‘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.’