Redeeming the Reclusive Earl - Virginia Heath Page 0,83
air around him was suddenly heavy with the heady scent of lilacs and fat summer roses. With things unsaid and hopes unfulfilled. He knew they were best left unsaid. Knew he needed to be thankful she was his friend and not keep foolishly wishing for more. For everything.
Everything?
The truth slammed into him and left him unsteady. She was his everything.
Good lord, he was doomed.
She stared down at her feet, forcing his eyes to her pretty bare toes poking beneath the hem. Another unwanted reminder of what lay—or did not lie—beneath that ridiculously feminine and romantic nightgown. ‘So where should we start?’
‘Er...’ He’d like to start by hooking his fingers beneath the ribbon at her shoulders and sliding the seductive garment slowly down her arms until it puddled around those dainty toes. ‘Perhaps...er...we should begin with a potted history of the Celts?’
Max tried to focus. Really he did. But as much as he didn’t want to let her down on the morrow, her presence sat primly on the chaise by the window was too distracting and completely overwhelming. With nowhere else to sit other than beside her, Max was perched on the bed. Wishing he had been emasculated so that his masculine parts would stop reminding him he wasn’t. Wishing his heart wasn’t so full it felt as though it might burst at any moment.
‘Then you are convinced Lord Denby will disapprove of what we have done.’
‘From what I can make of him so far, very probably. He is a bit of a...’
‘Pain in the arse?’
She giggled and he inexplicably felt ten feet tall. ‘I was going to say traditionalist—but I much prefer your assessment. Yes, he is and he does seem to have a fundamental problem with me, so I am afraid it is going to be down to you to justify the way I have done things and prevent him from attacking the ruins like the advancing army of Attila the Hun.’
‘Lord Denby is a lot of foul things, but an Attila he isn’t. He doesn’t have the physical strength, for one thing. Did you notice how much padding he had in his jacket? I doubt he’s ever wielded a pickaxe. To be honest, I’m surprised he didn’t struggle with a spoon. He has unpleasantly thin wrists for a man.’
She smiled. ‘I cannot say I noticed his jacket or his wrists. I was too busy noticing his utter disdain.’
‘Disdain is his forte for sure. That and looking down his nose.’ Max looked down his and crossed his eyes, simply to hear her laugh again. Each one felt like rebuilding another section of the bridge back to friendship. It was staggering how much he had missed it. Missed her, truth be told. Effie, it turned out, was the sunshine in his darkness. ‘And talking of jackets... I doubt Sir Percival needed extra padding. He seemed to fill his more than adequately... With pudding, I suspect.’ A low blow, when despite the jealousy Max actually liked the man, but he wanted to gauge the depth of her feelings towards him, hoping he was worrying for nothing.
As if he was ever going to dare tell her how he felt.
‘Percy is lovely. Pudding and all.’ Not at all what Max wanted to hear. ‘Anyway—the methods I use are fairly new and are not used extensively in antiquarian circles. I have been tremendously inspired by the work of the late William Cunnington, a great man who believed in respecting the past by treating the site with integrity. I am not averse to using a pickaxe or a shovel, because both have very obvious advantages, especially when it comes to removing several feet of soil. However, like Cunnington, I prefer to use more precise tools like my trowel when I get close to the artefacts. In a clumsy excavation, many delicate or small finds can so easily be missed or destroyed in haste. In fact, I dread to think how many important treasures have been needlessly and thoughtlessly discarded at important sites like Pompeii or Stonehenge. We cannot let that happen at Rivenhall.’
‘It won’t. Rivenhall is mine.’ But all of a sudden he knew he wanted to share it. ‘And only you get to say how it