Redeeming the Reclusive Earl - Virginia Heath Page 0,92
The bark of laughter came out of nowhere. ‘No, Miss Naive. You did everything right. Too right—when I am desperately trying to be a gentleman and about to fail miserably.’
‘Oh.’ She was pleased with herself. He could hear it in her voice and he liked that, too. No games. No lies. Just Effie.
He gently lowered her to the ground and stepped back, trying and failing not to notice how scandalously wanton she looked with her lips all swollen, those sultry dark eyes molten and one sleeve hanging off her shoulder as her straining breasts rose and fell against the silk. Thank the lord the pencil had held or he’d be completely done for, although it looked precarious. ‘Perhaps we should talk for a little while.’
‘About what?’
‘About...’ He considered suggesting something inane to do with the antiquarians or the dig, but knew there were more important things which needed to be said. ‘About me.’ Max exhaled loudly to calm himself, feeling more vulnerable than he had since those first months in his sickbed after his world had fallen apart. ‘Because I have all these confusing thoughts suddenly crashing about in my mind and I cannot make head nor tail of them. And seeing as you are the cleverest person I have ever met, I was hoping you could help me make sense of them because I have to face them, Effie. I don’t want to, but I know I must.’
‘All right...’ Her concern was instant and genuine. ‘We should probably sit in that case...’ She wandered to the bed and was about to lower herself on to it when he held up his hand.
‘Not there! Have a care, woman! How am I supposed to have any sort of rational, let alone important conversation with you sat on my bed looking like temptation incarnate?’
She smiled as if he had just given her the most beautiful compliment and took herself to the chaise near the window instead. ‘Is this better?’
‘Only slightly, but it will have to do.’
Max propped a hip on his mattress and racked his brains as to where he should start. ‘Because I kept catching him staring, I told Percy about my burns this morning and he said the strangest thing...’ It was probably the wrong place entirely, but as his insightful comment had come directly after Effie’s outburst about Max regretting their first kiss, it joined with it to plague him and make him question everything he thought he believed. ‘It was quite philosophical, actually—he said he didn’t doubt an experience like that put everything else into perspective... And it set me to wondering, because I used to be level-headed. I used to be pragmatic and philosophical and optimistic, but I have no clue exactly where my perspective on things went because I am no longer sure I have any.’
‘Hardly a surprise. There is nothing like a traumatic event to shift perspective on its axis. It is hard to be any of those things when fate deals you a blow. After Rupert died, I was so lost and distraught, I didn’t know which way was up or what I was going to do. I’d put all my eggs in one basket, mapped out my life and had no contingency plan. It took a while to find my feet again and to find a new path. That was the power of one single traumatic event. You were dealt a succession of blows, Max—the burns, the loss of your ship, your crew, your career, your father and your fiancée. And perhaps even your dreams. All in quick succession. Each one of those has the power to tear the ground from under the feet. Combined, I should imagine they are devastating and each would need adequate time to heal.’
He hadn’t thought of it like that. There had been a series of separate catastrophes, some inextricably linked to be sure, but all bundled together into one indigestible mass. Yet in the last few weeks, it had felt as if a fog was lifting and he no longer saw the mass as much as sensed there were separate components to his grief. And she was right about that, too. It was grief which had overwhelmed him. For so many things he hadn’t known where to start mourning them all. ‘I’ve started