Virginia Heath - Redeeming The Reclusive Earl

The floppy brown felt hat she wore hid her hair and it was anybody’s guess what the strange spectacle affair was all about, but it did a very good job of hiding her features. What the large round lenses did not cover was hidden behind a thick smear of wet dirt. She smiled cheerfully as she idly patted his horse’s muzzle with one hand and shielded her magnified eyes from the sun rising behind him with the other.

‘We are neighbours, my lord. I called upon you yesterday and twice more last week to introduce myself, but you were indisposed. I am so glad we have finally met. I am Miss Euphemia Nithercott, daughter of Doctor Henry Nithercott of Hill House.’

She stuck out her hand for him to shake. It might as well have been a cobra as far as he was concerned, but he hid the visceral claw of fear of human contact behind what he hoped was a bland, surly mask, ignoring her friendly gesture and her hand to loom taller in his saddle menacingly. ‘I have a deep well of loathing for the medical profession.’

‘Not a medical doctor. He was an academic, specialising in the translation of Anglo-Saxon texts. Papa was a don at Cambridge for thirty-five years.’ She was also still waffling on in the false assumption that her words mattered. When nothing mattered any more and all he wanted was to be left alone. Something he had hoped to be able to do with impunity on this sprawling estate miles from anywhere. Yet here he was, only two weeks in and already burdened with unwanted company.

Max curled his lip, letting her know in no uncertain terms he didn’t hold academic doctors in much higher regard either, and watched in relief as she withdrew her hand awkwardly and clasped it in the other one behind her back as her cheerful smile melted from her face under his intense scrutiny. ‘He was highly respected in his field.’

Responding with anything sounding remotely like interest would only open the floodgates for more inane chatter. ‘Miss Nithercott, this is private property and you have no right to be on it. Leave. Now.’

‘Actually, I was just going. However, I do have permission to be here. I am not a trespasser, my lord.’ She offered him her best this is all a misunderstanding smile and went back to petting his horse. ‘Although I understand how you might have been a little alarmed to see someone here so early in the morning. The previous owner of this land, your uncle Richard, granted me access to dig around these ruins years ago. Perhaps he mentioned me to you in his letters?’

‘He did not.’ As his uncle and his father had been estranged for the entirety of his life, there had been no letters as far as he was concerned—bar the one from his uncle he had read posthumously, months after both his father and the uncle he had never met had both left this mortal coil, expressing sympathy for Max’s loss and his bitter regret at never healing the breach. At the time, he had barely registered the loss himself. He’d been too busy fighting for his own life. When he had finally emerged from that agonising pit of hell into the new darkness of his life, he grieved his indifferent father alongside everything else—albeit grieving everything else more. He still grieved it and cursed fate daily for not taking him, too.

‘Oh...well... Never mind.’ She swatted the detail away with one muddy hand. ‘Lord Richard was fascinated by all the things I found and took a great interest in the ancient history of Rivenhall. As you can see...’ she made a sweeping motion of the extensive dig site with her arms ‘...I have found a great deal of important archaeology here. There has been a settlement at Rivenhall Abbey for at least a thousand years and I have been gradually excavating its secrets for the last decade. It is so very interesting.’

Max gave the rocks and stones sticking out of the ground a cursory glance. He could make out the odd suggestion of a long-fallen wall here and there, but apart from that there was nothing about the area that she was gesticulating towards so enthusiastically that he found even remotely interesting. Not that he had expected to be interested. He had lost all interest in everything and everyone a long time ago.

‘If you would care to dismount, my lord, I would be more than happy to show you everything I have found so far.’

He would rather gouge out his eyeballs with his own thumbs. Cut off his toes with blunt shears. Curl up in a ball and feel sorry for himself. He hated himself for that, but could not seem to haul himself out of the deep pit of despair he languished in. ‘Your permission to dig here is now revoked, Miss Whatever-your-name-is. Pack up your things and get off my land.’ His voice was flat and suddenly emotionless as the familiar hopelessness swamped him. ‘If I catch you here again, I will set my dogs on you!’ He managed somehow to give the idle threat the gravitas it deserved before he quickly turned his horse until his back was fully to her and then began to ride away as if she deserved no more of his consideration, vowing to buy some dogs at his earliest convenience in case she called his bluff.

‘You cannot do that! This site is of great historic importance...’ He could hear her work boots thump the ground as she jogged after him. Smelled the faintest whiff of rose petals as she came alongside. ‘I have to dig here. There is so much still to uncover. Can’t you see that?’

He should have ignored her. Should have—but couldn’t. He tugged on his reins to bring his mount to a stop and turned to stare at her, then regretted it instantly when he saw the hope in her eyes.

‘Go home, Miss Nodcock.’

Please, for the love of God, go home.

‘It’s Nithercott.’ She shrugged without offence, which he couldn’t help but admire when he was trying hard to be so very offensive. ‘A bit of a mouthful, I know, but it is what it is and there aren’t many Nithercotts left in the world. The name comes from Somerset originally, but Papa moved here to Cambridgeshire before I was born. Which was fortuitous for me as I doubt I would have found anything quite as inspiring to dig as Rivenhall Abbey. Let me show you the site... I guarantee you will find your history fascinating.’

‘I wouldn’t place a bet on that.’

‘The Abbey goes back to the fifteenth century.’ She was pointing to the broken, empty shell of a building in the distance, the one he knew had given Rivenhall Abbey its name. He knew this because he had managed to read an entire chapter of a book about it in his new library the day after he arrived, before he had tossed it angrily aside to stare at his new walls and continue to wallow in self-pity. Something his sister was convinced he over-indulged in. Max agreed, but did not possess the strength or the desire to stop. At the very least, self-pity gave him something to do during the interminable hours of the day. ‘Although the earliest parts of the knave are obviously Norman. There have been some very interesting medieval finds in and around the Abbey walls. However, it was only when I began to excavate a little beyond the immediate boundary of that building that I began to discover evidence of an earlier settlement here.’

A soft breeze materialised out of nowhere, ruffling the hair from his face, and she saw the scars. Her dark eyes briefly widened behind the ridiculous lenses she wore and for just the briefest moment he saw her smile falter before she politely nailed it back in place. It was a good approximation of a friendly smile, better than most managed when they first encountered his deformity, but still tinged with the awful polite and pasted-on smile of pity he had come to loathe with every fibre of his being. He felt sick to his stomach and ashamed that she had seen it.

Instinctively, he twisted his body and his horse away so that she could see only the undamaged side of his face in profile, then speared her with his most irritated gaze, keeping the hideousness safely out of view even though he knew she had seen it and there was no point trying to fool himself she hadn’t.