Redeeming the Reclusive Earl - Virginia Heath Page 0,10

be finished in three years and by then, I can assure you, the pot will be long out of the ground.’

However, the rest of the Abbey’s secrets would still be buried there—taunting her. Effie tried to ignore the way he overwhelmed her and pretended to look nonplussed while her clever mind ran every possible scenario through to the end in the hope of finding a way to make him see reason and concluded, with her customary rapidity, she had to face facts.

Thanks to her poor efforts at diplomacy, he wasn’t going to budge today—in reality, if she continued to push he would only dig his heels in deeper. Something she had quite the knack for making people do even when she tried not to.

He might not budge at all come to that, but the scant remains of the former optimist she had once been and the strategist in her refused to believe she couldn’t get him to ever see sense once he listened to her superior and irrefutable arguments. In truth, he really didn’t strike her as an idiot. Surely between the pair of them they could come to some agreement—when he had calmed down, of course, and was more agreeable. And there was more than one way to skin a cat or excavate a pot for that matter. The pot was her most pressing priority now that it was exposed to the elements and nature and clumsy horses’ hooves. For now, though, it was probably best she retreat and allow the dust to settle, then approach him again when he wasn’t feeling so belligerent.

‘I can see I have inadvertently called upon you at a bad time, putting you in another bad mood with my irritating over-enthusiasm for the quest I hold dear. Something which was never my intention. Nor was insulting you with my forthrightness. Occasionally, I forget myself and I apologise.’ It took a great deal of strength to get those insincere words out without sounding as disgusted by them as she felt. But she managed another magnanimous smile regardless for the sake of the pot. ‘When would be a more convenient time for our discussion?’

‘Never.’

She found herself smiling ironically. He might well be obnoxiously rude, but at least he was predictable. She could work with that. Or around it. He might not be an idiot, but he was unlikely to be cleverer than her.

According to Papa, nobody was.

Her curse and the root cause of all her problems and isolation—but occasionally it came in handy. ‘Enjoy the cake, Lord Rivenhall. And the brandy. I can see myself out.’

Chapter Three

Four hundred and twelve crystals...

Max knew that already because he had counted every damn droplet on the chandelier above his bed twice this week when sleep evaded him. For once, he had someone else to blame for his restlessness. The tart-mouthed, not easily intimidated new bane of his life: Miss Euphemia Nithercott.

He would lay good money she was out there. Since laying siege to his study and frightening the life out of him two days ago, he knew full well she was still digging despite his expressly forbidding her to do so. Annoyed, he threw the covers back and padded to the window, staring sightlessly at the darkness, impatiently willing dawn to break an hour earlier than usual.

He knew she was out there because he had become unhealthily obsessed with checking up on her. Each morning since, as soon as the sun came up, he rode to her haphazard cluster of holes in his ground and each time he had seen as clear as the sparkling crystals on his bedchamber chandelier her dratted hole was getting bigger. Although she was taking her own sweet time about it as only a few inches of dirt had been neatly scraped away from her stupid pot. Why she hadn’t taken a shovel to the earth to get the damn thing out once and for all was beyond him. That she hadn’t strangely intrigued him.

So much so, the chit had apparently taken root in his thoughts since—although Miss Nithercott was hardly a chit. She was, he estimated, probably nearer thirty than twenty and undeniably all woman. And a damned attractive one at that. The entire time he had been forced to look at her in