Something she could well imagine. With his height and build and brooding, mysterious presence she could picture him at the helm. Or stood precariously on the yard arm, one hand clutching the rigging while the other shielded his dark eyes as he stared out to sea. The wind riffling his long black hair... Gracious! Where had that come from? Clearly she had read a little too much Mrs Radcliffe last night before bed to be thinking such fanciful thoughts! Thoughts which were most unlike her nowadays. She had ruthlessly trained herself to stop romanticising about attractive gentlemen. Those foolish fantasies always ended in disappointment.
‘Are you still in the navy, Lord Rivenhall?’ The moment the words were out Effie regretted the question because Mrs Baxter appeared anxious and the surly lord’s jaw clenched as his expression clouded.
‘No.’
One word. No explanation, but a pointed glare at his sister.
‘I suppose it is difficult to juggle the responsibilities of an estate this size and a command a ship at the same time?’ She was babbling, and perhaps making an already tense situation worse, but for some reason she felt the urge to pour oil on what she sensed were very troubled waters.
Silence.
Until Mrs Baxter filled it. ‘Max was wounded during the naval blockade of the Americas Miss Nithercott. Privateers attacked the ship and tried to scuttle it. He nearly died when...’ Her words trailed off at the incensed expression of her brother and she pasted an unconvincing smile on her face before she stared down at her dinner. ‘But thankfully he didn’t and is all mended now... As you can plainly see.’
Physically, perhaps, but Effie suspected the scars he carried were more than skin deep if the emotion swirling in the suddenly stormy depths of his dark eyes were any gauge. The moody Lord Rivenhall was quite a way shy from being mended. ‘From what I have read it was a difficult war.’
‘I can assure you reading about it is significantly more pleasant than fighting it.’
She couldn’t think of an answer to that and, as he was back to cutting his food with more aggression than the task warranted, it was patently obvious he did not want one. Effie had no idea where to look so stared mournfully at her plate, too, the awkward atmosphere as dense as city smog on a frigid winter’s morning.
‘Have you always lived at Hill House, Miss Nithercott?’
Effie grabbed his sister’s rescuing olive branch with both hands and for the rest of the meal the pair of them chatted over-brightly about everything and nothing while he did not attempt to say another word.
* * *
‘Thank you so much for having me.’
After another entirely mute half-hour in the drawing room, Lord Rivenhall accompanied his sister and Effie into the hallway to bid her farewell. She had never been so delighted to be leaving a place in her entire life and felt dreadfully sorry for Mrs Baxter who kept staring at her in abject apology. That they had managed half an hour in the drawing room was a miracle when he had continually glanced at the loudly ticking clock on the mantel every five minutes, making it as plain as day he was sat there on sufferance.
Effie never dared produce any of the interesting stash of coins, brooches and rings from her satchel which she had brought on Mrs Baxter’s express instruction and instead gulped down two large glasses of sherry in quick succession while she counted the seconds before she deemed it polite to leave.
She regretted that now.
Those two glasses on top of the dinner wine she had also consumed much too much of during the many awkward silences were making her head spin.
Smithson opened the door and she was almost out of it when Lord Rivenhall spoke for the first time since the main course.
‘Where is your carriage?’
‘I do not have one. I came on foot, my lord.’
‘But it is dark.’
‘I know the way home like the back of my hand. I have walked it often enough.’
‘But it is dark, Miss Nithercott.’ Nowhere near as dark as his eyes and his expression. ‘We have spoken about the dark. It is not safe for a woman all alone.’
‘Perhaps in London, my lord—but here in Cambridgeshire the only thing I am likely to encounter on my way home is the odd fox or badger.’
He shook his head and growled. ‘Smithson—have the stable ready two horses and bring them around immediately.’ Good grief, surely he did not mean to come with her?
‘Really, my lord, there is no need to trouble yourself or your poor stable master. In the time it takes to saddle the horses I will already be home. Hill House is just across the pasture.’ She pointed to the moonlit navy horizon while glancing pleadingly at Mrs Baxter, hoping she would aid in talking him out of it. ‘I do not want to be a nuisance.’
‘Miss Nithercott, I am afraid I agree whole-heartedly with my brother. What sort of neighbours would we be to leave you exposed to danger? It is best if Max accompanies you home. I should sleep easier knowing you are safe.’
‘I could send a message back the second I arrive if it would put your mind at rest.’ Although with the housekeeper and maid long gone home she would have to return to deliver it herself. ‘Honestly, this is unnecessary fuss when the walk takes less than fifteen minutes.’ She seriously considered making a bolt for it, but worried he might chase her. ‘And I am not a great fan of riding. Hence my choice to come on foot tonight.’
‘Then I shall walk with you, Miss No-common-sense-whatsoever.’ A prospect somehow more unnerving than riding alongside him. ‘Because alongside the badgers and the foxes are footpads. A man was robbed only last week on the turnpike not five miles from here. Something you would know if you read the newspapers alongside your scholarly books.’ A curt reminder, she supposed, that he disapproved of her extensive education, too. Typical, really. A woman with original thought! Whatever next!
‘For my own peace of mind as well as my sister’s I shall accompany you.’ And with that he strode past her out on to the porch, clearly in no mood to take no for an answer and clearly put out at having to do it.
At a loss as to what else she could do without appearing horrendously rude and supremely ungrateful in front of his charming sister, Effie was forced to surrender and ignore the alcohol in her system which was encouraging her to tell him the truth and to hell with the consequences—that he was the absolute last person she wanted to spend another moment with after tonight’s performance. He was as changeable as the wind and infuriatingly obnoxious.
‘Thank you.’
He nodded and they began to walk down the steps. By tacit agreement, they did this with a good six feet of the cool summer air between them. The awkward silence deafening; the atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a knife.
The front door clicked closed behind them and still he said nothing, apparently content to make her feel uncomfortable for the duration. They were halfway across the lawn when something inside her caused her tenuous grasp on her temper to snap. Probably, she was prepared to concede, fuelled almost entirely by the sherry.
‘If it is your mission to make me feel wretched whenever I am in your presence, then you have thoroughly succeeded, Lord Rivenhall!’
He seemed shocked at the suggestion. ‘It was not my intention.’
‘Of course it was. You glare, seethe and grunt at and disapprove of everything, making no secret of the fact you find my company a tremendous chore. Thanks to you I had a dreadful evening—so well done!’ He didn’t need to like her. Effie was quite used to people not liking her—but would it kill him to be polite? She had been an invited guest after all. ‘So did your poor sister, who most certainly did not deserve it! Your appalling behaviour made it awful for the both of us.’
Incensed and humiliated, Effie suddenly stopped dead. ‘For the record, I was told you extended the invitation. Had I realised it was nothing to do with you, I would never have dared encroach on your precious privacy. Rest assured, I shan’t encroac
h upon it again. You can rot in that house all alone for all I care, because you do not deserve visitors! You are a horrible man, Lord Rivenhall! A rude, obnoxious, churlish...’ There really weren’t enough insulting adjectives to fling at him. ‘Boorish, selfish...’
‘And let’s not forget glaring, seething, grunting and disapproving.’
‘How could I?’ Of its own accord her finger jabbed him in the arm. It was as solid as granite and did not yield an inch. ‘Are we all supposed to suffer simply because you are angry at the world? You should be heartily ashamed of yourself!’
She was expecting retaliation. Instead, he stared down at his feet. Awkwardly.
‘Would it make you feel better to know that I am?’ Then he sighed and raked a hand through his long hair. ‘You caught me at a bad time this evening. I was not...in any state to receive visitors.’
‘Are you ever?’ Not really her business and not at all what she should have said at his lacklustre almost-apology.
‘No. Never.’ He sighed again and stared up at the moon. ‘And it’s been so long I’ve forgotten how to do it.’
‘You haven’t forgotten. You choose to behave like that to push people away.’ Again, thanks to the liberating effects of the alcohol, her mouth seemed to be on a mission to bait him.
More silence but she watched myriad emotions play on his face before he nodded.
‘You’re very perceptive for a genius, Miss Nithercott.’
‘And what is that supposed to mean?’
‘That all of the excessively learned people I have ever encountered usually know a great deal about things most of us mere mortals cannot comprehend, but have little understanding of things beyond books. Like people and what makes them human.’ He slanted her a glance that wasn’t the least bit angry for once. ‘I meant that as a compliment by the way—before you tear me off another strip.’
‘You deserved tearing off a strip. And when you go home you need to apologise to your sister. It is obvious she cares a great deal about you, although heaven only knows why.’
His bark of laughter was sudden and unexpected. ‘You are fearless, Miss Nithercott. I have to give you credit for that. Most people tiptoe around me nowadays. Even Eleanor bites her acid tongue and she has always been a relentlessly bossy older sister.’
‘Then I would say your quest to push people away has been a resounding success.’
His dark brows furrowed until he eventually sighed. ‘Yet I am not pleased by it.’
She did not want to let him off the hook, but compassion and curiosity was already dampening her temper. ‘Perhaps you no longer want to be left alone, Lord Rivenhall? Have you considered that?’
Chapter Nine
One conundrum of a woman...
Max was not the least bit ready to talk about that—or anything so intensely personal—but later he should probably think upon it because he felt she probably had a point. ‘A more interesting question is why you are all alone? Every time I see you, at dinner tonight, with your head stuck in a hole, even in the dead of night, it is never with anybody else.’ They started to walked onwards again. More slowly this time and less than a foot apart. Bizarrely, it felt...cosy. ‘Where is your chaperon?’
‘I am long past the age when I need one of those.’
‘Still—ladies do not usually take to the streets on their own. They always take a relative. Don’t you have any aunts or uncles or cousins, Miss Noxious?’
She glanced away and shrugged, yet the shrug tugged at his heartstrings. ‘No. None. The Nithercotts are a dying breed.’
‘Then there is nobody? Who checks you are home safe or if you have arrived at your destination?’
‘I have servants—Mr and Mrs Farley—and they always know exactly where to find me. If I am not at home I am at the Abbey.’ Her eyes sought his again boldly. ‘With my head stuck in a hole.’
‘Do you like being alone?’
Her mouth opened, then closed and she shrugged again instead. ‘I am used to it.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘Not many would choose to be alone, my lord, but it is what it is and I make the best of it.’
‘By burying yourself in your work.’
‘Better that than moping around and feeling sorry for myself.’
‘Touché, Miss Nithercott.’ Max found himself smiling again. The second time she had amused him with her forthrightness in as many minutes, when little amused him any more.
‘I apologise. It wasn’t meant as a dig. More a reflection on myself. I have, on occasion, allowed myself to dwell on all life’s negatives and indulge in self-pity.’
The dead mother. The dead father. And then the dead fiancé.
That could not have been easy. A timely and poignant reminder that not only his life had been flipped on its head by a cruel twist of fate. ‘Losing someone you love is always hard.’ Whether that be by death or blatant disgust. ‘But as my sister is prone to say, time eventually heals all wounds.’ Something Max wanted to believe, but didn’t. Some wounds were too extreme to heal fully.
‘Rupert was a lovely man. Patient, good natured and could tolerate my company.’
‘Tolerate?’ What an odd choice of word. ‘If you will pardon me for saying, that doesn’t sound particularly...’ He stopped himself from finishing the sentence.
‘Romantic?’ She did not seem offended and smiled wistfully. ‘It wasn’t a love match Lord Rivenhall. I have never been misguided enough to expect that. More a meeting of minds. Rupert was a great friend of your uncle’s and, like he, found my passion for history and antiquity interesting. Over time, we formed a friendship and because he was older and wanted companionship and I was sat on the shelf gathering dust, a marriage when he retired from the army seemed a sensible solution for both of us. The campaign to Spain was supposed to be his last. And it was. Except he never came home.’
Every bit of that story depressed him. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I.’ She shrugged again and gathered her flimsy shawl tightly at her neck. ‘I was looking forward to leaving my shelf.’
‘As Eleanor said, there is no reason why that cannot still happen. You are still young enough and...’ Uncommonly pretty, but acknowledging that would make him feel awkward when for some unknown reason Max currently felt anything but.
‘I shall be thirty upon my next birthday, my lord. And while I agree my age is not entirely an impediment on the marriage mart, it does not help. However, the greater issue, as we both know, is my oddness. Gentlemen, I have discovered, can tolerate many things, but a cleverer wife than they are is entirely intolerable and I have never been particularly good at hiding it.’ Her lovely smile was forced. ‘Look—there is Hill House.’ She pointed to the shadowy outline of a modest building across the meadow. One solitary lamp burned in a window. Probably the only thing there to welcome her home. ‘I told you the walk was short and uneventful.’
She wanted to change the subject. He wanted to tell her he liked her intelligence—liked her, truth be told—but wasn’t ready to do that either and sincerely doubted he ever would be. ‘I dare say the servants will be relieved you are finally home. I should imagine at this late hour they are longing for their beds.’
‘Mrs Farley and her husband live in the village.’
‘So there is nobody at home at all?’ Max suddenly felt grateful for Eleanor. Even in his darkest moments, she had always been there.
‘As I’ve said, I am perfectly content with my own company.’ She was an atrocious liar. To cover her discomfort, she had suddenly quickened her pace, making him jog a little to catch up and when he did she avoided his eyes. ‘I am probably speaking out of turn here, but I do not like the thought of you here unchaperoned. It doesn’t sit right with me. Perhaps you should hire a companion?’
‘A companion!’ She laughed. ‘I am not in my dotage, Lord Rivenha
ll.’
‘But in the next breath you say you are too old for a chaperon.’
‘I am past the need for a chaperon. By a great many years. I think my precious virtue is safe!’
‘Of course...because you are a wizened old hag. I think perhaps you need to wear your silly digging spectacles all the time, Miss Naive, because clearly when you look in the mirror you do not see what the rest of us see as plain as the nose on your face.’ Her face softened at his inadvertent compliment and her feet slowed a little, but her smile was awkward and, before she said something horribly polite which let him know in no uncertain terms he was barking up the wrong tree if he had misconstrued kindness for anything else, he hastily clarified. ‘Trust me—even looking a state in breeches and mismatched boots you need a chaperon. There are plenty of men out there who would be only too happy to take shocking advantage of any woman who had the misfortune to be all on her own.’
The awkward smile evaporated and her next words sounded forced. ‘Thank you for your concern.’
Clearly he had offended her by criticising her situation. He was about to say something inane and innocuous to fill the tense void and the increasing distance she was putting between them, when she quietly shivered.
‘Where are my manners...?’ Instinctively Max shrugged out of his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders, then wished he hadn’t because it meant touching her and staring down at her face as she gazed up at him, surprised. The ghost of a smile played on her lips, drawing his eyes there and a wave of longing hit him, so intense, he almost gasped aloud. Hastily he stepped back and continued walking, this time more briskly himself because he really couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
‘Thank you.’
‘You are welcome.’
She was staring at him now. He could feel it through the back of his shirt. Through his skin.
Lord help him.
‘You baffle me, Lord Rivenhall. One minute you are a beast and then, when I am certain you are quite horrible and want nothing whatsoever to do with you, you surprise me and I see glimpses of affability which make me inclined to allow myself to like you.’
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