Chapter Nine #2
Henry’s heart hammered painfully as he raced down the stairs, almost tripping over the last one before he raced out of the King’s Head.
“What the—”
Ted’s words fell behind him as Henry grabbed Minny’s hand. “Come on!”
“Henry—wait!”
Filled with a rush of energy, of excitement, throwing all caution to the wind and caring not who saw them as they raced across the village green, Henry pulled Minny along.
Their laughter echoed around the small forge when they finally arrived, Henry clutching at his chest, a stitch burning as he looked into the flushed face of Minny Banfield.
“One of these days you’ll get me into trouble, Henry,” she gasped.
Henry bit back the retort that he greatly wished to. It wouldn’t be fair on her, after all, for she had no idea she was running about with a duke.
“Now, the fire will have died down in the time that I went to fetch you,” said Minny, turning immediately to business and opening the furnace. “Yes, we’ll need a few more logs and any coal still in the scuttle…”
It took the pair of them a while to heat the furnace again, Henry wiping sweat from his brow. Only when Minny nodded and declared it warm enough did he permit himself a rush of excitement.
“So, I can try?”
It was foolish of him to become so eager, Henry knew—but there was something primal about the anvil, about its transformative power, about the way it could take broken or formless things and transform them into something else.
The fact that Minny was pulling on a leather apron and looking at him with a wise and calculating eye certainly did not hurt.
“You can try,” she said quietly with a knowing smile. “But remember, this craft is hot.”
Henry swallowed as she brushed hair from her eyes. He certainly felt unusually warm as he stood on the other side of the anvil, but he wasn’t sure that was what she actually meant.
“Hot,” he repeated unnecessarily.
As though she could read his thoughts, Minny flushed. “I-I mean…just, pay attention.”
She picked up a lump of iron and a hammer and started to show him how to heat it first in the fire and then use the hammer to gently mold it.
Henry watched, transfixed. If he had been impressed with Minny before, it was nothing to how he felt now.
How was it possible for her to so easily transmute what appeared to be nothing more than a lump of metal into something that had life, movement, potential? Her fingers curled elegantly around the tool, twisting it in small adjustments almost without thinking. Henry was transfixed.
It was therefore rather a surprise when she looked up and handed him the hammer. “There you go.”
“What, now?” Henry said instinctively, taking the hammer but holding it hesitantly, as though it would be taken from him at any moment.
Minny’s cheeks were flushed—from the heat of the furnace, Henry told himself—as she grinned. “Is this not what you came for? Is this not what you want?”
His mouth went dry. What he wanted?
Oh, what he wanted…
If someone had asked him a month ago, he would have known the answer. He wanted to bring the people who harmed his sister to justice.
But now, with Minny smiling, trusting, believing him to be nothing but a man who wished to learn from her…
He had entered her life under false pretenses. Now he wished for nothing more than to push aside the warm metal and lay Minny on the forge floor and show her such pleasure that she would never be able to look at another man again.
“Henry?”
Not that he could admit to such a thing.
“Right. Yes. This is what I want,” he said aloud, as though verbalizing it would make it more true. “Fine, so, you just hit it like this—”
The gentle movement of the hammer clanged around the forge, and a rush of excitement poured through Henry’s lungs. Oh, this was spectacular! The sense of power!
He hit it again, felt the rush of vibration through his arm, tilted his wrist to hit it again.
“Oh, this is easy!”
“That’s what they tell me,” Minny said dryly.
And it was that moment when Henry lost all concentration. He looked at Minny—and his hand slipped.
Not the one holding the hammer. That would certainly have been painful, but that hand stayed steady.
No, it was his other hand, leaning on the anvil, that jerked to the right as he looked at her. Unable to help himself, Henry’s heart lurched in a way he had never felt before and his hand responded in turn…
“Oh, ye gods!”
…straight into the fizzing iron on the center of the anvil.
Henry immediately brought his fingers to his mouth. Certain as he was that Minny would have performed the deed if required, as she had with his wrist weeks earlier, the last thing his meager self-control needed in this moment was her lips around his fingers.
He closed his eyes with a moan. Dear God, even thinking about it…
“You are hurt—is it very bad?” came the anxious voice of the blacksmith who had, arguably, been fool enough to permit him to have a go.
Henry slowly opened his eyes, hoping his self-discipline would return.
His heart skipped a beat. He was in trouble, far more trouble than he had thought when she had turned up at his bedchamber at the King’s Head. Far more trouble than he had ever been.
Oh, his head had been turned before by a pretty face, but that had been all. A turn. He had soon returned to his life, his family, his friends, and never thought about the woman.
But this…this was different.
“That is what happens,” said Minny, seeing he was in no real danger, “when one does not pay attention.”
Henry could do nothing but speak hoarsely. “I was distracted.”
“Distracted? Distracted by what?”
There were no words. Henry merely looked at her, trying both to communicate all he felt with his eyes, simultaneously trying to hide the rush of emotions he had not yet untangled.
Minny’s cheeks flamed red. “Oh.”
Henry swallowed. He was in danger here, real danger. The question was, what would boil over first: his latent desire that was becoming less latent with every passing second, or the blisters on his skin?