‘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 Rivenhall.’
‘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 ofanywoman 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.’
‘Affability? Like?’ A prospect which bizarrely made him ridiculously happy. ‘Thatisworrying. Clearly I need to try harder at pushing people away if that is the case. I can’t have youlikingme. Society might crumble.’
‘And visitors might call.’
‘There is that. I should probably start being obnoxious again to keep them all at bay.’
