‘When are you going home,Sister? Surely you must miss your poor, put-upon family even if they are undoubtedly glad of the respite?’
‘I do miss them. Two weeks is a long time.’
‘It is. Averylong time. Long past time you were off, in fact.’
Typically, Eleanor decided to ignore him to speak to their guest. ‘And if your roundhouse is an exciting new discovery, what do you intend to do with it?’
For the first time, he watched Effie deflate as she shrugged. ‘What can I do with it? Nothing, I suppose. Although on principle I will doubtless write a paper to torture myself and send it to the Society of Antiquaries which they will, as usual, completely ignore. Then I shall have to wait for a man to make the discovery somewhere else years down the line and get all the credit for it when his work is published inArchaeologia.’
‘You should get the credit for it.’ Max hadn’t intended for his statement to come out quite so vehemently. It was so passionate it made his meddling sister pause mid-sip before making a poor show of covering her delighted smile behind the delicate glass as he tempered his voice. ‘Your work should be published.’
‘It’s always been my dream to be published! To be recognised as significant in something at least... That would mean the world.’ She caught him staring at her and, as if she realised she had just revealed an important part of herself, shrugged and looked towards Eleanor, pretending feeling insignificant was of no matter when it had to be. Max had felt a lot of things in his life, but being insignificant wasn’t one of them. ‘But I won’t and that is that. My own stupid fault for being born in this body.’
Unconsciously she gestured to her chest and it pulled his eyes there, to the hint of cleavage visible over the neckline of her pretty dress before he wrenched them away. Something which his blasted sister clearly noticed, too, judging by her broad grin visible alongside either edge of her glass.
‘Maybe you should submit it under a pseudonym... A male one. I have heard many female authors do that as it is the only way for them to be published.’
‘I suppose I could...’ She didn’t sound keen. She sounded disappointed and rightly so.
‘But Effie still wouldn’t get the credit.’ And that felt grossly unfair. She was so smart she’d wipe the floor with all those fusty, narrow-minded antiquarians. ‘I say you should persevere. In fact, I am inspired to write them a sternly worded letter on the subject.’
‘You? Write a strongly worded letter!’ His sister burst out laughing. ‘He would send them a list, Effie, like he sent me whenever he arrived in port. If that. Max is incapable of creating prose which does not read like a ship’s manifest.’
‘Then I would send them a strongly worded list,listingall the reasons why those lofty antiquarians are actually cretins.’
‘That is very kind of you, Max.’ Effie reached across the gap between their chairs and touched his hand and he felt it all the way to his toes. ‘But entirely pointless. They will not budge. Lord Richard wrote them several letters, but they will not change their rules. If anything, I think the letters annoy them almost as much as my papers do. Perhaps, for the sake of progress, I should try a pseudonym as Eleanor says. At least then others can learn from my discoveries—even if I have to pretend to be Mr John Smith.’
Chapter Twelve
Dig Day 790: sixteen post holes. One spear head. No pickaxe-wielding earls...
Effie retied the ribbons of the glasses around her head and then arranged her belly flat on the bottom of the trench to resume the painstaking task of gently scraping away another layer of soil from the metal object which stood proud above it. It was very likely an axe head similar to the one she had uncovered yesterday or perhaps a tip of a spear. This particular part of the dwelling seemed to have been used for storing weapons and tools because she now had quite a collection. If she focused, she would know the answer before the afternoon was done. The only problem was today had proved itself a bad day for concentration because her vexing assistant had failed to turn up at all.
That was, of course, his prerogative. They never made any firm arrangements and certainly never discussed times. Max arrived when he felt like it, stayed for only as long as he wanted and then always bade her a good day, making sure she knew he found her presence and her purpose irritating. Rationally, she understood he probably had a hundred better and more pressing uses for his time and it was not as if he had promised to be here to help her—but none of that made her feel less bothered by his absence because since the first day he had picked up her pickaxe three weeks ago, he had always come. In fact, he had not missed a single day in all that time and since they had started on their quest to prove the dwelling was round, he had taken to spending longer and longer with her.
Yesterday, he had worked solidly by her side for six hours despite the hot June sun beating down on them. Not having him a few feet away, asking her questions and rolling his eyes or demanding sustenance, felt wrong.
She missed him.
Worse, she was worried sick about him and had no earthly idea why. But since late morning she had been plagued with a bad feeling which not even the painstaking excavation of a two-thousand-year-old Celtic axe head could banish.
Again, his fault because he was such a closed book.
After their one and only discussion about his scars, they had never discussed anything too personal. All conversation was limited strictly to the dig or the superficial. Obviously she still had a million questions about Max, concerning both his past and his present and all the complicated pieces in between, all frustratingly unasked because she knew instinctively they would not be welcomed. He had remained entirely true to his word—he never minded the question, but there were a great many he blatantly refused to answer. He never said no outright, but he was an expert at sidestepping them. Yet sometimes, she could see his torment in the fleeting bleak expressions which often skittered across his face or see the swirling unreadable emotions in his eyes which his slightly detached, frequently belligerent permanent mask couldn’t always hide.
But seeing as he resolutely avoided asking her anything about herself which could be construed as intensely private, he gave her no way in to probe him and doubtless did that on purpose for exactly that reason. Therefore lord only knew why he wasn’t here today and more fool her for allowing herself to care.
Except she did.
With a huff, she tossed her trowel aside and sat up. Her own jumbled thoughts regarding the wretch were slowly driving her mad. Something he would know because he knew more of her than she usually allowed the world to see.
Would it have killed him to send word? Something? Anything? Just to let her know he wasn’t drowning in a deep pit of despair all alone.
Then go seek him out.
The obvious solution to her problem had also been there since late morning and was the loudest and most insistent current thought in her head. She had been ignoring it out of pride, knowing doing that would tip him off to the fact that she cared about him. Much more than was probably wise. Max had become her friend, companion and, to herself at least, she was prepared to acknowledge she had developed a teeny bit of atendrefor him against her better judgement and entirely at odds with her cynical attitude towards romance. Hardly a surprise when he filled his coat and breeches so well, when he had a voice which made her insides melt like butter and expressive dark eyes which called to her soul.
The wretch.
