‘Good evening, my darling. Don’t you look ravishing.’ A flirty Max was not something she had ever seen before, let alone experienced, and it completely scrambled her wits. Or perhaps that was simply the way her nerve endings danced when he lingered over kissing her hand, then curled it possessively around his arm. He anchored it in place with his warm palm as he escorted her into the room as if they were a real betrothed couple. It was such a solid arm, too, one which should have made her feel secure, when in fact it did anything but. He lent down to whisper in her ear and his warm breath sent tingles shooting down her neck, bouncing down her spine towards places which really had no place making their presence so apparently known in polite company. ‘Your earrings match for once. I am impressed.’
‘So do my shoes.’ Was that her voice? It sounded strange. Too squeaky. Too breathy. Obviously flustered. She quietly exhaled to try to slow her racing pulse. ‘Thanks to the maid Eleanor has assigned me, I even have proper hairpins.’
‘Which is sad, because I much prefer the pencil.’ He kept hold of her arm as they reached the others. ‘Gentlemen, may I introduce you again to my fiancée, Miss Effie Jones. The very best assistant a man could wish for.’ He squeezed her hand reassuringly as he said this and nearly all of her residual disappointment in him from the last week disappeared. He was attempting to give credit where credit was due as well as playing along with her charade. Nobody had ever done either before, for either the sake of her work or simply for her.
Lord Denby grimaced, or at least the half-hearted attempt at a polite smile when his eyes were so obviously not attempting the same came across as a grimace. ‘You draw very pretty sketches, Miss Jones.’
Pretty! She wanted to stamp on his sanctimonious foot. As if he sensed that, Max took charge. ‘I believe dinner is about to be served. Shall we?’
Miraculously, as if they had rehearsed it in advance, Smithson simultaneously opened the big double doors to welcome them all into the formal dining room. As the ranking peer, technically Lord Pompous should have walked through the big double doors first, but Max strode forward regardless, slanting her a heady glance which told her he had absolutely done it on purpose just for her when the disgruntled Marquess was forced to trail behind.
He solicitously escorted her to her chair and gave her hand a final squeeze of reassurance before he let go. Eleanor had done a splendid job of the table, which was fit for a royal banquet. The silver shone, the tall and ornate candelabra twinkled and there was a stunning arrangement of both flowers and fruits as a centrepiece which included a pineapple—the most expensive and rare of fruits. Lord only knew where she had found one on such short notice. Max was seated at one end, with Lord Denby and the mostly silent Lord Whittlesey, and she had been placed at the other flanked by the friendly faces of Sir Percival on one side and Max’s sister on the other.
As their host, Max made a toast welcoming them properly to Rivenhall on behalf of the both of them, which was another thoughtful touch, and then the soup was served.
‘Your fiancé was telling me you found a shield last week, Miss Jones?’
‘We did indeed, Sir Percival...’
‘Oh, do call me Percy. Sir Percival is such a mouthful.’
‘We should be delighted to drop the formalities, Percy. At least at this lowly end of the table. Please do call me Eleanor and this is Effie.’
‘We did indeed find a shield, Percy—well, Max did actually—and it is magnificent. I’ve searched through every research book and through all my back copies of Archaeologia and I cannot find any record of anything similar.’ She did her best to describe it while he listened intently, interrupting only with the most pertinent and sensible questions. It was obvious he was a true antiquarian in every sense of the word—knowledgeable, curious and with an enthusiasm which matched hers, but which seemed sadly lacking in the other two gentlemen from the society.
‘It has entirely altered our perception of the dwelling as it is so fine and so ceremonially decorative, I am becoming more convinced that we have stumbled upon the house of a tribal leader or an individual of great import. Max is convinced that person is also a woman because there have been several feminine items—like the bracelet alongside personal items like a comb and a rather delicate cloak pin.’
‘Really? How wonderful! A queen rather than a king. Your very own Boudicca.’
‘Obviously, it is too soon to be anything beyond speculation at this point, but certainly worth bearing in mind as we excavate the rest of the site. But the shield is breathtaking... I really cannot wait to show it to you.’
‘And I cannot wait to see it!’
‘Then why don’t the pair of you quickly pop out before the next course is served?’ Eleanor leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘I doubt the other gentlemen will notice as they seem thoroughly engrossed in their own conversation.’
Effie glanced down the table where they were indeed engrossed. As if he sensed her staring, Max’s eyes suddenly locked on hers and held for a moment, making her pulse quicken, before he returned his concentration to Lord Pompous on his right. He was different tonight. Every inch the Earl. Commanding and confident and effortlessly in charge despite the superior and snooty peer sat beside him. ‘We can’t. Leaving would be rude...’ And it would leave Max entirely exposed exactly as Eleanor had warned.
‘It is only rude, Effie dear, if we are being very formal and we have already decided to eschew that here in the cheap seats. Five minutes will not hurt.’ She glanced at her brother, then back at Effie before nudging her in the arm. ‘Go. Everything is well in hand here. I shall make suitable excuses and have a footman fetch you before the fish arrives. I dare say we shall cope without you.’
‘Well, if you are sure...’ She stood, intending to slip out quietly, but as soon as she did, every other gentleman around the table immediately stood, too. Then Percy appeared behind her and pulled out her chair, then offered her his arm.
‘They will only be a moment.’ Eleanor waved their unconventional departure away and ushered them all to sit. ‘Tell me, Lord Denby, what kindled your interest in antiquity?’
Lord Pompous was only too pleased to answer, allowing the pair of them to leave without the slightest objection, but as Effie walked through the door on Percy’s pudgy arm, she could feel Max’s eyes boring into her back. She turned and there they were. Dark, intense and swirling with an emotion she could not decipher, but which thrilled her nevertheless.
‘Could it be part of a quernstone?’ Percy was running the flat of his hand over the fragment of obviously carved, curved sandstone she had pondered since she had dug it up a few days before she had found the pot and just a few scant inches from the hearth. He was in no hurry to leave the library despite the other two gentlemen being obviously ready to move on to the port because, thanks to Max, it was Effie who was holding court.
‘I suppose it could be...’ She stared at the object as he examined it, taking in the worn narrow grooves on the flat side. ‘It certainly has the look of something which could grind grain into flour... If it is, of course, it entirely contradicts Dio’s accounts of the tribal Celts as hunter-gathers.’
‘Indeed it does. Because this would suggest they grew crops rather than gathered. And were savvy enough to be able to make bread.’
‘I believe they reared animals, too—rather than hunted.’ She was enjoying discussing things with Percy, whose knowledge was gloriously extensive and his mind quick enough to keep pace with hers most of the time.
‘As if such a thing could be effectively proved,’ Lord Denby scoffed from his throne in the corner, having made sure he took the largest and grandest chair in the library the second they had entered the room as a mark of protest, no doubt, for Max’s lack of deference earlier.
‘Actually, my lord, I believe I... We...’ her gaze automatically flicked to Max, who nodded his encouragement as if she had not just slipped up and excluded him from the discovery while she had been waxing lyrical all on her own for at least half an hour ‘...we have found evidence of pastoral farming.’
Effie hurried to the stewed bones she had placed in a labelled leather pouch and gently tipped them on the table. ‘We found these by the hearth alongside some shards of pottery, so have to assume they are the remnants of a meal. The last meal they ate at the round house, else why would it have been there? Although that beggars the question as to why they left in such a hurry. An attack, perhaps? Herodian, Dio and Tacitus commented on the bloodthirsty nature of the tribal fighting. If a rival invaded their land, won the battle and then destroyed the houses, then any survivors would have been forced to flee. Unless there were no survivors...’
There were so many possibilities, all racing through her mind as she briskly considered the merits of each.
‘Or perhaps an epidemic ravaged the settlement? If whole villages were abandoned and disappeared as a result of the Black Death in the fourteenth century, it is entirely conceivable similar things happened many times beforehand, too. It is not as if they chronicled their history like the Roman scholars attempted to do. I have found no evidence of the existence of any written language...’
She was being too intelligent. Too peculiar. Her odd mind jumping ahead much too fast because Max was there and she couldn’t seem to stop herself lapsing into her true self around him and Percy also made her feel comfortable. ‘Anyway...’ she smiled at the beaming academic as she focused back on the contents of the table ‘...these here are definitely chicken bones and I believe these others are from a larger grazing animal such as a sheep or a cow.’
‘They could just as easily be from a wild boar or deer hunted in the forest, Miss Jones.’ Doubting Denby was not the least bit convinced. Hardly a surprise when, so far, he had not been convinced of any conjecture or evidence Effie had put forward. He had, however, conceded a few of Max’s points, but as Max hadn’t committed the shocking crime of being born female or being able to quote all the pertinent Roman histories of the Celts to the letter, it went without saying that in Lord Denby’s cynical and prejudiced eyes, he must be the more informed than she could possibly ever be. It was hard not to show her frustration at his persistently blinkered outlook, but once again she bit her lip. Without Denby’s support, her discoveries would never make it into Archaeologia even with Max’s name on them.
‘Well, that one is definitely from a cow.’ Max winked at her as he pointed at the fat, stubby bone in the centre of the pile, dashing in to save her as he had so many times this evening already like a knight in shining armour. ‘Which, as Effie says, is a grazing animal which has been kept for thousands of years by all manner of ancient civilisations. Didn’t the Egyptians keep cows? Even the Book of Genesis mentions the creation of livestock for man to rule over. And technically, that was only on the sixth day... A ridiculous number of centuries before our Celts put beef in their stew.’
‘Are you an expert on butchery as well as antiquity and theology, Lord Rivenhall?’ Lord Whittlesey had not said much all evening, unless it was to add fuel to Lord Denby’s current contrary argument.
‘Have you ever been on a gunship, Lord Whittlesey?’
‘I have never had cause to, Lord Rivenhall.’
‘Well, that explains your ignorance then. I sailed with His Majesty’s Navy for twenty years and butchery is one of the many skills I learned on deck. We always set sail with a plethora of animals on board to feed the crew—cows, pigs, sheep, chickens and occasionally even the odd goat. So I think I am more qualified than anyone else in this room to state, and without any doubt whatsoever, that that bone comes from a cow. And if I am not mistaken, I will even be so bold as to identify it as a rib. Whereas this...’ he pointed to another fragment, looking quietly triumphant as well as the most virile and manly man around the table ‘...looks a lot like the tail. Clearly our Celts were as thrifty and creative with their rations as my cook was on the Artemis. I do hope they boiled it to death before they served it as the tail can be horrendously tough.’ And with an entirely smug, male smile which suited him immensely, he stood. ‘That’s quite enough antiquity for one day. Time for some port, I think. Followed by a spirited game of billiards if any of you gentlemen are inclined to wager.’
‘I’ll wager every penny, brick and stick of furniture I own in exchange for your beautiful and brilliant fiancée.’ Percy had been an outrageously delightful flirt all evening. Effie already adored him.
‘Then prepare to sleep on the streets when you return to London, my good fellow.’ Max shot her a heated glance for appearances’ sake, which her instantly needy body refused to believe was entirely for appearances. ‘Because I have no intention of ever parting with her.’