‘If they built a wattle-and-daub structure, driving thick posts deep into the ground as the frame, then the people who built this dwelling were not nomadic at all. Dio was wrong! Or at least he was wrong about the tribes here in Cambridgeshire. They were obviously much more sophisticated than the barbarians he painted them as. Perhaps their paint distracted him exactly as you said... That would make sense. The Romans were invaders so they would only initially see the Celts on the battlefield and formed their opinions based on that!’ Her grubby fist pumped the air in triumph that she had worked the problem through. ‘Why do people always judge solely on first impressions, Max? Especially when they are invariably always wrong. Take you, for instance. On first impression you were loathsome and now after a few short weeks of acquaintance you are...’
‘Tolerable? Invaluable? Wonderful?’
Mischief danced in her eyes while she made him wait for her verdict. ‘A little less loathsome, but very handy with a pickaxe.’
‘I am touched.’ He fluttered his hand in front of his face as if overcome with emotion and she laughed out loud. Effie’s laugh was as delicate as she was—in other words, not delicate at all. It was loud and exuberant and refreshingly impossible to fake. ‘Such gushing praise will go to a man’s head, Miss Never-one-to-beat-about-the-bush. What’s for lunch?’
Her face wrinkled as she slapped her palm to her forehead. ‘I forgot to pick it up from the kitchen table.’
‘You mean there is nothing edible in your satchel? Not even a slice of Mrs Farley’s famous fruitcake?’
‘Perhaps one of these days you will surprise me and turn up with some food yourself for a change rather than like a sullen bad penny, complaining you are only offering to help because you are so eager to hasten my departure from your land.’ They both knew that was a pathetic excuse and he came because digging with Effie was a much more effective distraction from his black thoughts than counting the floorboards in his study. He hoped she had no clue that he also came because he needed to see her.
‘Besides...’ she wagged her finger ‘...you’re the one with the battalion of staff and the enormous kitchens. If you are hungry, you can take your mind off it with some digging. I need another trench here.’
‘But I have to go. I’ve wasted two hours suffering your presence already.’
‘Another two will only hasten my eventual departure from your land and you are so very good with a pickaxe.’ She walked saucily to an unspoilt piece of grass and jumped on it then grinned when Max tugged his forelock before going back to stare into their latest trench to contemplate the post hole and ponder its secrets.
Even silent, he could hear her brain working and while he understood that many might find her intelligence intimidating, for reasons he could not fathom because his own official education had stopped at twelve, Effie did not intimidate him. Bizarrely, he understood her.
She was endearing and charming, funny, alluring and irritating all at the same time and quite unaware of all of it. Max, on the other hand, had never been quite so aware of a woman in his life or quite so smitten by one. He couldn’t deny the smitten part was a worry, but as he had absolutely no intention of ever daring to act on the attraction for fear of more catastrophic humiliation, he tried to push his concerns to one side and simply enjoy having something other than his own woes to occupy his mind.
‘That’s three post holes in total so far and all exactly three feet apart.’ To make doubly certain, Effie paced the distance again which was always entertaining to watch. She couldn’t just pace the distance like a normal person, she had to do a funny half-marching, half-high-kicking pace which she had explained was deliberate as it gave a near exact twelve inches and negated the need to bring a measuring stick—which she doubtless had always forgotten in in the first place. Then she stopped and held one arm out straight like a blade and stared down it. ‘But they do not seem to be straight.’
‘Perhaps your ancient dwelling is built on an angle?’
‘Which would still necessitate a straight wall, Max.’
‘They could simply be very bad builders?’
From her expression, he could tell she was already engrossed in trying to formulate a theory, so he rested his forearms on his shovel and simply enjoyed watching her do it. After a long ponder, which for Effie was about twenty seconds, her eyes wandered to the original hole she had found the pot in. ‘Unless...’
Then she was off pacing again, only this time from the post holes to the spot he had originally encountered her with her head in the ground. Typically, she checked each measurement twice and then positively beamed from ear to ear. ‘I think this hut is round, Max! Exactly like the hearth! And the hearth has to be the centre because it is exactly fifteen feet from it to each of those posts.’
‘If that is the centre, then this hut of yours is huge.’
She blinked and her lips parted as she considered it. ‘Good heavens! I think you’re right! Forget the trench I suggested. We need another one exactly fifteen feet opposite this one to test your theory... Now if my mathematics is correct...’ which of course it would be ‘...a circle of a diameter of thirty feet has a circumference of ninety-four. Gracious—thatisbig!’ She tapped her lip and he watched her long lashes flutter in time with her rapid blinking as she calculated with baffling speed. ‘And as we already know the post holes so far are three feet apart, then we have at least another twenty-nine post holes to excavate! Or thereabouts as it is not exact but I am assuming the doorframe to be narrower—as doorframes so often are... Why are you staring at me like that?’
At some point his jaw must have dropped without his knowledge. ‘Because you are a marvel, Effie. A tremendously odd, tremendously irritating marvel.’
‘It sounds as if you had a very productive day and an exciting one.’
When he’d sent word that he would not be home to take afternoon tea with her as he’d promised, his sister had insisted on dinner instead and insisted on inviting Effie. Which meant Max had been subjected to hours of scrutiny as she watched the pair of them—first over the dining table and now in the drawing room as they enjoyed a nightcap. It was subtle, because he had categorically warned his interfering sibling against attempting to matchmake two weeks ago after the first meal the bane had attended, but it was obvious to him she still held out hope romance would kindle and that hope bothered him. So much so he had even considered broaching the subject and having the cringingly awkward conversation with her to set the record straight.
His sister believed Miranda had been shallow and heartless in not marrying him or even waiting until he was properly healed to terminate their engagement. She believed his former fiancée’s reaction was unique to her because she was vain and selfish and that another woman wouldn’t be so lily-livered about a few scars.
As much as Max wanted to cling to that belief himself, he had long accepted it wasn’t going to be the case. His deformity inspired revulsion. He’d seen it first-hand both in Miranda’s eyes each time she glanced at him before he released her from the commitment and in the eyes of every man, woman and child since. The constant horrified looks had been one of the main reasons he had imprisoned himself in his sister’s London house. On the few occasions she had dragged him out when he was well enough to walk, people pointed and stared. And those were the better reactions. A few crossed the road, others recoiled in horror and one mother had clutched her child towards her and covered his eyes with her hand—no doubt to prevent the poor thing from having nightmares. Never mind the nightmares her extreme reaction had given Max. From that day on he’d taken his exercise in Eleanor’s garden and hadn’t cut his hair since.
Effie might not obviously recoil in horror, she was much too intelligent and kind for that sort of behaviour, but tolerating his presence or even befriending him was a completely different thing to allowing him to kiss her or caress her and he couldn’t imagine her wanting to do either of those things to him in a million years. Not when he couldn’t stand the dreadful sight of himself without wanting to be sick on the floor.
‘The prospect of a round dwelling is incredibly exciting! Unheard of, even. We’ll have to dig a few more trenches to properly confirm it, of course.’
‘Bywe, Eleanor, she meansme.’ Max rolled his eyes for effect. ‘While she wafts around with a trowel on the last six inches of soft, flaky peat once the hard labour is done.’
As he had expected, she poked her nose in the air and peered at him imperiously down it. ‘I managed to dig my own trenches quite well enough before you moved to Rivenhall, so I dare say I’d manage if you stopped insisting on assisting, Max. Not that I ever recall asking you to assist. You took the task upon yourself.’
‘That is because Max is still a gentleman beneath his sour exterior, Effie, no matter how much he tries to hide it. Clearly you bring it back out of him.’ Eleanor shot him a loaded glance over her sherry glass. ‘Isn’t that right, Brother?’
