by Erica Ridley
“He’s passionate about charitable works,” Lady Felicity added. “He even leads a committee.”
Huzzah for Lord Raymore.
“You could volunteer here,” Giles heard himself say. “If you wanted to do more. There are always more neighborhood lads than my journeymen and I have time to mentor.”
“If you wanted to do more,” she replied archly, “you could welcome a few lasses. Lads aren’t the only creatures capable of tightening a wheel nut. Or is your charity only open to boys?”
“It’s not a charity,” he protested. “It’s a smithy.”
A smithy in which the only artisan who had ever come close to being his father’s equal had walked in the door wearing a frilly bonnet and day gown.
“A smithy for men,” she said with a shrug. “I thought you, perhaps, would not be so prejudiced.”
Giles snapped his jaw closed. He hadn’t welcomed a passel of local lads out of an explicit intent to exclude girls. Opening the smithy to their female counterparts hadn’t crossed his mind at all.
Somehow, that almost made it worse.
“I don’t just want to keep Cole’s curricle in working condition,” Lady Felicity continued, as if their discussion of eligible gentlemen and proper apprentices had never happened. “I want to improve it. The custom modifications would be based on my years of experience handling Cole’s horses and your unique characteristics as the driver.”
“You’re asking for unconditional faith that everything will work out perfectly within the allotted time,” he said flatly. “You want me to put the race in your hands.”
“I want to take every advantage we have and maximize them.” She licked her delectable lips. “I want to win. What do you want?”
To kiss you, came a little whisper from somewhere deep inside. To show you that pots of gold and blue-blood titles aren’t the only characteristics you should look for in a man.
“Fine,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “F-fine?”
“Call me arrogant and overbearing if you like, but I’m the best at what I do.” He crossed his arms to keep from doing something foolish, like reaching for her. “So are you.”
Her mouth fell open. “So am I?”
“Your brother says so. And this is his wager.” Giles let out a slow breath. “You’re just as motivated as I am for me to end the race in one piece and for Colehaven to win. Come back tomorrow at three. I’ll clear the rest of my afternoon.”
“Three o’clock it is,” she said quickly, pulling off her leather apron with shaking fingers. She glanced over at him from beneath her lashes. “Tea time. I don’t suppose we can heat a pot in the forge?”
“It’s always best not to suppose,” Giles agreed.
He placed her bonnet atop her head and tied the ribbon. The infernal floppy brim would keep his mouth well away from hers.
For now.
Chapter 6
Most important rule, the lads had told her. Arrive early.
Felicity alighted from a hackney cab in front of Giles Langford’s smithy at a quarter to three the following afternoon. Today, they would be equals. Two colleagues; the best at what they did.
Her skin tingled with excitement. She was just as eager for this as she had been for her debut in high society. The only way today could be better was if she could have burst inside wearing breeches and a work shirt instead of a patched-up day dress with hidden pantalettes.
She straightened her shoulders and marched in through the open doors. He wouldn’t regret their partnership. She would prove to him she was worthy. He—
The smithy was empty.
Felicity frowned as she turned in a slow, disbelieving circle. No master coach smith. No children.
Perhaps Langford had been called away unexpectedly and shut down the shop. She tried to mask her disappointment at the idea. Should she stay, in case he returned soon? Should she go, and await a new invitation?
Would there be another invitation if she left?
Felicity wasn’t certain why working with Langford felt so important to her. As though their partnership might cease being one of her brother’s many edicts, and could actually become… real.
At first, she thought these feelings were because Langford’s shop reminded her so much of the old smithy where she and Cole had worked as children. But the two places couldn’t be more different.
Langford’s place was wide, airy, clean, well-stocked, safe. The children came of their own free will. They had gloves and aprons to wear. Refreshments to eat and drink.
Environments like this were exactly what her future foundation and committees like Lord Raymore’s were fighting for. Children were not slaves or indentured servants, disposable tools to be worked until they fell apart and then discarded. They were people, and deserved to be treated like it.
The first year that she and her brother had lived in the grand town house on Grosvenor Square, Cole had wanted them both to put the past behind them. His sister was a lady now. She had to learn to dress like one, act like one, talk like one. Cole wanted to give Felicity every possible opportunity that their new position afforded. Even though it meant denying who they used to be.
When she made her debut in society, Felicity was wise enough not to mention her past, but nor could she forget it. She didn’t wish to. Those years had made her who she was. Forged her, cold and hard as iron, strong and unbreakable come what may.
When Cole had left one month to inspect the duchy’s country estate, she had traveled back to the old smithy in secret, carrying a heavy purse on her lap. Her childhood friends would be shocked to discover Little Felix was now Lady Felicity, but she hoped a handful of coins for each one would buy a little forgiveness for abandoning them.
Except they weren’t there. While she was off in London taking dancing lessons and shopping for ball gowns, they were at the forge day and night, working themselves sick. One was buried in an unmarked grave. Several had returned to the streets or worse. And the rest… Felicity would never know what had happened to them. The smithy was full of new children with gaunt faces and no more dreams.
She had sworn in that moment that she would do everything in her power to save them. To save all of them. Every child in every workhouse, every chimneysweep, every barefoot angel with big eyes and an empty belly and no one to fight for them. Felicity would fight.
After returning home, she and Cole arranged a more reputable master for the old smithy, but it was one of a thousand. There was endless work to do. Cole dedicated every spare moment and penny, but he was one person. If Felicity married the right man, she could do more than double the donations. Once she’d convinced a powerful, titled husband to support the cause, his peers would follow suit.
With Lord Raymore’s position and influence to back her, Felicity could convince the ton that children were worth fighting for. Or at least talk them into opening their pocketbooks. Raymore could use his position in the House of Lords to make change at a national level, and Felicity’s charitable foundation would change lives at a personal level.
If realizing this dream meant she had to give up her love of working on carriages to accomplish this, so be it. If honoring her vow meant she had to give up love altogether, so be it. Children’s lives were worth the sacrifice.
In the meantime, she would enjoy every minute of freedom while she still had it. There was no telling when—
The rear door swung open and she whirled to face it.
Giles Langford stepped out into the smithy carrying a wooden tea tray, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to be doing so.
“Three o’clock is tea time,” he reminded her as he placed the tray on the small table where the lads’ repast had stood the day before. “Milk and sugar?”
“Thank you,” she said faintly.
“Hats on hooks,” he said as he lifted the pot and expertly began pouring the tea.
She yanked the ribbon loose from her chin and placed her bonnet on the nail she was already coming to
think of as hers. It wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t. Yet part of her wished every tea time could be right here in this smithy.
As she accepted a cup of fresh, steaming tea, Felicity couldn’t help but admit that the only predictable thing about Giles Langford was that he was impossible to predict.
“No lemon tarts?” she asked over the rim of her teacup.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “This is a smithy, not a bakery.”
It also wasn’t a tea garden, but the man made an impressive cup of tea.
“Where is everyone?” In her experience, most smithies stayed open from dawn to dusk.
“I gave everyone a few hours’ free time so we could work on your brother’s curricle without distractions.” He clinked the edge of his cup against hers as if toasting with champagne. “To winning?”
She raised her cup in answer, unable to hide her grin. “To winning.”
The wicked promise in his slow smile warmed her to her toes.
When she finished her tea, she placed the cup back on the tray and reached toward the pile of aprons.
“Going to crawl around the ground in a gown again?” he asked.
She slid him a vexed look. “Have you a better suggestion?”
“You tell me.” He gestured to a small pile of clothing stacked on a three-legged wooden stool. “Want to borrow some trousers?”
She stared at him for a long moment, trying to work out his intent. Was this a jest, a farcical situation set up for him to be able to laugh at her? Or had the impossible man somehow seen straight into her soul?
His blank expression gave no clue.
“Y-yes,” she said hesitantly. She would very much like to borrow some trousers.
He motioned to a folding screen in the corner of the shop, likely guarding a chamber pot. “I’ll wait for you by the curricle.”
With that, he lifted the tea tray and disappeared back through the rear door.
Felicity made her way toward the borrowed clothes and lifted them to her nose. Freshly laundered. Smartly folded. This had been done with just as much care to detail as the tea tray had been. The items even looked like they might fit.
Delighted, she hurried behind the folding screen, hoping to be out of her dress and into the trousers long before Langford returned.
Most days, fancy gowns felt like Felicity’s battle armor. Patched trousers and a smudge of oil on her sleeve made her feel like there was no war to fight. Like she was precisely where and how she was supposed to be.
These trousers were a bit wide in the waist and snug in the hips. The white linen shirt was far too loose and the brown jersey tunic a little too long.
She hadn’t worn clothes this comfortable in years.
A creak and the sound of a door latching back in place indicated Langford had returned to the smithy.
Suddenly shy and nervous, she forced herself to step out from behind the folding screen.
Langford did not rake a disdainful gaze up and down her mannishly clad frame or smirk at a subpar attempt to blend in. He simply raised his brows with polite interest.
“Better?”
“I feel like myself again,” she confessed.
A satisfied smile reached the corners of his eyes.
“Giles Langford.” He held out his hand. “Giles to my friends.”
She placed her hand in his and gave a firm shake. “Lord… Felicity.”
He burst out laughing. “Little Lord Felicity, is it? I’ll remember that.”
“I actually do answer to ‘Felix,’” she confessed. And to he. And him. Masquerading as a little brother had been the key to her survival. Learning how to be a lady had begun with learning how to be female again. And learning what to do with stays… like the ones she’d left discarded behind the folding screen. The back of her neck heated. “But plain Felicity will do.”
“You’ve never been plain a day in your life.” His blue eyes held hers before he turned back toward the curricle. “What do you think about widening the wheels to be sturdier over rugged terrain?”
Felicity was not thinking about wheels at all. Had Giles Langford just implied he found her pretty?
“No comment?” He poked his head over the tail-board in surprise. “Somehow I assumed Lord Felix would be even more opinionated than Lady Felicity.”
“No need for ‘lord’ or ‘lady.’ Partners should be on a first-name basis.” She tilted her head at the carriage. “Wide wheels are heavy wheels. What do you think about narrower and lighter?”
And with that, they were off and running, any awkwardness forgotten. They perused every inch of the curricle, arguing and agreeing, guessing and teasing.
It wasn’t until they were shoulder-to-shoulder beneath the chaise that Felicity realized how much easier it was to pass the time with Giles than to decipher ballroom mating dances.
Here with Giles, she was truly herself. Not just a woman in trousers, but a fellow coach smith in her own right. It was a heady, heart-pounding feeling.
Giles didn’t speak to her as though he did so as a favor to her brother, or even in the same manner the lords she danced with spoke to debutantes. He treated her like she was his equal. As though there was nowhere this skilled, handsome man wished to be but right here at her side.
Felicity didn’t notice she was staring until she realized he was gazing right back at her. Breath tangled in her lungs, but she couldn’t look away. No matter how warm her cheeks had flushed.
She bit her lip to keep from blurting how she felt.
He tilted his head. “Colehaven says the only reason he entrusted his carriage to me instead of you is because I have a proper smithy and you don’t.”
She grinned. Not having a proper forge was the only valid excuse for one’s brother to choose some other blacksmith over his own sister.
“Now you know what to get me for Christmas.”
He affected an arrogant expression. “You’ll never find a better smithy than mine.”
True.
Neither said what they were both thinking. That this—whatever this was—would be over within a fortnight. There would be no Christmas. They could have nothing at all.
Except the continued pleasure of each other’s company for the next eight days.
“I like your smithy,” she said shyly. And I like you.
He glanced over at her in flattered surprise. “Do you?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t?”
With a lift of his shoulder, he flashed a crooked smile. “It’s a smithy.”
“A splendid one.” She cast her gaze about the palatial interior. “Clean, orderly, well-stocked, impressive…”
Being in his smithy was like visiting a toy shop. Every shelf and hook were full of new wonders, just waiting for her to explore. The workshop had an earthy, distinctive scent, a comfortable, inviting atmosphere, a feeling like… home.
Her chest thumped in alarm. This was not her cozy shop. She couldn’t keep it or Giles. Her pulse fluttered at the idea. Appalled at the direction of her thoughts, she floundered for a way to ruin the moment.
“I’m sorry you disapprove of my husband-selecting process.”
The jarring words shattered the companionable calm like a sledgehammer to ice. She could practically feel the cold shards raining down upon them.
“Most lords in town are my customers or friends from the Wicked Duke,” Giles replied evenly. “I just hadn’t expected to come across their names on a shopping list.”
Felicity’s face flushed with heat. There. She’d deserved that dig. Nor could she argue. Cole had created the initial list of approved prospects. Felicity had refined it. To Giles, she supposed “practical reasons” only made her seem more mercenary.
“I didn’t know they were friends of yours,” she muttered.
“Of course you didn’t.” A muscle worked at his temple. “A blacksmith, friends with Quality? Horrors.” His lip curled and he looked away. “I despise when someone like you makes assumptions about everyone else.”
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Her eyebrows raised. “Someone like me?”
“Someone who thinks they’re better than me.”
Felicity’s jaw dropped. “I don’t think I’m better than you!”
“Why wouldn’t you?” He counted on his fingers. “You have a fancy title and I don’t. You live in a fancy neighborhood and I don’t. You have fancy clothes and fancy airs and go to fancy parties and I don’t. You have more connections, more money, more influence… Shall I go on? You probably even think you’re the better coachmaker and driver.”
“Just coachmaker,” she snapped. “I’m the second-best driver.”
He cast her a flat look.
“You’re right,” she said with a frustrated sigh. “Not that I think I’m better than you, but that in many ways, society thinks I am.”
“High society,” he corrected.
“High society,” she agreed. “Point taken. Neither of us should make assumptions. Do you know why I started tinkering with carriages at a young age?”
“I do not,” Giles answered.
Felicity bit her lip. Was she truly ready to share this part of her past? Would she ever be ready for someone to know all of her secrets?
“Indulgent parents?” Giles guessed.
“No,” she said softly. “Suffice it to say, I know exactly how fortunate I am, and that I’m not any better than anyone else. If I was, one of the gentlemen on the list would have married me by now.”
Practical reasons or not, she couldn’t pretend it didn’t sting. If any of her short-lived suitors had wanted Felicity as a person and not just as a bauble for their arms, they would have signed any betrothal clause her brother wished. That they preferred to select someone else to wed… well. Felicity couldn’t let herself be hurt. She hadn’t chosen them for their personalities either.
Marriage was a contract. A business decision. She could not allow feelings to get in the way.
“Is that really what you want?” Giles asked softly.
Felicity dropped her gaze. He was too big, too talented, too much. She loved every moment of working with him. Even dreamed about it at night. Of a world in which their partnership didn’t have to be temporary. She curled her fingers about a head iron to withstand a rush of longing. Someday soon, she would have to walk away from Giles and his smithy and never look back. No matter how much doing so might hurt.
