Redeeming the Reclusive Earl - Virginia Heath Page 0,87

no mood to judge. Poor Eleanor had performed a minor miracle in their absence today and had served a veritable banquet for dinner. It was a testament to her strong character she wasn’t swigging the stuff directly from the bottle. Something Effie was sorely tempted to do to simply calm her nerves.

‘How fast a whirlwind was it?’ Not that Effie really needed to know. She was intimidated enough by the seductive Miranda already without knowing how swiftly she had captured Max’s heart.

‘Fast. He proposed after only three weeks.’ Effie had known him for a good seven and had only achieved two kisses. Or one kiss and an over-excited bumping of faces in a confined space. And she still had no earthly idea where she stood. ‘The pair of them were the talk of the ballrooms, which suited her very well and wherever he went the men slapped him on the back and congratulated him on his impressive conquest. Then he got deployed to the Americas and she got to play the tragically stoic heroine as she waved him off from the dock. Miranda wept such pretty tears while she waved that exquisite silk handkerchief. I always distrusted that about her. When I cry, my entire face collapses. I look as though I’ve been smashed in the face with a shovel.’

‘So do I.’

‘And there is no shame in that, Effie. Those are real tears. Everything about Miranda was fake. Calculated. With my cynical hat on, I would even go as far as saying she’d been out for two Seasons and, with no wealthy duke on the horizon, the sands of time were running out. There is only so long one can be an Incomparable before the bloom fades from the rose.’

‘There is?’ The world of ballrooms and Seasons and society was a mystery to her. Her academic father had also thought them frivolous and with no mother figure in her life, or even a distant Nithercott aunt somewhere, there was nobody around to organise one. All she had been to were a couple of faculty dances at Cambridge and the local assembly. Neither of which she had bothered attending in years because she had nobody to attend them with.

‘She was four and twenty! That is old for a debutante.’ Which made Effie positively ancient by comparison. Yet another blow to her fragile confidence. How exactly was she supposed to compete with all that?

Eleanor yawned again as the clock chimed midnight. ‘I suppose we should call it a night. The gentlemen are clearly having too much boisterous fun to be rejoining us any time soon and I have to be up at the crack of dawn. And so do you. But we can chalk today up as a success though, can’t we?’

‘Indeed. A resounding success.’ Effie supposed she should mark it up as a triumph. After a long day of digging Percy was beside himself for finding the brooch, Lord Denby was clearly impressed with everything despite his naturally pessimistic character and, because his crony was, so was Lord Whittlesey, therefore Effie should have been delighted the eminent antiquarians all agreed she—or rather Max—had discovered something amazing. Doubting Denby had also sent her sketches of the shield to the printers by express to ensure they were added to the article alongside an additional couple of paragraphs—ostensibly hastily written by Max as well—to ensure everything was included before they published it for the world. But she was too distracted to give much of a care, truth be told. Distracted by all her racing thoughts and feelings. All churned up by that phenomenal kiss yesterday and vehemently refusing to go away.

She and Max hadn’t discussed it. There hadn’t been either the time or the opportunity, entirely thanks to the visiting antiquarians who had monopolised them since breakfast. It had been hard to concentrate on the task at hand when her mind was so full of him and desperately wondering if there was, or could ever be, a them.

What exactly did that kiss mean?

Because to her it already meant something more than lust. It had made her begin to crave things from Max which went beyond a kiss and her overactive mind was determined to plan the next few years rather than the next few hours. Racing ahead again before reality could