‘Yes, I do. And I persevere. I keep trying. I do not wave the white flag of defeat and give up like the Society of Antiquaries wants me to because their opinion of my work is grossly wrong and one day, by hook or by crook, I shall prove it. It matters. I matter.’ She stuck out her chin defiantly. ‘I care about it and for now that has to be enough. When faced with adversity, we all have a choice, Max. We can either face it fighting or let it beat us and win.’
Effie was a fighter. She stoically faced every obstacle thrown at her and was determined not to be the insignificant woman society expected her to be. Which made him...what? A coward? The thought left a bitter taste in the mouth. She took his silence as permission to dissect his character some more.
‘If I might be so bold as to make a suggestion...’
‘As if I could stop you!’
‘You might start at feeling angry with Miranda. I dare say that would be quite cathartic as well as wholly deserved, then stop fixating on everything you have lost and the past and start deciding what you are going to do with all the time you have left. Eleanor says the navy would be delighted to have you again. Or maybe you should spend some of your new fortune on your own fleet of ships?’ He could feel himself scowl as she poked that raw nerve. Feel the wrench in the pit of his stomach. The call of the sea. The freedom of the ocean. The lure of adventure which had always set him at odds with his father...
‘Or maybe do something entirely different? A new challenge, perhaps? You have this huge new estate and a veritable army of tenants. Lord Richard was a good landlord, but he wasn’t a forward-thinking one and was most resistant to any new ideas. Experiment with new crops or breed horses. Become a magistrate?’
Each comment was accompanied by a prod of her finger.
‘Take up your seat in the Lords and practise politics, perhaps? Study. Travel. Invest in stocks and shares. Speculate. Start a business.’ Her finger jabbed him again and he caught it and held it to stop it doing any more damage to both his battered breastbone and his wounded pride. ‘You might have a few scars, Max, but you are as fit as a fiddle now and still a man beneath them, and a rich and titled one to boot.’ She snatched her finger from his grip to throw her palms in the air. ‘The world is your oyster. How I wish I had your choices! Yet you squander them to count the seconds on the clock face and punish those who become rightly exasperated with your self-indulgent belligerence.’
‘Thanks for your heartfelt sympathy.’ She rolled her eyes at his annoyingly churlish sarcasm and both things galled. What was the matter with him? Why couldn’t he move forward? Especially when he felt so mired in the past he was well and truly sick of it.
‘You don’t need my sympathy, Max. You’ve had far too much of everyone else’s and, frankly, today you don’t deserve it. I am livid with you! You made poor Eleanor cry!’
‘I did not mean to make her cry...’ And now he felt wretched as well as frustrated and betrayed. Somehow more wretched than he had when he had read that damn newspaper and been slapped in the face with Miranda’s happiness.
‘I know. You were hurt and you lashed out. But you cannot keep doing that. It is unfair.’ He abhorred mirrors nowadays, even metaphorical ones, but she was holding one up to his face regardless and making him evaluate what he saw. It wasn’t pleasant. ‘Now she doesn’t feel as if she can go home tomorrow...’
‘She never mentioned she was going home?’ He wasn’t being fair to Eleanor. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
‘Well, she isn’t now and wild horses will not drag her from here on the back of this no matter what either of us say. But she had thought you were making progress and felt she could risk taking a step back. The poor woman misses her family.’
‘And I feel guilty for keeping her from them. It is one of the reasons I left London in the first place. That and the constant mollycoddling.’ And the pity and the platitudes. The staring and pointing. The newspaper story confirming blasted Miranda’s confinement. ‘This morning was a shock and I handled things badly.’
‘It wasn’t a complete shock, Max. You knew she was with child and were probably counting the days until it arrived.’ Effie was much too intuitive. Clearly she saw right through him. ‘You live in Cambridgeshire now because you claim to be tired of London, yet diligently read the London newspapers—and not, I’ll wager, only for the important news if you were concerning yourself with the birth, marriage and death announcements.’ She did more than see through him! The blasted bane could read his mind!
‘One doesn’t have to be a genius to work out you were actively looking for the notice.’ Which, of course, he had been. ‘Which beggars the question as to how you intended to deal with the news, Max? Or did you just accept today’s tantrum as a given and had no plans beyond that?’
A few months ago—hell, a few weeks ago—he’d have bellowed his denial from the rooftops. Yet the anger he usually felt at the mere mention of Miranda or his scars or his behaviour had apparently fizzled out because it was the bane who had done the mentioning. ‘I live from day to day, Effie. I do not think or plan beyond that.’
The absolute truth. Admitting it aloud gave him palpitations, but in a strange sort of way. Admitting it to her also made him feel less alone.
‘Understandable given what you have been through. You have been grieving so many things—’ She reached across the desk and lay her palm over his hand. Something about her touch made him feel instantly better too. ‘But mourning officially lasts a year, Max. Any more is unhealthy. It’s time to cast aside your widow’s weeds.’
She was right. He knew she was right—but the prospect of doing it was daunting. ‘I am not sure I know where to start.’
‘We both know you have already started. Your mind is craving purpose again and once that begins, everything else gradually follows. Your soul will not repair itself overnight—but it will mend, Max. I promise.’ Her hand squeezed his and he suppressed the urge to turn his palm and lace his fingers with hers where they belonged.
Belonged?Where the hell had that stupid thought come from?
‘Go and apologise to your sister and invite her lovely family to visit.’ She stayed his instinctive rejection with her finger on his lips and he forget everything he had intended to say. ‘For the sake of her soul, my Lord Recluse—not yours. And then, if you still need some purpose today, I have a pickaxe urgently awaiting your attention.’ She severed the contact and slid off the table, leaving his lips tingling and a comforting puff of roses and lilacs in her wake which surrounded him like an embrace. ‘I happen to know Mrs Farley’s fruitcake won’t have been spoiled by the sun because it is steeped in enough brandy to preserve a corpse.’
She was right about everything. He knew and felt strangely humbled by her insight. Yet he also felt afraid. Looking forward terrified him, but there was nothing positive to be gained in constantly glancing back. Not when the die was cast and, as much as he might wish it, he couldn’t change it. But perhaps with Effie’s help he could move forward. He wanted to.
So wanted to.
‘You know I am putty when it comes to Mrs Farley’s fruitcake. Why didn’t you mention it sooner? It would have saved you the lecture.’
‘Where would the fun be in that?’ Rather than open the door, Effie left via the window she had arrived through. She smiled and was less than a few yards away down the garden when he realised he wasn’t at all ready for her to leave.
‘Wait...’ She turned on the path, her dark head tilted in question, the copper in her hair shimmering in the sunlight. The bane of his life and the balm to his soul. ‘Was this all a ruse to get me to do your dirty work, Miss Not-above-knavery-to-get-her-own-way?’
She beamed, then shrugged, unrepentant, before sashaying away. ‘You have half an hour, Max. Then I am eating all the fruitcake myself.’
