‘As validation, Max. To prove to myself there was some reason I was given this odd brain which the world tries to continually prevent me from using. At some point, I will have exhausted all of Rivenhall’s secrets and I shall have to find something new to occupy my mind. I’ve always known that. Digging is the latest of many obsessions. How do you think I came to be fluent in Greek or Norse or Saxon? I pick up a new distraction and completely exhaust it. Digging was the one that helped me to get over my bereavements and cope with the prospect of eternal spinsterhood. I made it my dream. I can find another, Max. One that doesn’t impede on our future...’ Her lovely eyes clouded. ‘I would feel awful knowing you had given up your lifelong dream of the sea for me. You are worth more than just swinging a pickaxe—no matter how much I might enjoy watching you swing one.’
‘I don’t want you to be the one who has to make all the sacrifices and I certainly do not want to have to keep saying goodbye! I could still buy ships—just not sail in them.’
Something which would leave an empty hole inside. He knew that, just as he knew Effie would always have a part of her missing if she gave up uncovering the past and digging up treasure. They were both free spirits. It was who they were. Both adventurers in their own way.
‘You’d hate that. I’d hate it, too. Unless we? No...’ She shook her head, rolling her eyes in that self-deprecating manner he had come to adore. ‘Ignore me... It’s probably a stupid idea...’
‘You have an idea?’ Of course she did. Effie always had an idea. A solution. A hypothesis. No problem was too big for the alluring genius he was going to marry.
‘I’d drive you mad... Although...’ He watched the myriad emotions skitter across her lovely features as the cogs of her brilliant mind turned and she considered and discounted things. Asked herself questions which she typically answered just as quickly. ‘It might work... I’d certainly enjoy it... And you’d also get to...’
‘Would you and your big brain mind including me in this discussion?’
‘It’s a silly idea... Certainly unconventional... What I mean is...’ She suddenly gazed into his narrowed eyes and smiled. And loudly inhaled before blowing it out. ‘How would you feel about doingbothtogether? A proper compromise.’
‘I’m all for compromise if it means I never have to part with you. What do you have in mind, Miss Knowledgeable and Wise?’
‘Part of the year we could stay here at Rivenhall so I could dig it up while you look ruggedly handsome wielding that pickaxe, and the other part...’ she slanted him a hopeful glance ‘...we could...perhaps...sail the seven seas together.’
The idea had merit. Glorious, logical, ridiculous merit. ‘You would be prepared to go to sea? To leave all the comforts of home behind? All your books and holes in the ground? To live in a cabin?’
‘I’d live in a burrow as long as it was with you! And who says I have to leave all my books behind?’ The golden flecks in her whisky eyes positively gleamed. ‘Just think of all the things I could learn, Max. All the new places I could visit. All the new history I could discover. The languages. The culture.’ Then those beguiling eyes clouded once more as they sought his for reassurance. ‘Unless it’s not the done thing for a woman to go to sea?’
‘It’s not the done thing in the navy—’ He felt the corners of his mouth curl up as the weight on his shoulders lifted. ‘But I wouldn’t be in the navy! And who cares what the done thing is anyway? They’ll be my ships and I get to say who sails in them.’ He allowed her unconventional proposal to sink in and marinade and decided he approved of it in every possible way. He liked being at Rivenhall and he liked digging with Effie. If they had a family, and he would move hell and high water to make that dream come true for her, then he would need to have solid roots somewhere. He loved the sea, but did not want to leave her. Her dream and his dream. Shared dreams. Dreams he couldn’t wait to live. ‘I’m game if you are.’
She beamed and the world felt brighter, their future exciting. The old thrill of adventure burning as bright as it ever had—except better. Because he had her.
‘Then we have the foundations of a plan...’
‘Which knowing your brain, will doubtless be fully fledged before the dinner is done.’
The big clock chimed the hour in the hallway, reminding them both that the meal was imminent. They both stared at it and sighed.
Effie traced a button on his waistcoat. ‘As much as I don’t want to, I need to bathe and change for dinner. Eleanor has spent hours planning this final meal on my behalf.’ Max wound his finger around one of the stray tendrils which had fallen out of her pencil, trying, and failing, not to think of her in the bath. ‘We could discuss it all later. Shall I visit you tonight?’
‘I was rather hoping you would...although doubtless, I’ll be stuck playing blasted billiards with your antiquarians till midnight.’
‘You know I will wait up.’
‘No... Go to bed. I’ll wake you when I’m done... And I’ll enjoy it.’
She shot him a wicked glance out of the corner of her eye as he escorted her back into the hallway. ‘Make sure you do. I shall leave my door scandalously unlocked because, as you already know, I am incapable of playing hard to get where you are concerned. But I should warn you, it is a warm night...’
‘What has that got to do with it?’
She leaned close to whisper, her warm breath tormenting his ear, ‘I cannot guarantee I will be wearing a nightgown.’
All his blood seemed to pool in his groin. ‘Until midnight, then, Miss Nithercott.’ He kissed her hand, thoroughly enjoying their flirting and the havoc she was playing with his body. ‘I shall count the seconds—alongside the panelling and the billiard balls, of course.’
Max watched her disappear up the stairs and turned towards his study, then stopped dead when he encountered Lord Percival staring at him open mouthed.
‘Did I hear you say Miss Nithercott?’ His blood ran cold. ‘As in Miss Euphemia Nithercott?’
‘It’s not what you think, Percy.’
‘The Miss Nithercott who submits paper after paper to the Society? The one Lord Whittlesey has banned?’ Max could tell by his wide eyes that the man had heard a great deal more of their conversation than just her name and was rapidly piecing it all together. ‘She is not Miss Jones... You are not really engaged... This is all a ruse!’
‘Not entirely.’
