by Erica Ridley
Ever since they’d met, a great yawning emptiness now filled her chest at the thought of everything she’d have to give up in order to fulfill her dream of giving more to those who needed it most.
If she broke the promise she’d made to the children, she wouldn’t simply be no better than anyone else.
She’d be worse.
Giles was perhaps the one person who would understand why she’d marry a wealthy man she despised over a penniless man she loved. There could be no higher goal than providing for children. She had not known they shared that in common, too, until yesterday. It only made her like him more.
He was a good man, but he was right about the differences in their social statuses. The charitable work in his smithy was the perfect example of what she hoped to see, but it would not change laws in the House of Lords. Felicity didn’t want to help just one neighborhood. She’d vowed to help them all.
“Tell me about your local helpers,” she said. “When did the lads start coming by?”
“The moment they smelled biscuits,” Giles replied. “You might think rats have a keen sense of smell, but rodents are amateurs compared to twelve-year-old boys.”
“Come for the lemonade, stay for slowly smelting iron over a blistering hot fire?” she asked dryly.
He flashed an irreverent smile. “Everyone has their price.”
“What’s yours?” she asked. “Do you get something from volunteering your time?”
“Children in the smithy,” he answered without hesitation. “I loved my childhood. I spent every waking minute of it right here with my father.”
She glanced around with interest. “This was your father’s smithy?”
“A third of it used to be. I’ve since expanded twice. There’s plenty of room for children to learn and grow. Someday, my offspring will also be following at my heels asking thousands of questions. But until I wed, the local children are more than enough.”
Felicity felt as though a ball of ice had slammed into her midsection.
For years, she’d been consumed by the thought of when and whom she would marry. Never had it occurred to her that Giles—coach smith extraordinaire and fêted Curricle King—might share those same thoughts. Have his own nonnegotiable set of requirements. A list of bridal contenders in his pocket.
Her name would not be on it.
Giles’s future wife was someone who would live with him here above the smithy, who would bring a wooden tray of lemonade down to the workshop, where her sons and daughters did their best to imitate their handsome father.
She shouldn’t care what Giles did, Felicity reminded herself. She wasn’t here for a romantic interlude, but to work on her brother’s curricle. It didn’t matter how free and relaxed she felt with him; how much at ease he put her with his pots of tea and borrowed trousers and complete confidence in her ability to dismantle and rebuild an even better carriage. How she wished he would kiss her.
Oh, who was she fooling? It took everything in her power not to launch herself into his arms right now.
The more he didn’t try to make her fall in love with him, the more he simply accepted without question whatever she did or did not wish to do or give or share, the more she couldn’t help but carve a secret place for him deep in the recesses of her heart.
Her hands shook. She had to get out of the smithy before she let her feelings get in the way of logic.
Felicity shot to her feet. “I—”
His hand touched her arm. “What is it?”
She forgot what it was. His hand was on her arm. Warm and strong through the thin sleeve.
Oh, blast. Not her sleeve. His sleeve. She was still wearing the clothes he’d purchased for her.
“I… ought to return your clothes,” she managed.
His hand was still on her arm.
She hoped he never moved it.
“If you leave them here,” he said, “they’ll always be waiting for you on that stool, in exactly the same condition you found them today.”
Was it possible to swoon over a gift of boys’ trousers? Yes. Yes, apparently it was indeed possible. Her heart would not stop racing.
“I’m sorry you always see me like… this.” She gestured at herself. Or meant to gesture at herself.
Apparently, her hand had an agenda of its own, because her fingertips now lightly grazed his arm. This wasn’t quite an embrace—her fingers touching his upper arm, his thumb caressing just above her wrist—but they should definitely put a stop to it.
Right away.
Or perhaps in a few more minutes.
“I don’t find you less beautiful because you aren’t wearing some gown you hate,” he said softly. “To me, you look the most beautiful any time you allow yourself to just be yourself, rather than pretend to be someone else.”
“That’s…” Words failed her.
He winced. “Too forward?”
Not forward enough.
She placed her trembling palms on either side of his muscular chest and met his cobalt blue gaze. “For the past week, I haven’t stopped wondering what it would be like to kiss you.”
“You cannot imagine how much I would love to help with that.” He cradled her face in his rough hands as if she were the most precious thing he had ever touched. “But your brother—”
“—isn’t here,” she whispered. “No one is. Just you and me. What are you going to do about it?”
He slanted his mouth over hers before she finished talking.
Had she thought a forge was hot? Those flames were nothing compared to the heat his kiss stoked deep within her. She slid her hands up his chest to his wide shoulders and laced her fingers behind his neck.
Now she was on her toes. A precarious position under normal circumstances, but circumstances were anything but normal. She was off-balance—had been off-balance from the moment she’d met him—but she need not worry about falling. He was here to catch her.
Her bosom pressed against his chest in the most deliciously wanton way. And her legs… dear heaven, her legs! Without a gown and shift to fill the space between them with cumbersome yards of fabric, she was free to press her legs against his, to feel the strength and heat of his thighs firm against her trembling limbs. In fact, she realized with growing arousal, she could even feel—
“Langford?” a male voice shouted from the street. “Are you in there?”
Felicity and Giles jumped apart panting, staring at each other with wide eyes still full of longing. If the seat rail of her brother’s curricle hadn’t blocked their kiss from view…
“Back here,” Giles rasped as he straightened his clothing.
She tried to calm her heart. If Giles’s voice shook after that kiss, God only knew what sort of croak might exit Felicity’s throat if she foolishly tried to speak. She ran a hand down her bosom to try to smooth any wrinkles, then peeked around the carriage at the new visitor.
Visitors, plural.
The six lads from the day before, plus a tall man with auburn hair and a ready smile, and… two little girls?
The stranger bowed to Giles. “Kenneth’s elder sister Maria and Norman’s younger sister Beatrice, just as you requested.”
Two of the lads beamed with brotherly pride.
With an equally wide smile, Giles motioned for Felicity to step out from her hiding place. “Allow me to present Hugh Tarleton, a rector of St. Giles. The lads, you met yesterday. Two are from Hugh’s parish, and these are their sisters. Ladies, it is lovely to meet you.”
The girls tittered.
Mr. Tarleton cleared his throat. “And who is…”
Felicity’s heart skipped. Should she have stayed hidden? She didn’t recognize this man, but—
“My mechanic,” Giles replied easily.
His mechanic. Felicity wished she hated the sound of that. Instead, it sounded like music. Like belonging.
Mr. Tarleton bowed again, despite not being given her name.
“You’re with the best,” he assured her.
The girls stared up at her with wide eyes. “Are you truly a lady mechanic?”
“One of the best, man or woman.” Giles knelt to their height. “She’s a master artisan. That means she’s been an expert ever since she was your age.”
Every child’s eyes grew wide with wonder and awe.
Felicity wondered if Giles realized what a difference he’d made in their lives with one offhand comment. Not just for the girls, but for all the children. If Felicity could do it, they could do it too. There was a way out. They were all in the right place.
“Then they’re all in good hands.” Mr. Tarleton tipped his hat and left.
“Can I be your apprentice?” the youngest girl whispered to Felicity.
She longed to say yes. Like Giles, she yearned to someday teach her own children to tinker with tools and carriages. For them, it could be fun instead of solely a means for survival.
The fact that Giles had paid attention to her words… Not only listened to her perspective, but took immediate action to include female apprentices the very next day… Felicity’s heart flipped. Had she thought the tea proved what sort of man he was? Had she believed a loaned set of trousers the greatest gift a non-family member had ever given her?
The inclusion of Beatrice and Maria was worth more than all the flowers in the world.
“I take it back,” Felicity whispered to the girls. “I’m not the best. Mr. Langford is the best.”
She would take advantage of every stolen moment she could have.
Chapter 7
Giles stood alone outside the doors of his smithy with a wicker basket by his feet.
After days of harmonious smithing—and several stolen kisses—he was tired of pretending the undeniable connection between him and Felicity was temporary and meaningless. Their first kiss had been incredible, and each subsequent embrace was both briefer and more desperate than the last, as if the less they allowed themselves, the more they tried to take.
Today, he intended to prove to Felicity that they could be so much more than colleagues.
He suspected she sensed it too. Not just because of the kisses. Anyone could kiss someone else without it meaning anything more than mere sexual desire.
But because she’d agreed to a picnic. His blood hummed with anticipation. This would be their first rendezvous outside of a smithy. No agenda, no apprentices, just the two of them seeing where this might go without a carriage standing between them.
If she put in an appearance.
Giles pulled his pocket watch from his waistcoat. Although it seemed like hours had passed, the hands of the clock showed barely five minutes past noon. Granted, Grosvenor Square was but a mile from his Oxford Street smithy. Just because Giles had been standing outside since ten minutes to twelve did not mean Felicity had even left—
One of the passing hackneys pulled to a stop directly in front of the smithy.
Please don’t be a new customer, Giles prayed. Please don’t be a new customer.
The door opened to reveal a faceless figure wearing the limpest, floppiest, least visually practical bonnet in all the world.
His heart leaped and he rushed forward to meet the carriage.
“I’m going to be very upset if that straw monstrosity is hiding someone other than my stable lass,” he murmured as she placed her hand into his.
He felt, rather than saw, her smile.
She lifted up the brim of her hat to reveal twinkling brown eyes. “I missed you, too.”
Those four simple words electrified him to his toes. They’d just seen each other the day before, yet he knew exactly what she meant. It didn’t matter whether she was out of his sight for ten minutes or ten hours—she never left his mind.
Rather than help her down from the hackney, he swung the basket onto the seat across from her and hoisted himself into the carriage to give the driver the direction to St. James’s Park.
Felicity glanced over at Giles in surprise. “I’d hoped we might be taking Baby.”
“I worried you’d think her too recognizable. Besides,” he said with narrowed eyes, “if I let you touch Baby, you’ll never climb back down to have a picnic.”
She inclined her head. “Fair.”
The brim of her hat fell back over her face.
Giles undid the ribbon and stuffed the bonnet into the basket.
She leaned back against the seat and sighed. “I hate that thing.”
“The basket?”
“The bonnet.”
“Set it on fire,” he suggested. “I’ll help.”
“It’s unnecessary once I’m out of Mayfair,” she admitted. “In these clothes and out of the usual haunts, I doubt I would be recognized by anyone but my own brother. But I still need the bonnet to escape Grosvenor Square.”
Giles’s jaw tightened. She could not risk being seen because she intended to keep her place in high society, not lower herself to publicly gadding about town on the arm of a blacksmith. His mere presence would ruin her reputation. He ought not to forget it.
He lowered his gaze to the picnic basket. Perhaps a romantic afternoon would change nothing at all. A week from now, the race would be over and that would be that.
Then again, she had eagerly agreed to today’s outing. Disguised, so as to be unrecognizable to her peers of course, but at least she was here.
The next move was up to Giles.
When the hackney deposited them at a far less trafficked garden than Hyde Park, Giles picked up the basket with one hand and offered the other to Felicity.
She curled her fingers about his elbow and smiled. “Where to?”
“I’ll show you.” He escorted her deep along a rarely travelled footpath that led to one of his favorite little clearings.
He loved St. James’s Park. His family had visited frequently when Giles was a child, and even now that he was the only one who still wandered through nature, he still came sometimes to recapture the feeling of doing absolutely nothing at all. Just lying on his back, eyes closed, rose-scented breeze rustling his hair, warm sunlight on his face, taking a moment to enjoy nature.
Felicity sent a worried gaze up at the sky. “I hope it doesn’t rain.”
“It won’t,” he replied.
This morning’s storm clouds were off on the horizon. The weather should remain clear for their picnic.
She sent him a teasing look. “Are you the master of London weather, as well?”
“I’m the master of not caring two figs about the rain,” he answered. “I didn’t come here for the weather. I came for the company. And the kisses.”
Her cheeks flushed prettily, and she gave him a soft kiss before swinging her gaze back to the gorgeous wooded path widening before them.
Giles had come to this special spot thousands of times with his family or on his own, but he had never brought a woman before. He watched Felicity from the corner of his eye as they stepped into the clearing.
Her eyes lit with wonder and she dropped her hand from his arm to clasp her fingers to her chest.
“This is beautiful!” She flung her arms wide and spun around, then turned to face him. “How did you find this?”
“This is where my father brought my mother when they started courting.” Giles held a finger to his lips as if imparting a secret. “According to legend, nothing more scandalous occurred than a couple of chaste kisses.”
“Good God.” Felicity gasped in faux shock. “Anything but chaste kisses!”
He nodded gravely. “Unchecked licentiousness at its worst. Oh, and he did propose marriage here. So there is that precedent.”
He expected Felicity to recoil at the implication that a courtship was underway. Instead, her gaze softened.
“How did he know she would say yes?”
“He didn’t.” Giles set the basket in a shady nook near some wildflowers. “That’s why he brought her. He hoped surrounding her with beauty would give him an advantage.�
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“Did it?”
“Definitely. Over the course of a summer, he procured two chaste kisses and one love of a lifetime. An unquestionable win.” Giles spread a soft woolen blanket over the green spring grass and motioned for Felicity to join him.
She settled herself beside him. “How long have they been married?”
“Thirty-five years next month.” He pulled cheese and fruit from the basket. With his folding pen knife, he began slicing bite-sized pieces onto a little platter.
“That’s a long time,” she said wistfully.
“To be married?”
“To have one’s parents.”
He looked up at her, his gut twisting in sympathy. He’d meant the story to be a romantic one; not a boast about what he had, and she did not.
“I know I’m fortunate,” he said quietly. “I’m grateful every single day. I’m sorry your parents are no longer with you.”
“I don’t remember them,” she admitted after a long moment. “I try, but it’s just… All I ever had was Cole. There was no time to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves.”
Giles doubted that was entirely true. He knew from experience that a person was perfectly capable of being hard at work whilst grieving tragedy at the same time. Felicity’s childhood could not have been easy.
“I’m glad your father was the sort who brought his son on picnics.” Her expression was pensive. “There’s nothing Cole and I wouldn’t do for each other. That’s why I know about carriages. We spent our childhoods working at a forge.”
He tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “I’ve no doubt you were a deuce of an apprentice.”
“By the time I was ten, I told everyone who would listen that I was going to be a blacksmith one day,” she confessed with a self-deprecating smile. “How about you? Did you always want to be a coach smith?”
“Very much so,” he answered. “My family would not have disowned me if I’d wished to be a butcher or a chemist instead, but for me there was never any question. I was born to it.”
