‘Eleanor again?’
He smiled wryly. ‘She wanted me to live. I wasn’t so keen.’
‘And now?’ The thought he still might wish for death broke her heart.
‘And now... I am here.’ He shrugged. ‘Trying to find the wood for the trees. Except my sister doesn’t think I am capable of doing that by myself.’ He bent to retrieve the pickaxe and leant on the handle. ‘She thinks I need to rejoin the world.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I try not to think. Like you, I find my thoughts exhausting.’
‘Digging helps. Although it is physically impossible to dig all day and, once I stop, off those thoughts go again.’ Effie drew a spiral on her temple with her index finger. ‘Spinning wildly. I have to keep myself constantly occupied or they send me mad.’
‘I’ve been counting things. Patterns, forks, clouds...’ He sighed. ‘It is not a particularly effective method of keeping them at bay. I’ve been thinking for some time I need another method.’
‘If you find a way which works all of the time, please pass it on.’ They had something in common. Something real and tangible in common. Something few others would understand and that warmed her. ‘I find the nights the worst...’
‘When your body is crying out for sleep and your mind isn’t done playing with you?’
‘You, too?’
He smiled in response and something peculiar happened as she smiled back at him. For the first time in her life she felt a true connection with another human being, although she couldn’t put her finger on exactly why that was, other than to feel unjudged and able to be completely herself for a change rather than pretending to be the diluted version she always strove to be in the company of others. Even with her father, dear understanding Rupert and Lord Richard—the three closest relationships of her life—Effie had often guarded her words. Yet with this strange, changeable, complicated man whom she barely knew, but felt she did, she already realised she did not need to do that. More bizarrely, for the first time, her over-active mind was quiet. Calm.
Content.
‘Digging might well be a distraction, but it’s thirsty work, Miss Nettlesome. I don’t suppose you brought any water with you?’
‘I did better than that.’ She stood and brushed the dust off her breeches. ‘I brought lunch. It’s in my satchel and I am happy to share it with you seeing that you have practically demolished that pesky wall for me.’
‘Then don’t dither, Miss Nithercott. Bring it hither from thither before I wither.’
‘My name seems to bring you much amusement, my lord.’
‘It is such a dreadful name, I feel the near-constant urge to change it.’
‘Agreed. It is dreadful. Rare nowadays—but I am not surprised it is dying out. I should imagine all the other Nithercotts were only too happy to abandon it as soon as an opportunity presented itself. The grooms as well as the brides. Unfortunately, my first name is no better so I am doomed on both counts. Euphemia.’ She pulled a face as she tugged the food parcel from her bag. ‘Euphemia Nithercott... I’ve always hated it. Such a convoluted, tongue-twisting mouthful. No name should require seven whole syllables. Two would be ideal. Perhaps three at a push. Something innocuous which would help me to blend into the background—or at least try to.’ Until she opened her mouth, of course. ‘Like Jane Smith or Anne White. Two instantly forgettable names consisting of two perfectly bland syllables.’
‘Try living with eight.’ He used both his hands to push himself to sit on the edge of the trench. ‘Maximillian Aldersley. The ink runs out on the quill before I can finish my signature, which always makes it look untidy.’
They had that in common, too. ‘Eightisgreedy—but Max is nice.’ She lowered herself to sit beside him so they could share the food. ‘That one syllable suits you.’ And now she was sitting much too close. They were almost shoulder to shoulder. She could feel the heat of his body through the soft linen of her shirt. Smell the same comforting aroma of his shaving soap as she had when he had solicitously wrapped her in his coat the other night. Just as it had then, something about it unnerved her and called to her at the same time.
‘Then I give you leave to call me Max. Especially asmy lorddoesn’t seem to fit any better than my damned skin just yet. It’s too new. Too formal.’
‘Whereas Captain issovery informal.’
‘I do not recall asking you to call me Captain, Miss Nit-picker.’ He tore off a crust of bread and nudged her playfully with his elbow. Something she was pretty certain no one had ever done before. ‘This is the part where you give me leave to call you Euphemia instead...’
‘It’s Effie.’
‘Effie...’ The way he said it, his deep voice lingering softly over the vowels as if testing the sound of it, sent shivers up her spine. ‘I like it.’
Chapter Eleven
Three eight-foot trenches...
‘It’s definitely another post hole.’
Effie was gazing down from the edge of the enormous cavity they were currently working on, studying the darker circles in the mud she had just uncovered with her trowel. This slight discolouration, she proclaimed, came about when the wooden posts which once sat in the holes had decayed and altered the composition of the soil. Max wasn’t inclined to argue and really did not know enough about digging up the past yet to try if he were. To him, mud was mud, but he was prepared to concede that while one dark circle was coincidence, three the exact shape, size and formation might well prove her hypothesis correct.
