Chapter Seven #2
She stepped forward to greet the farmer who had appeared in the lane to welcome them. Only then did Henry realize she had slipped her hand from his arm.
The distance between them could only have been a few feet, but it felt an eternity, a painful absence that made no sense.
Henry blinked with astonishment, his mind hardly knowing what to do with itself.
“I said, Mr. Everleigh?”
Henry shook his head as though ridding his ears of water, and saw both ruddy farmer and pretty woman staring. “I beg your pardon?”
Mr. Anthony sniffed. “I see what you mean, Miss.”
Oh blast, what had he missed?
“Yes, he’s slow on the uptake,” said Minny conversationally, grinning as she spoke. “But I have found him moderately useful. Now, that stallion of yours. I’d like to see him…”
Henry almost laughed as the three of them entered the stables to inspect one of the farmer’s horses. Slow on the uptake?
One day he would make Minny pay for…no, he thought awkwardly as he waited outside the stall, allowing Minny to inspect the large cart horse before them.
The Duke of Dulverton could certainly tempt a woman to lose her innocence in his bed…but Henry Everleigh was just a man. A man with a little coin, hiding in a blacksmith’s…
Which did not explain why his heart raced so quickly just watching Minny caress the horse’s flank. Why he ached to be the one she was touching. Why he wished the damned farmer would leave them and he could take Minny’s hand and lead her to an empty stall and—
“Henry? Henry?”
Henry stared. The farmer had gone—when, he did not know—and Minny was grinning with an all-too-knowing look. “I beg your pardon? My apologies, my mind was otherwise engaged.”
She snorted as she patted the stallion. “Where on earth did you learn to speak like that? You sound like someone off the stage!”
He grinned weakly. Ah, yes. He really would have to make more of an effort. The last thing he needed, just as Minny decided he was a hopeless case who needed to be protected, was to reveal he was actually a duke and likely as not owned half the village.
That would be rather awkward.
“What are you doing?” he said aloud, ignoring her question.
Minny sighed as she pointed to the hind leg of the horse. “See there, the right one? How he’s not putting any weight on it?”
Henry looked. It looked like a horse to him. He may own several dozen horses, but they were things he rode, not animals he had to care for. He’d had a man for that. Three men, now he came to think.
“Someone else shod that horse,” Minny said darkly. “Someone who didn’t know what they were doing and who has made a complete hash of it. See, the way the shoe has slipped partly from the sole?”
Henry looked. It still looked like a horse to him, but—no, there it was. A slight shine of iron, which surely he should not be able to see. The horse stood there patiently.
“So it…it hurts the horse?” he hazarded.
Minny’s knowing smile was difficult to bear. “You’ve never worked with animals before, have you?”
“Not many people either,” Henry confessed.
After all, technically, he was a gentleman. Gentleman did not work.
They…ordered people about. That was about as close as he got.
“Mr. Anthony has apologized of course, but it’ll be a few days before the old boy will be able to work again, even after I’ve reshod him,” Minny said with a sigh. “And that will mean havoc for Mr. Smith.”
Henry blinked. The village was not large, but he had spent most of his time in the forge. Few people came directly to the blacksmith’s, almost as though…well. Now he came to think about it, almost as if they had no wish to go, but were forced to because they needed to.
What was it Ted had said?
“We don’t speak of ’im.”
“Who is Mr. Smith?”
Minny brushed a straw from the skirt of her gown. Henry tried not to look at the gentle swell of her buttocks underneath the fabric. “Mr. Smith is the miller. With the river so low, he requires a horse to help run the mill, and so without this handsome boy—”
“He can’t mill,” Henry said slowly.
She nodded. “And that means higher prices for Mr. Lane, of course.”
Henry was starting to get a headache with all these names. It did not help that the scent of straw and horses was insufficient to block out the tempting Minny Banfield. “What?”
Minny shook her head ruefully. “You’ve never lived in a village before, have you?”
Henry’s father had once described Dulverton Manor as a village. It was about as large, had just as many inhabitants, and was so full of gossip in the air of the Servants Hall. “No.”
She stepped around him, brushing up against him in the most tantalizing way a woman had ever not attempted to get his attention.
“Well, Mr. Lane is the baker here at Pathstow. Without local flour, he’ll have to buy it—pushing up prices.
It means pies at the King’s Head will go up a ha’penny, too, which means… ”
Henry followed her, dazed, out of the stall and out of the stables. “You mean to tell me this horse not having the correct horseshoe will affect all that?”
Minny grinned as she slipped her hand into his arm as they started to walk slowly back through the village toward the forge. “Village life, Henry. All the different parts of the place, they all interlock together. One change affects us all.”
“I had no idea.”
She grinned at his admission. “People need people, Henry.”
Henry’s stomach swooped. She had slipped into using his first name, how he did not know, but by God, he liked it.
“I’ve never needed anyone,” he said quietly.
For some reason, Minny’s hand tightened on his arm. “Really?”
“I mean…well,” Henry said awkwardly. “No. Not really. I am my own man, I make my own decisions. Any difficulties I face are therefore my responsibility.”
Was it his imagination, or was there a stifled giggle from the woman beside him? “And how is that working out for you, Mr. Henry Everleigh, hiding in my forge?”
A prickle of discomfort rose up his chest. “I…well.”
“Besides, I don’t believe you,” Minny said boldly, confidence rising in her voice.
“The coat you wear, the shirt you don, everything you eat, every time you read a newspaper—” Henry’s heart skipped a beat “—or listen to a tune…that’s come from someone, hasn’t it?
Someone else wove the fabric, cut it, tailored it.
Cooked your food, brewed your ale, printed a story, wrote a song…
how can you say you’ve never needed anyone? ”
Henry stared. How was this poetry spilling from the lips of a woman blacksmith?
Minny seemed to guess his thoughts—at least, in part. She flushed. “I just mean, everyone needs everyone, that’s how the world works. It would be a lonely life, I think, to be entirely separate. Don’t you think?”
And only then did Henry realize just how lonely he had been. Yes, Minny was right; his life had been created and dictated by servants all around him, but when did he ever bare his soul? How often was he vulnerable, truly open with his friends? When had he last—
“Henry?”
He smiled down at the concerned woman. “Yes?”
“You…you looked…” Minny hesitated.
They had come to a stop just outside the forge, and Henry was highly conscious they were still arm in arm. Almost as though…they were courting.
“I thought I saw, in your eyes…it was nothing,” she said hastily. “Come on. I’ve got a fire needs lighting, and I know just the man.”
Henry groaned as she slipped from his grasp. “You mean I still can’t hit anything?”