Redeeming the Reclusive Earl - Virginia Heath Page 0,28
Pressed against him and clutching his lapels like a woman waiting to be kissed. ‘I have no patience for your flagrant matchmaking, Eleanor...’
‘Matchmaking?’ The immediate and innocent affront was convincing, or at least it would have been had he not grown up with the manipulative witch who stood piously before him. ‘Do not flatter yourself, Brother. I like Miss Nithercott a great deal—but she is much too good for you! Perhaps, I might have encouraged it before you became so bitter and twisted and unreasonably unsociable. But I can assure you my only intention in inviting her to dine with us, aside from repairing any damage done by your shocking rudeness yesterday, was because I should like to further my acquaintance with her. Would it kill you to at least play at being a gentleman for the duration of one meal?’
‘That I have to suffer your uninvited presence is bad enough, but a guest so soon is...’
He watched the sadness draw her features fleetingly before her temper replaced it. ‘Oh, for pity’s sake, Max! Go hide in your study with a tray, then!’ She had the gall to curl her lip in distaste as if he were the one in the wrong. ‘You have become so very good at that.’
‘I might just do that!’ He had to talk to her retreating back, feeling childish and churlish and thoroughly pathetic for lashing out at Eleanor again when she had stalwartly borne the brunt of all his frustration since the morning they had stretchered him from that ship.
‘Good.’ She did not turn around. ‘And do not be surprised if you feel your cowardly ears burning!’
He waited all of six seconds before the ramifications of his sudden absence from the proceedings piled in. Left to her own devices, Eleanor would have no compunction about telling Miss Nithercott all the sorry details of his recent life and the thought of her knowing his intensely private business and, worse, pitying him for it was entirely unacceptable. He did not want the world and his wife knowing the ins and outs of everything. He most definitely did not want his much-too-intelligent and annoyingly gorgeous new neighbour to know exactly how pathetic he now truly was. And doubtless his wily sister knew that, too.
* * *
‘Could you pass the salt, please?’
Self-consciously, from the head of the table, Max did as his sister asked, wishing the lamps in the formal dining room weren’t burning quite so brightly and that Miss Nithercott wasn’t seated to his left. The very least Eleanor could have done was place the woman on his good side. Now he had to avoid any sudden head movements in case he inadvertently disturbed the camouflaging veil of scruffy hair he hid his deformity behind.
‘I think it is outrageous those silly men refused to read your paper, Miss Nithercott.’ He had happily allowed the ladies to keep the conversation flowing because he had none. Simply sitting here took that much effort. ‘Anyone would think they were afraid.’
‘Of course they are afraid.’ The bane waved her fork with the same animated enthusiasm as she usually did with her hands when she spoke, wafting lilacs and roses willy-nilly to play havoc with his senses. ‘Society might actually crumble if they acknowledge women have brains as well as wombs.’ Max did not want to have to contemplate her womb, because contemplating that meant contemplating the route to it. ‘We are supposed to remain content as chattels, Mrs Baxter, with no thoughts beyond those fed to us by our biologically superior husbands and no desire above administering to his whims, popping out the fruit of their intellectually superior loins and choosing the menus for his dinner.’
Loins! Wombs! Did the woman have no boundaries? Now his damned head was filled with all manner of inappropriate images entirely unsuitable and not the least bit conducive to digesting the roast beef he was staring at as if his life depended on it. He could hardly flick more than a glance at her without feeling off kilter. The gown she was wearing was too damned distracting and she was a guest, and that in itself was daunting. He couldn’t remember the last time he had sat with anyone beyond the tight circle of his vexing sister and her family.