Chapter Eight #2
“Look, I don’t see what’s so unusual about it,” she said, her hackles rising. “I mean, what sort of daughter would I be if I wasn’t helping my mother? Everyone does it, surely where you grew up—”
“My sister would never,” Henry began stiffly before his eyes widened. “I mean…if Peg…”
Minny leaned closer, curiosity overcoming her surprise at his pomposity. There was that sister again. Was that who he would return to when he was finished here? Or was there a wife?
Her cheeks darkened. Well. He had not mentioned one, and she would hope a married man would not be kissing her like that. So why had his sister not—
“…I just think ten years old is young, that’s all,” Henry said weakly. “Should you not have…I do not know, been in school?”
Minny examined him closely. Where had this man come from? A village where children did not help their parents? Most strange.
“School?” she repeated. “What school?”
Henry stared. “But there must be a school!”
“Why? Most villages around here have no school—oh, there’s the poorhouse school for boys at the town over the way, and Sunday school of course, but an actual school?” Minny scoffed. “We’d need a great more guineas to afford that!”
“But—ten years old! That’s so young!”
“I don’t think so,” she said bluntly, knowing it was most unseemly to be so direct but unable to help herself.
“I mean, some of us applied to work up at the manor at that age, and though Jane was the only one who secured a place, we all wanted the work. I mean, it’s not like lords and ladies don’t put us to work,” she said with a laugh. “Why not our own mothers!”
Minny had expected him to laugh, to nod and admit she was right. But instead, he blanched, his face turning white. Henry looked at his stew and swallowed.
What had got into him?
“But—”
“Henry, when did you start working?”
Minny had not intended the question to feel a cross examination, but curiosity overwhelmed her good manners.
What was this man? Someone who believed that children should not work, should not help in the home—that every child, even those of a poor villager, should attend school?
“I…” Henry swallowed. He took several mouthfuls of stew, then said, “I suppose my father included me in the…the family business when I turned fourteen or so.”
Minny raised an eyebrow. “That was late. Youngest child?”
“Eldest of two.”
“And the family business is?”
Perhaps it was Minny’s imagination, but the closer she looked at Henry, the more discomforted he looked. Was it possible…she had only been teasing really when she had suggested that he had fled a criminal past, but could it be true?
Tendrils of distress curled around her chest, tightening her lungs. Had she invited a criminal into her forge, her kitchen…her life?
“Land management, I suppose you would say,” Henry said eventually, pushing back the bowl, now empty. “That was the best thing I have ever tasted.”
Minny grinned, her heart warming at the flattery. “It’s just stew.”
Did he think she would be so easily distracted by a compliment that she would not ask—
“I suppose hard work makes it taste better,” Henry said with a shrug. “Or perhaps it is the company.”
As the twinkle in his eyes continued and his hands remained on the table, deliciously close to her own, heat flushed her cheeks.
He was…flirting! With her!
She dropped her gaze to her half-eaten stew. “Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea.”
“The stew? I think it was a delightful idea.”
Oh, he was jesting, surely! How could he not see the…the potential dangers here!
As Minny looked up, she saw a crease on Henry’s forehead, the way his body tensed against the chair. Oh, he knew. He just had no wish to admit it, quite a different thing altogether.
The kitchen appeared to be smaller again. All it contained was him, and her, and the table between them.
Thank goodness she had not thought to sit beside him…
“You know what I mean,” Minny said quietly. “I don’t think this was a good idea.”
She forced herself to look up, but all that achieved was a delightful swooping of her stomach as her eyes met his. They were fierce, determined in a way she was already starting to associate with the tall man.
There was a fire within him, hotter than a forge. The question was, what did he want?
Henry hesitated, then said, “I…I know what you mean. I think.”
“I mean, I am unmarried and alone here with you,” Minny said, the words rushing from her mouth as her cheeks darkened with heat. “There could be talk, I could lose my reputation!”
“We have done nothing but work—”
“You kissed me,” said Minny quietly.
Oh, if only her entire body did not have to crimson at the words. What had provoked her to say them?
Only the desperate desire to have it confirmed that she had not dreamt the encounter. Only the need to know whether he had also thought about it. Dreamt about it—
“Why aren’t you married?” Minny asked quietly.
It was an absolutely scandalous question to ask, but that no longer seemed to matter. He was here, wasn’t he? Any chatter in the village would undoubtedly increase now he had spent the evening here.
Had dinner here, Minny corrected silently.
The question echoed around the kitchen. Henry did not immediately fill the awkward silence.
When he did speak, it was in a slow, measured tone that told Minny just how carefully he had considered his words.
“I suppose I always worried about my sister’s marriage more than mine. The idea of marrying before Pegs…she’s my responsibility, you see. I can think on my own marriage, my own pleasure, once she is secure.”
Though she flushed at the word “pleasure,” Minny leaned forward curiously. “It is only the two of you, then?”
Henry nodded. “I’m all she has, worse luck for her.”
“Oh, I think you are far better for her than many brothers could have been,” said Minny with feeling before she could stop herself. At Henry’s curious glance, she added, “I mean…I would not mind you for a brother.”
She cringed inwardly at the foolishness of her words. What had possessed her to say such a thing!
Her hands were still on the table, as were Henry’s. In a movement slow and steady, as though inviting her to withdraw her hand at any time, he moved his hand closer to hers.
Minny’s breath caught in her throat. She needed to move away, away from the table—she needed to tell him to return to the King’s Head! But she could not.
Henry’s warm fingers captured her own, and Minny gasped. Oh, the intimacy of that small action, the sense of his fingers around hers.
Here they sat, alone in the candlelit gloom. Her pulse was racing, heart thundering, and desire, desire Minny knew she should ignore rushed through her veins.
“The trouble is,” Henry said in a low voice, eyes fixed on hers. “The last way…the very last way I would wish you to consider me is that of a brother.”
Minny’s voice caught in her throat. She could do nothing, say nothing, move not an inch. The table was not wide, if she leaned forward and he did also, their lips would touch. He could kiss her again, and she could show him just—
“Let me help you clear up,” said Henry, releasing her hand and rising from the table.
Minny blinked. The intensity was gone, but she was still moving in a cloud of intoxication. Clear up? The last thing she wanted to do was wash up bowls.
No, what she wanted to do was far too scandalous to voice.
Praying her legs would hold her and that her voice would remain steady, she nodded with a wry smile. “Yes. Yes, good. Clear up. That’s what we should do.”