Redeeming The Reclusive Earl

‘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.’