Redeeming the Reclusive Earl - Virginia Heath Page 0,1
behind what he hoped was a bland, surly mask, ignoring her friendly gesture and her hand to loom taller in his saddle menacingly. ‘I have a deep well of loathing for the medical profession.’
‘Not a medical doctor. He was an academic, specialising in the translation of Anglo-Saxon texts. Papa was a don at Cambridge for thirty-five years.’ She was also still waffling on in the false assumption that her words mattered. When nothing mattered any more and all he wanted was to be left alone. Something he had hoped to be able to do with impunity on this sprawling estate miles from anywhere. Yet here he was, only two weeks in and already burdened with unwanted company.
Max curled his lip, letting her know in no uncertain terms he didn’t hold academic doctors in much higher regard either, and watched in relief as she withdrew her hand awkwardly and clasped it in the other one behind her back as her cheerful smile melted from her face under his intense scrutiny. ‘He was highly respected in his field.’
Responding with anything sounding remotely like interest would only open the floodgates for more inane chatter. ‘Miss Nithercott, this is private property and you have no right to be on it. Leave. Now.’
‘Actually, I was just going. However, I do have permission to be here. I am not a trespasser, my lord.’ She offered him her best this is all a misunderstanding smile and went back to petting his horse. ‘Although I understand how you might have been a little alarmed to see someone here so early in the morning. The previous owner of this land, your uncle Richard, granted me access to dig around these ruins years ago. Perhaps he mentioned me to you in his letters?’
‘He did not.’ As his uncle and his father had been estranged for the entirety of his life, there had been no letters as far as he was concerned—bar the one from his uncle he had read posthumously, months after both his father and the uncle he had never met had both left this mortal coil, expressing sympathy for Max’s loss and his bitter regret at never healing the breach. At the time, he had barely registered the loss himself. He’d been too busy fighting for his own life. When he had finally emerged from that agonising pit of hell into the new darkness of his life, he grieved his indifferent father alongside everything else—albeit grieving everything else more. He still grieved it and cursed fate daily for not taking him, too.
‘Oh...well... Never mind.’ She swatted the detail away with one muddy hand. ‘Lord Richard was fascinated by all the things I found and took a great interest in the ancient history of Rivenhall. As you can see...’ she made a sweeping motion of the extensive dig site with her arms ‘...I have found a great deal of important archaeology here. There has been a settlement at Rivenhall Abbey for at least a thousand years and I have been gradually excavating its secrets for the last decade. It is so very interesting.’
Max gave the rocks and stones sticking out of the ground a cursory glance. He could make out the odd suggestion of a long-fallen wall here and there, but apart from that there was nothing about the area that she was gesticulating towards so enthusiastically that he found even remotely interesting. Not that he had expected to be interested. He had lost all interest in everything and everyone a long time ago.
‘If you would care to dismount, my lord, I would be more than happy to show you everything I have found so far.’
He would rather gouge out his eyeballs with his own thumbs. Cut off his toes with blunt shears. Curl up in a ball and feel sorry for himself. He hated himself for that, but could not seem to haul himself out of the deep pit of despair he languished in. ‘Your permission to dig here is now revoked, Miss Whatever-your-name-is. Pack up your things and get off my land.’ His voice was flat and suddenly emotionless as the familiar hopelessness swamped him. ‘If I catch you here again, I will set my dogs on you!’ He managed somehow to give the idle threat the gravitas it deserved before he quickly turned his horse until his back was