Chapter Thirteen
Every inch of Henry’s shoulders ached, but he did not stop. Once he stopped, he would have to see Minny. And then he would have to tell her…
The swing of the ax tore at his muscles as it sliced through the log. The two halves slowly toppled off the stump outside the blacksmith’s. The noise of the forge, the anvil being tapped twice as Minny worked, the hit echoing around her garden.
Henry bit his lip. He should go in, really. He had chopped enough logs in the last hour to last Minny a lifetime.
Well. Perhaps a month.
But with every passing moment he put off the inevitable, even as the sun started to wend its way slowly toward the horizon. It was touching it now, just kissing the hills in the distance.
Yet still Henry did not go into the forge.
“You’re a damned fool,” he muttered, rubbing his thumb on his shirt in an absent way.
There was a scrape across it—not quite as bad as the time he had whacked it with the hammer, but still. His thumb hurt. It appeared to be getting continuously injured, and there did not seem to be much he could do about it.
Like his heart.
Henry grimaced as he leaned down to pick up the two halves of the log and threw them onto the pile. Perhaps a few more logs, before he went in. Before he told Minny what he had decided last night.
It had been a talk with Ted, of all people, which had decided it. Henry had walked into the King’s Head with a smile on his face and his heart singing.
Just to be close to Minny was a gift, but with each passing day he was certain he was getting more intimate. Parts of her were opening up to him he had never guessed could be there, and it made him feel…
Everything.
“You look well, sir,” Ted had remarked as Henry had approached the hatch for his customary evening pie.
And Henry had grinned like the fool that he was. “I am well, sir!”
Ted’s eyebrow had raised. “And so you’ll be staying in Pathstow for good, then?”
And all the happiness had drained away. Henry had stared, aghast. “Stay? Forever?”
The thought had never occurred to him.
At least, when it did, it was pushed aside immediately and replaced with the far superior “take Minny away from this place and ravish her in every bedchamber in Dulverton Manor”. Of which there were many.
But the idea of actually staying here in this pokey little village…there was nothing wrong with it, Henry had thought, his stomach squirming. But it was not the place for a duke. The Duke of Dulverton could not bury himself here!
“Well, you seem to be getting along well with Minny,” Ted had said affably, clearly unaware of the turmoil he had unleashed within his guest. “And you’ve been here two months. More than enough time to know if a person is…well. Right for you, if you get my drift.”
Henry’s look of horror had transformed into a look of outrage. “I beg your pardon?”
His voice was stiff but his heart was thundering painfully in his chest. What on earth had he done? Evidently, he had given the whole village to understand he would be marrying Minny—a blacksmith!
Three months ago he would have laughed at the very suggestion. He wasn’t laughing now. Was that what she believed? Did she expect some sort of proposal in time, in short shrift?
“I won’t risk your reputation, Minny. Not out here.”
And Henry’s jaw had tightened. He could stay no longer. Not to give Minny high hopes for something that could surely never occur. A duke, marry a blacksmith? Marry any woman who had not been raised suitably, brought out into Society with the best of chaperones?
No, it was unheard of. Unthinkable!
“Sir?”
And besides, Henry had thought frantically, Peg had been left on her own for too long. It was not fair for her to be forced to navigate the wiles and dangers of Society without him. He was her brother; she depended on him.
How else would she know when to accept the proposal of a gentleman?
“I said, sir?”
And worst of all, and Henry’s stomach turned most violently at the thought, he still needed to track down the gossiping liars spreading those rumors about his sister.
It was certainly not Minny. Why, he had spent all day with her, every day, for almost two months. Not a single sign or hint had she given that she was in any way mixed up in this.
Wretched though the thought was, he no longer had any reason to stay in Pathstow. With Minny.
“Sir!”
Henry had started and glowered at Ted for interrupting his thoughts. “What!”
“I said, do you want a little porter to take upstairs with your pie, sir,” the ever patient Ted had said.
And he had. And that whole night, Henry thought darkly as he heaved the ax over his head and chopped another log in two, he had been unable to rest.
Something was warring within him that he could not control and never would have predicted. A desire…to stay.
Foolishness, Henry told himself as he placed the two halves onto the log pile. The sort of foolishness one would expect from a young man entering Society, instantly taken with the first lady he saw.
Not a man like himself, grown, and wise, not at all easily swayed by a pretty face.
The memory of how Minny had laughed at him only that morning for thinking that the wheel rim she was mending had been a crown soared into his mind. A lopsided grin tilted Henry’s face as his stomach lurched and his heart beat fit to bursting.
He was in danger here. He had seen it coming and yet done nothing about it.
He needed to leave. Return to Dulverton Manor, or better still, London—for Peg was there—and continue his search for the blaggards ruining her reputation.
Henry sighed. So why was he still here, putting off the inevitable break with Minny, chopping logs?
Shadows had grown longer as he had been lost in his thoughts, the sun halfway disappeared. It would be night soon. Sighing heavily, Henry picked up what he promised himself would be the final log and placed it on the stump.
“Henry!”
He whirled around, his instincts so strong that he dropped the ax with little thought to his toes and rushed toward the kitchen.
Minny. She had called him, and though he knew it was ridiculous, he could do naught but answer that call.
“Minny?” Henry said as he stepped through into the forge.
There she was. Tired after a long day of work, Henry noticed, affection pouring through his veins. Yet just as beautiful as when they had first met. Perhaps more so. Was that normal—to discover with each passing day that the beauty of one you cared for deepened, blossomed, shone more brightly?
“Can you help me with this?” Minny said, not looking around as she leaned over the anvil, hammer in her hand, furnace blazing. “A hammer, grab it will you?”
A smile crept across Henry’s face as he reached for one of the hammers, carefully hung up on the rack in order of size.
She had expected him to come. She had called, and he had appeared. Why was there such beauty and elegance in that?
“Here, take a look at this,” Minny said without looking up.
Henry approached the anvil as one would approach an altar.
And was it not the same? Did not transformations occur here that went beyond faith?
Was it not glorious to see Minny here, in her element?
Cheeks pink, sweat beaded on her brow, her gown mostly covered by the thick leather apron that hid so much and yet suggested—
“Henry?”
“Yes, yes, right,” Henry said hastily.
That was the trouble with being around Minny in a forge, he thought ruefully. One was inclined to lose all sense of why one was here. And get burnt.
He looked at the anvil. There upon it lay a candlestick, glowing red. After weeks seeing Minny at work in the forge, he could easily see what she was doing.
“You’re mending that candlestick,” he said helpfully, as though she did not know.
Minny glanced up. “Well done. Are you able to help me with it?”
Henry’s stomach lurched as the heat of the candlestick started to warm him. That had to be it, didn’t it? It couldn’t be that he was so flattered by Minny’s request for help that he—
“Henry!”
“Yes, yes, I’ll help,” Henry said with a dry laugh. “Sorry, I was just looking at…what do you want me to do?”
“Tap here, just a few inches beyond—yes, that’s right. Two on the anvil, a gentle one on the—now a little harder…”
Minny was an excellent teacher. There was nothing more infuriating, Henry had always found, with someone who was attempting to impart knowledge but who did it in a confusing manner.
His fencing tutor, Caelfall, had always been like that. No patience for the learner.
But Minny was different. Standing shoulder to shoulder with her, trying not to think about the warmth of her skin against his as their arms brushed up against each other, Henry carefully followed her instructions.
Joy soared through his chest as he saw their combined work, slowly, mend the candle-stick.
Time seemed to have disappeared. He could have stood there forever, Minny instructing him, the warmth of the forge nothing to the warmth pooling in his loins.
Because Henry knew, somewhere deep inside him…that this was it. The last time.
“There!” Minny exclaimed before lifting the candlestick and placing it back in the furnace, shaking it to really thrust it into the coals. “Well done.”
Henry absolutely glowed. To an outsider, perhaps, they’d assume that was because of the warmth of the place. But he knew it was different. Though he would not speak the words aloud, though they felt strange even to think them, Henry knew as he watched Minny fondly just what had happened.
He had fallen in love like an idiot.
Well, Henry thought as he drew himself up and placed the hammer back in its place on the rack, he would soon fall out of love. The moment he returned to London, he was sure, he would forget about her and—
“Thank you, Henry,” Minny said softly as she placed the candlestick gently into the cold water. It fizzed wildly during her next words. “I could not have done it without you.”
And that was when Henry realized, with a painful renting agony in his heart, that he wouldn’t. Forget her. Forget Minny? He could sooner forget his own name.