As angry as she was with him, she wanted to hold him and comfort him. The fear was all to do with his scars. All to do with the wicked Miranda’s rejection. She was certain, but knew he would never admit that. ‘I am sorry, Max... I didn’t think.’
‘You are damn right you didn’t think!’ He tapped the folded letter hard with one blunt-tipped finger. ‘It’s about to go to press, Effie! They were so excited bymyamazing discoveries, they wanted to rush it into this quarter’sArchaeologiawith all haste so the entire antiquarian community can learn frommywork!’ His fists clenched as he began to pace, prowling her small study like a caged tiger about to pounce. ‘What if they all decide to come on the back of it? A pilgrimage of complete strangers, lining up at my door... All ready to stare and gawp!’
More proof that it was the way he looked which lay at the heart of his self-imposed isolation.
‘I really am going to have to build that blasted wall, aren’t I? And get dogs.’ He looked so lost. So desolate as he paced, she instinctively went to him and grabbed his hand to anchor him to one spot long enough that she might be able to penetrate his own destructive thoughts obviously whirling in his complicated head.
‘I will make it right, Max.’ His eyes went to where his fingers had laced with hers and simply stared. ‘I promise... We shall send another letter admitting to my deception and that will bring it all to a crashing halt.’
‘It is too late... They are already on their way, Effie. I am to expect them tomorrow afternoon...’
‘Then I shall be there tomorrow afternoon and I shall tell them the truth to their face.’ His eyes finally rose to meet hers and he nodded. ‘I dare say they will be so furious to learn it is me—the most persistent and irritating bane of their life—they’ll order the edition delayed or, at the very least, every copy of that journal destroyed as a mark of protest before they can send it out. Rivenhall’s secrets will remain exactly that—secret. I promise...’
Her hand reached up to touch his face and he leaned into her palm. Then immediately pulled away when her tingling fingers had sought his hair and he had given her an intense and troubled look she couldn’t begin to decipher.
Other than it was troubled and she was the cause of it.
Feeling instantly awkward at indulging in such an obviously affectionate gesture when he had made it plain days ago he did not reciprocate the feeling, she glanced at her offending appendage, cursing it for having a mind of its own, then shoved the guilty hand behind her back in case it was tempted to go wandering again. Which it was.
‘Thank you, Effie.’ He was backing away, putting several feet of distance between them. Distance which felt more temporal than physical. Significant again, as so many odd moments with Max so often were. ‘I shall see you tomorrow evening, then...’
‘Stay.’ She didn’t want him to leave. Despite all her anger at him, all her hurt at his cutting uninterest, she couldn’t bear him going just yet when he was clearly upset and she had caused it. ‘You are soaked through. Have some tea... I’ll fetch some towels.’
‘No.’ He couldn’t meet her eyes again. ‘Pointless. I’ll only get soaked the second I leave.’ He gazed longingly towards the door and she felt her throat tighten at the blatant rebuff.
‘Mrs Farley made fruitcake.’ Why was she practically begging when only minutes ago she had wanted to give him what for? Pathetically, she gestured towards the desk where the housekeeper had left a slab of his favourite confection and was horrified to see the rusty spearhead still sticking out of it. The sight of it seemed to bring Max up short, too, because he blinked at it, then at her and shook his head emphatically.
‘No, thank you.’ Too polite. Too formal. He couldn’t meet her gaze. All very explicit signals he had misinterpreted her comfort as an attempted seduction and was plainly eager to run for the hills at the hideous prospect. ‘Adam and the children are returning back to London shortly and I promised Eleanor I would be there to say goodbye...’
‘Of course.’ It was staggering that a second rejection from him could hurt as much as the first, when the first had been so cutting and decisive she really no longer harboured false expectations or ridiculously girlish hope for more. Yet it did. Max had made it obvious he did not want her in a romantic sense—she’d already had that spelled out loud and clear—but clearly he no longer wanted to be her friend any more either and, as much as she had fantasised about stepping back from the relationship to serve him right for disappointing her, knowing he would be nothing but relieved at the news was an awful blow.
‘I will send the carriage tomorrow.’
She found herself bobbing a stiff and painfully awkward curtsy in the wake of the new parameters he had set, when she had never curtsied to him before. ‘That is very thoughtful of you.’
He bowed and hot tears prickled at this new starched formality. ‘Good day.’
No, it wasn’t. It was one of the worst. For the first time in a month she was categorically relegated back to being the annoying and peculiar oddity again, when for a while, with him, she had cast off those shackles and just been Effie.
‘Good day to you, too...my lord.’
‘Oh, I understand perfectly, little Brother! You hold all of her hopes and dreams, the fruit of two years of her labours and the power to help her in the palm of your hand and intend to crush it into dust. And I refuse to be a party to it!’
Max had known it was a mistake to confide anything to Eleanor because she always took the opposite stance to his, and always had, purely to vex him.
‘Then make yourself scarce. Or better still, I’ll saddle you a horse right this minute and you can follow your family back to town. I dare say you’ll have caught them long before they reach the first posting inn!’
His sister’s cup clattered in her saucer, sending tea sloshing over her skirts and the floor. ‘I might just do that! Because I am thoroughly sick of you and your dark moods! And thoroughly sickened by what you are about to do to poor Effie!’
‘Poor Effie!’ How typical she wouldn’t take his side. ‘Poor blasted Effie used my name without my permission...’ And invited strangers into his sanctuary. And crushed his stupid hopes in her fist, too. He was still reeling at her reaction.
‘Tell me, Max—if she’d have asked, what exactly would have been your response?’
‘Well I’d have...’ Said no. ‘Counselled her against using a pseudonym. Especially mine!’
‘You’re a two-faced coward, Max Aldersley!’
‘Two-faced?Two-faced!’
