Redeeming the Reclusive Earl - Virginia Heath Page 0,101

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 doing both together? 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