish and disgustingly bullish behaviour bothered him immensely. If something happened to her as a result, he would never forgive himself...

Blasted woman!

Was it any wonder he couldn’t sleep?

As he was wide awake and unlikely to get any rest unless he had reassured himself she was quite safe, he might as well take a wander out towards the ruins to check on her. And while he was about it, he should probably grab the bull by the horns and apologise for looming over her, seeing as her blatant trespassing meant he did not have to leave the sanctuary of his new estate to do it.

Less than half an hour later and all his suspicions were confirmed. The new bane of his life was on her knees, using some sort of hand tool as she bent over the pot she was obsessed with. A plethora of lanterns ringed her, casting her face in ethereal light, glinting off her ridiculous glasses and ensuring that even from his hiding place in the trees, Max could see she was smiling.

She did that a lot, did Miss Nithercott, although he wished it wasn’t such a beguiling and pretty smile because it drew his eyes to her lips. It also made her dark eyes sparkle, which inevitably pulled his gaze to those ridiculously long lashes when he really needed no reminders of her attractiveness or the sorry fact that she was exactly the sort of woman he would have once been compelled to flirt with. Back in his flirting days when he had adored women with spirit and gumption.

Before...

And there was the rub. Any acknowledgement of his undeniable attraction to her inevitably reminded him of everything he had lost and was trying desperately hard to forget while he readjusted to his life in the skin he had been doomed to live within for ever.

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 have 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 were 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.

‘I suppose we’ll never know exactly who put it in the ground, but we can speculate as to who owned it... The tribal leader, perhaps? Although which tribe is hard to guess. Catuvellauni, perhaps? Or Iceni? Both occupied territory in Cambridgeshire. It is entirely feasible, I suppose—we could even throw the Trinovantes into the mix. They were very...’ His head had tilted as if he couldn’t quite fathom exactly what it was he was hearing or seeing. A stark reminder of all her differences from the rest of the human race.

‘Very...?’

She had started so she might as well finish the sentence. No matter how dull it truly was. ‘Very powerful before the conquest. Or at least so I’ve read in Caesar’s account of the Gallic War.’

‘You have read Caesar’s account of the Gallic War? As in Julius Caesar? He wrote books?’

‘The Romans were prolific writers. Without them, we would know nothing whatsoever of our history before they invaded.’

‘I had no idea we had a history before they invaded...’

‘Most people don’t. The records really do need to be translated.’

‘So you read them in... What? Latin? Actual Roman Latin?’

‘Wherever possible. Although some have been lost over time, so I had to...’ Why was she telling him all this? When this was exactly the sort of thing that made people give her a very wide berth. ‘Um...refer to the Anglo-Saxon histories which borrowed a great deal from the Roman.’

He now had that baffled look which people always got when they realised she was peculiar. No matter how many times she tried to hide it. ‘Are you fluent in Anglo-Saxon, too, Miss Nithercott?’

She was. And Norse. She could also get by in Ancient Greek, but her Hebrew was practically non-existent, although, in her defence, she had never had much cause to learn it. ‘Technically, the Angles and the Saxons originally had different languages, my lord, but over time they...um...’

‘Um...?’ Bemusement was rapidly turning into amusement. It was obvious he thought her quite the anomaly. Which, of course, she was.

‘They merged, my lord.’

‘I shall take that as a yes, then.’ The corners of his mouth began to curve into a smile which did odd things to her insides, until the unmistakable sound of a carriage outside turned it swiftly into a frown. ‘Smithson!’

The aged butler’s grey head appeared out of nowhere. ‘I know, my lord. I shall get rid of them.’ And with that, Lord Rivenhall disappeared back into the drawing room, taking the bracelet with him and slamming the door.

Effie stood awkwardly on the spot for several seconds until she realised she was in full view of the front entrance and not really in a fit state to be seen by any of the local gentry, who tended to disapprove of her insistence on wearing breeches when she worked. Not that they particularly approved of her in a frock either, but that was by the by. Impending disapproval aside, if they saw her in the elusive and mysterious Lord Rivenhall’s hallway, they might feel aggrieved at being sent away and, knowing the way their minds worked, that would inevitably lead to unwanted and entirely unwarranted gossip. When she had promised herself faithfully she would actively try to avoid any more gossip—at least for the next few months.

Until the dust settled.

Because the rector, it turned out, did not take kindly to having the story of Noah questioned during a sermon. Even though, to Effie, Lamarck’s hypothesis that new species were created all the time made it entirely improbable the animals which walked the planet today would be exactly the same as those which walked down the gang plank of the ark after the Great Flood several millennia ago. The ark would have had to have been at least the size of France to accommodate two of every species which walked the Earth now!

The congregation hadn’t appreciated her comment, either, and she’d been treated as more of a pariah than usual in the four weeks since which had made her feel significantly lonelier than she usually did.

A moment before Smithson opened the door and exposed her to the caller, she darted into the drawing room, too. Yet another thing which seemed to surprise Lord Rivenhall, who had taken himself to the French doors to stare out at the garden.

‘Do you mind if I hide in here with you for a minute or two?’

He looked decidedly uncomfortable with the request. ‘Do I have a choice?’

‘Not really. At least not till they’ve gone.’ She smiled to soften the blow. ‘Besides, it probably will not do your standing any favours to be seen consorting with me, so it’s for the best.’

‘Why should I not be seen consorting with you?’

‘Because—and I doubt this will come as a piece of mind-shattering news, Lord Rivenhall—I am a trifle odd.’

‘A little eccentric, perhaps...’

It was very decent of him to try to defend her and she found herself smiling at him and meaning it completely. ‘Eccentric is wearing breeches and digging holes in the ground, Lord Rivenhall. Odd is when you have a brain which retains every piece of information it happens to come across.’

‘Every piece?’ He wasn’t convinced, although to be fair to him, why should he be? Effie had never even read about another person like her. ‘It is impossible to remember everything Miss Nithercott.’

‘What proof would you like?’ It was probably for the best she get it over and done with. ‘Should I recite every monarch from Alfred the Great to King George? I could do it forward and backwards and give you the dates of their reigns. Or Ge Hong’s exact and original ingredients for gunpowder from fourth-century China? It’s sulphur, charcoal and saltpetre, in case you were wondering. Although rather interestingly, they tended to retrieve the saltpetre from decayed manure rather than mine it back in those days. I’ve always pondered how he discovered that. What exactly was Ge Hong doing with dung that made him wonder if it might explode? Unless it was a complete accident as so often scientific discovery is?’ His square jaw was hanging slack. ‘Which neatly leads me to the real crux of my oddness, in that my mind constantly asks questions or speculates and at such speed they often fly out of my mouth before I’ve given any thought at all as to whether or not it is appropriate to say them. Which inevitably means I either inadvertently offend people or terrify them. And as much as I don’t mean to alienate them, I completely understand why I do. It is hardly normal for a person to know all of the bizarre and convoluted things that I do.’

‘But not particularly unusual when the person’s father is a don at Cambridge who specialises in translating Anglo-Saxon texts.’ He had remembered and appeared charmingly smug that he did. ‘Hardly a surprise, then, that you have an extensive grasp of history, Miss Nithercott.’

‘Was a don. He died four years ago.’

‘Oh...’ She could see that brought him up short. ‘I am sorry.’ He stared down at his feet awkwardly for a moment and she felt bad for directing their conversation on to a morbid path when she had been rather enjoying it.

‘I am afraid my oddity is not confined to just history. I remember everything. Test me. If I’ve read it, it’s in here.’ She tapped her forehead.

‘Shakespeare’s sonnet number one hundred and sixteen.’

‘“Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments. Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds...” I’ve always had a soft spot for that one.’ The single dark eyebrow she could clearly see raised, impressed. ‘Is it your favourite?’

‘It used to be. How many miles is it to cross the Channel?’

‘At its narrowest point, just twenty-one. But if one is travelling the normal route between Dover and Calais and in need of a harbour it’s twenty-eight. Although that is as the crow flies. If I were being pedantic, and because we can neither fly nor walk to France, it is technically twenty-four miles because we would need to use a boat of some sort to get there and a nautical mile is two hundred and sixty-five yards longer than the standard mile, therefore there are fewer of them.’

His head tilted again and he stared at her for the longest time before shaking his head. ‘That is quite a gift, Miss Not-at-all-usual.’

‘Or a curse. Depending on how you look at it.’ She felt her smile falter. ‘Sometimes just listening to my brain is exhausting.’ Heaven only knew why she felt compelled to admit that.

‘I know what you mean.’ His gaze locked and held with hers, making her wonder if he meant he empathised rather than sympathised. But whatever emotion it was he hastily covered it by looking down. Then seemed surprised to find the ancient bracelet still in his hand. ‘Why did you bring this to me?’

‘Because it came out of your land and is very valuable. It did not feel right taking your gold.’

‘My gold rather than the nation’s?’

‘I shan’t deny it is of the utmost national importance, my lord.’

‘Then you had best study it, Miss Nithercott.’ He held it out and dropped it into her open palm. ‘I should hate to wilfully stand in the way of progress.’ Then he smiled, properly smiled, for the very first time and it had the most unexpected effect on her. Her pulse quickened and her tummy felt all funny. Effie found herself smiling back and gazing, perhaps a little winsomely, into his now-twinkling deep brown eyes.

‘Excuse me, my lord...’ Smithson’s head poked around the door, his expression apologetic, as he used the rest of it as a shield. ‘There is a lady here to see you.’

‘No visitors, Smithson. None. We’ve been through this. Do not even let her in the front door!’

‘I didn’t, my lord, but...’ The old retainer’s eyes swivelled to Effie and back again. ‘She is also refusing to leave, my lord, and is currently still on the drive, supervising the unloading of her baggage.’

‘She brought baggage?’ Lord Rivenhall was practically snarling now, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

‘She is under the impression she has come to stay, my lord.’ Then, his expression turned pained. ‘And claims to be your sister.’

Chapter Five
Forty-six intertwined leaves on the Persian and two unwelcome women on the sofa...

Eleanor being Eleanor, she immediately made herself at home and sent the butler for tea. Tea which she couldn’t help herself from inviting Miss Nithercott to join them in, knowing full well he would hardly tear her off a strip in front of a guest. Worse, the new bane of his life had a charming smudge of dried mud on her cheek which his fingers itched to brush away. Between that, her breeches and his blasted sister he was in utter hell and the tea hadn’t yet arrived.

‘You look well, Max. You’ve caught some sun.’

‘I’ve been riding.’

‘That’s marvellous! Fresh air does wonders for the soul and you were looking much too pasty.’ He watched her gaze wander briefly to the distracting woman sat beside her before knowingly fixing on him. ‘The parkland here is so lovely and unspoiled. I’ll bet its great fun to gallop across. Do you ride, Miss Nithercott?’ His sister gestured to the breeches which were tormenting him. ‘Were the pair of you riding this afternoon...or about to before I interrupted?’

He was going to strangle his older sibling. ‘She digs, Eleanor. Big holes in the ground near the ruins of the old Abbey.’

‘Really? Whatever for?’

‘Whatever I can find, Mrs Baxter. The area used to house a Roman settlement so all sorts of things are buried beneath the soil. Oil lamps, coins, pottery. Today I found this.’ The bracelet was retrieved from the satchel at her feet and handed to his over-curious, overbearing, meddling sister, who took her own sweet time examining it.

‘How fascinating. Is this Roman?’

‘Older, I believe. Possibly over two thousand years old—or more. And solid gold. Hence I brought it to Lord Rivenhall as it is technically his seeing as it came out of his land.’

‘Miss Nithercott is a historian.’

‘An antiquarian, actually. Historians tend to learn about the past from books, whereas antiquarians learn about it by excavating it from the ground.’ Miss Nithercott beamed at his sister. ‘Historians tend to look down on antiquarians because we get our hands dirty.’ She held them up for inspection apologetically and he watched his sister obviously focus on the lack of ring on her wedding finger. ‘Hence the breeches.’

‘I should imagine it’s near impossible to dig a hole in a dress. Or wearing any jewellery.’ Subtlety had never been Eleanor’s forte. Max made a point of not looking at her hand and instead noticed she was only wearing one earring. Lord only knew what that was about.

‘Miss Nithercott has been digging here for years.’ Best to clarify exactly where her interest lay before his sister’s vivid imagination ran away with her. ‘I apparently inherited her along with the house.’

‘Even more fascinating...’ She shot Max another knowing look. ‘Do you live close by, Miss Nithercott?’

‘Just across the parkland to the west.’

‘How convenient... Alone?’ Strangling was too humane for Eleanor. Too swift.

‘Yes. Nowadays. But I used to live there with my father. He was an academic. A proper historian who preferred his books to my artefacts.’

‘And speaking of artefacts...’ Max snatched the bracelet out of Eleanor’s fingers and thrust it at her. ‘I fear we are keeping you from studying this one, Miss Nithercott.’

Max watched hurt skitter across her features, then embarrassment as she hastily stood. Both made him feel wretched for being the cause, but it couldn’t be helped. Better to send her packing before the dreaded tea tray arrived and his sister found a million other ways to ask her if she had a man in her life and then follow it by unsubtly suggesting she might consider him. If she were desperate.

‘Yes... Of course.’ He hated the false smile she pasted on her face for his benefit, when whichever way you looked at it he had just been hideously rude. ‘I shall leave the pair of you to catch up. It was lovely to meet you, Mrs Baxter.’

‘And you, too, Miss Nithercott.’ His sister made no secret of the fact she was heartily unimpressed with him by over-pronouncing her consonants. ‘I do hope we meet again.’

As he rose to see her out, and to apologise for the clumsy way he was practically throwing her out, she waved him away. ‘Please do not trouble yourself, Lord Rivenhall. I know perfectly well where the door is.’ Was that censure? ‘You have pointed me in its direction often enough.’ Apparently it was, although he could hardly blame her as he heartily deserved it.

Eleanor waited until Miss Nithercott’s delectable bottom disappeared down the hallway—or rather out of his straining peripheral vision. ‘I see your manners and surly, belligerent disposition have not improved in the last few weeks Max! You embarrassed the poor thing!’

‘You were about to ask if she was engaged.’

‘I was about to do no such thing. I was simply being friendly. Something which wouldn’t hurt you to attempt on occasion.’ The rattle of the tea tray made her pause and they both sat in tense silence while the butler took his own sweet time to deposit it on the table.

‘Why are you here, Eleanor?’

‘I wanted to reassure myself you were settling in. It has been three weeks and you haven’t written. Not even to inform me you arrived safely.’

‘You know I hate writing letters.’

‘A single, curt sentence would have sufficed!’ She inhaled and exhaled slowly, something she did nowadays only to him whenever her temper was close to the surface and she wanted to soften her tone. Max hated that she still felt the need to coddle him. ‘I have been worried about you. You left so abruptly.’

‘I needed to get away. A change of scenery.’ His sister’s well-meant fussing and the London house had suffocated him. That morning’s newspaper story had been the last straw. ‘As you can see, I am perfectly well.’

‘Physically, perhaps...’

‘Not again, Eleanor!’ Immediately Max shot to his feet and paced to the windows to stare out. In the distance, he saw Miss Nithercott walking home across the garden and fleetingly considered chasing after her.

‘Yes, Max. Again. You are not yourself.’

‘Of course I am not myself!’ The anger burned swift and hot. ‘Everything I was is gone and I am left with this!’ He swept his hair from his face to remind her of the damage the fire had done. ‘I lost everything, Eleanor! My life, my purpose. Miranda...’

‘Now that you are healed, the navy would have you back in a heartbeat. They only discharged you because they thought you were going to die. We all did. But you didn’t and your body has mended. They would give you a ship, Max, if you asked them. They would bite your hand off to give you a ship. And as for Miranda, she was no loss.’

He wanted to howl. Growl at something. Hurl the blasted tea tray. All the placating in the world would not eradicate the hurt. The devastation. The awful reality of that loss.

‘I never liked her. Neither did my husband. We both thought her shallow. And lo and behold—she certainly showed her true colours, didn’t she?’

It was a speech he had heard so often he had it memorised. Max allowed her to continue on without really listening. His sister now hated his former fiancée and enjoyed nothing more than castigating her. While her loyalty to him was admirable, touching even, she would never truly understand how he did not blame Miranda one bit for the choices she had made since.

He had released her from their engagement and she had moved on.

Why shouldn’t she?

She was young and beautiful and full of life, whereas he was a shell of the man he had once been and not at all the man she had once agreed to marry.

‘Are you even listening to me?’

‘Can we not talk about Miranda? She is in the past.’ Everything was in the past.

His sister was silent for a moment and nodded. ‘I am glad to hear it... But it is your future which concerns me, Max. Do you have any plans beyond hiding yourself away here?’

No.

‘This is a large estate. I thought I might try my hand at running it.’ A blatant lie, but Eleanor would not know he had also inherited a battalion of capable staff who ran a very tight ship unless he chose to apprise her. Which he wouldn’t. Between the estate manager, the gamekeeper, the butler, the gardener and his new solicitor, they had the entire task of Rivenhall well in hand. All Max had to do was sign things.

‘Well, that is good.’ She smiled as she sipped her tea and he was glad he had given her some hope, albeit false. ‘Do you have farmland, too? Tenants?’

Maybe. Probably. No doubt buried in the reams and reams of papers he had not bothered reading because he was indifferent to it all. ‘I haven’t met them yet.’ The only person he had met beyond the walls of his new household was Miss Nithercott. ‘There has been a lot to do.’

Like counting the candlesticks in the library or the tassels on the curtains in the study.

‘I can imagine... It is vast. Overwhelming, really, to picture you with a house like this. I am looking forward to a full tour later, but I am heartily impressed so far. The parkland looked...’

‘When are you going home, Eleanor?’

‘I have only just arrived. Are you wanting to be rid of me already?’

It would be cruel to tell her the truth after all she had done for him. ‘You have your own life to live, Eleanor. Perhaps it is time you dedicated your time back to Adam and the children rather than worrying so much about me.’

She squared her shoulders, suddenly defensive. ‘My husband is perfectly capable of holding the fort for a few days and my children are having a high old time with his mother who thoroughly spoils them rotten. They want to visit, by the way. Soon. They both miss their favourite uncle.’

‘I am their only uncle.’

‘Well, there is that and beggars cannot be choosers, but Thomas and Cecily still adore you. Despite your temporary and irritating belligerence.’

‘How many days are you staying?’

‘I need to satisfy myself that you are happy, Max.’

Happy! It would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic. ‘You need to stop worrying about me. I am a grown man who does not need mollycoddling.’

‘You call it mollycoddling. I call it love. Either way, you are stuck with me until I am satisfied.’ A nicely, typically Eleanor piece of stubborn ambiguity which promised no clear end in sight. She took another sip of her tea and her expression became nonchalant. ‘Miss Nithercott seems nice.’

‘I hardly know the woman.’

‘But surely you must have noticed she is uncommonly pretty.’

Of course he had. He wasn’t dead. Unfortunately. ‘Is she? It’s hard to tell with her masculine attire and dirty face.’ He sipped his own tea and held his sister’s curious gaze levelly. Eleanor would take any sign of uncomfortableness as proof he was interested. ‘Apparently, the locals have little time for her and her obsessive passion for antiquity.’ Which struck him as a great shame because she was... Intriguing... Unusual... Ever so slightly hilarious. He had never met another soul quite like her. ‘Surely you noticed she is a little eccentric? She spends her days digging holes in the ground, for goodness sake. That is a trifle odd.’

‘I find it fascinating. So many young ladies have little between their ears beyond fluff.’ But not Miss Nithercott. She could calculate the difference between a nautical mile and a standard one, randomly quote Shakespeare and translate both the Angle and the Saxon languages without skipping a beat. Now that really was fascinating. ‘It is refreshing to meet one with a purpose beyond securing a good husband. All power to her, I say.’ Eleanor toasted the bane with her teacup. ‘Especially if she finds big lumps of gold in the mud. It certainly sounds a more exciting way to spend the time than embroidery.’

Or counting the brass knobs on the sideboard.

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