‘Yes, my lord.’ Blasted Eleanor and her machinations. She had set this up behind his back and purposefully left him in the dark. ‘Will that be all, my lord?’
‘Could you tell my sister I need a quick word with her, please?’ Max fully intended to wring her neck—after she had ejected the unnerving new bane of his life from the premises, of course.
In typical Eleanor fashion she took her time in answering his summons and sailed regally into his dining room looking not the least bit contrite.
‘You invited a guest to dinner without my permission?’
‘It seemed the least I could do after you had been so rude to her the day before. Besides...’ she shrugged, unrepentant ‘...she is all alone in the world. When I collided with her this afternoon, she was alsoupset.’
Upset? Max hated that that niggled, but asking why the bane was upset or who had upset her would only fuel his eldest sibling’s dastardly plot to interfere in every aspect of his life. ‘If you wanted her company, you could have dined at her house. Or at the inn. In fact, anywhere but here.’
‘Because that isn’t the least bit insulting, is it? Not inviting her here only compounds your rudeness by making it appear you are avoiding her.’
‘Iamavoiding her. Miss Nithercott is...’ Maddening... Irritating... Confusing... Beguiling... Wearing a dress which made his mouth water ‘...odd.’
‘So are you nowadays, little Brother, so by rights the pair of you should get on famously. Although to be frank, I don’t find her the least bit odd. I think Miss Nithercott is lovely. Refreshing, intelligent and extremely interesting. She is also uncommonly pretty. Surely you have noticed that?’
Noticed! The image of her in breeches had apparently seared itself on to his brain and refused to budge. And now he’d doubtless have the image of her in that gown. Pressed against him and clutching his lapels like a woman waiting to be kissed. ‘I have no patience for your flagrant matchmaking, Eleanor...’
‘Matchmaking?’ The immediate and innocent affront was convincing, or at least it would have been had he not grown up with the manipulative witch who stood piously before him. ‘Do not flatter yourself, Brother. I like Miss Nithercott a great deal—but she is much too good for you! Perhaps, I might have encouraged it before you became so bitter and twisted and unreasonably unsociable. But I can assure you my only intention in inviting her to dine with us, aside from repairing any damage done by your shocking rudeness yesterday, was because I should like to furthermyacquaintance with her. Would it kill you to at least play at being a gentleman for the duration of one meal?’
‘That I have to suffer your uninvited presence is bad enough, but a guest so soon is...’
He watched the sadness draw her features fleetingly before her temper replaced it. ‘Oh, for pity’s sake, Max! Go hide in your study with a tray, then!’ She had the gall to curl her lip in distaste as if he were the one in the wrong. ‘You have become so very good at that.’
‘I might just do that!’ He had to talk to her retreating back, feeling childish and churlish and thoroughly pathetic for lashing out at Eleanor again when she had stalwartly borne the brunt of all his frustration since the morning they had stretchered him from that ship.
‘Good.’ She did not turn around. ‘And do not be surprised if you feel your cowardly ears burning!’
He waited all of six seconds before the ramifications of his sudden absence from the proceedings piled in. Left to her own devices, Eleanor would have no compunction about telling Miss Nithercott all the sorry details of his recent life and the thought of her knowing his intensely private business and, worse, pitying him for it was entirely unacceptable. He did not want the world and his wife knowing the ins and outs of everything. He most definitely did not want his much-too-intelligent and annoyingly gorgeous new neighbour to know exactly how pathetic he now truly was. And doubtless his wily sister knew that, too.
‘Could you pass the salt, please?’
Self-consciously, from the head of the table, Max did as his sister asked, wishing the lamps in the formal dining room weren’t burning quite so brightly and that Miss Nithercott wasn’t seated to his left. The very least Eleanor could have done was place the woman on his good side. Now he had to avoid any sudden head movements in case he inadvertently disturbed the camouflaging veil of scruffy hair he hid his deformity behind.
‘I think it is outrageous those silly men refused to read your paper, Miss Nithercott.’ He had happily allowed the ladies to keep the conversation flowing because he had none. Simply sitting here took that much effort. ‘Anyone would think they were afraid.’
‘Of course they are afraid.’ The bane waved her fork with the same animated enthusiasm as she usually did with her hands when she spoke, wafting lilacs and roses willy-nilly to play havoc with his senses. ‘Society might actually crumble if they acknowledge women have brains as well as wombs.’ Max did not want to have to contemplate her womb, because contemplating that meant contemplating the route to it. ‘We are supposed to remain content as chattels, Mrs Baxter, with no thoughts beyond those fed to us by our biologically superior husbands and no desire above administering to his whims, popping out the fruit of their intellectually superior loins and choosing the menus for his dinner.’
Loins! Wombs! Did the woman have no boundaries? Now his damned head was filled with all manner of inappropriate images entirely unsuitable and not the least bit conducive to digesting the roast beef he was staring at as if his life depended on it. He could hardly flick more than a glance at her without feeling off kilter. The gown she was wearing was too damned distracting and she was a guest, and that in itself was daunting. He couldn’t remember the last time he had sat with anyone beyond the tight circle of his vexing sister and her family.
‘We are oppressed, Mrs Baxter. In thoughts, in deeds—in everything. The law makes us nought but property to our fathers, then our husbands, we are denied admittance to universities, forbidden from practising medicine or law, cannot inherit titles, keep our own wealth if we marry or sit on a seat in Parliament let alone vote for one. At every juncture society forces us into moulds which we dare not attempt to move beyond for fear of censure. And what is worse is that as women we should seek to empower our fellow women, but instead we are taught to judge them more harshly and in some cases more than the men do. Our society is unforgivingly patriarchal.’
‘We clearly need to try harder to work for progress and find some balance.’ Not that Eleanor needed any encouragement to take the lead on anything. She had always been a law unto herself. He pitied her poor husband, who for some reason still adored the harridan.
‘Hardly progress, Mrs Baxter. If history teaches us anything, then we have regressed.’
‘We have?’
‘In ancient Sparta women had much greater freedoms than we do nowadays. They were educated and could inherit. They could divorce feckless husbands and still keep their property. According to Plutarch, they held equal status to men. Can you imagine that? And here, Queen Boudicca raised an enormous army and very nearly toppled the Roman regime. She sacked the Roman strongholds of Colchester and London before being narrowly defeated at St Albans. None of her forty thousand men ever questioned her ability to lead.’ Miss Nithercott speared a potato and began to wield that, too. ‘Then there are the Amazons—if they ever existed, of course, which is still open for debate—who were a famously matriarchal society.’
‘Didn’t I read somewhere they only had one breast?’
Marvellous. Now he could add that word to the mix as the memory of the feel of Miss Nithercott’s bosom against his chest immediately decided to join the overwhelming swirl of inappropriate thoughts in his mind.
‘So legend has it, Mrs Baxter—although by design rather than specific mutation. Apparently, they cut one off so they could hold their bows and fire their arrows better. Staggering, really—but they were fierce warriors who hated men and had absolutely nothing to do with them.’
‘Hardly a surprise then that they died out,’ his sister teased saucily while Max wished he were dead. ‘Men do have some essential uses.’
