Chapter Four #2
“Minny Banfield, you astonish me,” Mr. Everleigh breathed, his dark eyes lingering on her lips before returning to her eyes. “How did you do that?”
Minny tried to swallow, tried to have enough breath in her lungs to speak. “I-I—”
“I thought you said you had a manservant to do that.”
And it was the mention of the manservant that—finally—returned her to her senses. Minny was not about to betray her brother.
She shrugged her way out of the—it was not an embrace, but she did not know what to call it. Whatever it was, she released herself.
“I said no such thing, I think you will find, Mr. Everleigh,” she said as coldly as she could manage. A great feat, considering how warm she felt, even in the early-April air. “You assumed I had a servant. A woman who cannot chop logs cannot hope to run a forge.”
His gaze flickered to the smithy, then back to her. Minny managed to keep her head high.
She had nothing to be ashamed of. She spoke the truth. How would she have kept that blaze going if she had to wait around for a man to get to the wood?
“Henry.”
Minny allowed the ax to slip, gently, from her fingers onto the ground. In truth, she was not sure she could carry it much longer. There was something about this man that undid her.
“I beg your pardon?” she said stiffly.
There was a dancing amusement in the man’s eyes now that she did not like. “Henry. It’s my name. I suggest you use it.”
The very idea! “Mr. Everleigh is perfectly—”
“Formal, a footing I have no desire to be on with you,” he interrupted with mischievous eyes. “Do not fear, I will not presume to call you…they call you Minny at the inn, Miss Banfield?”
Minny swallowed. This was not the plan. The plan was to exhaust the brute with chopping logs all day, for several days if required, until the idiot got bored and wandered off. Went back to London or wherever he came from. Returned to whatever foolishness he had left.
He wasn’t supposed to be here, all charming and interesting—
Minny narrowed her eyes. “Miss Banfield will do.”
“I would still like to call you—”
“I am sure you would,” she said curtly, striding back toward the kitchen, to safety. To safety? Now where had that thought come from? “But I am afraid you will find, Mr. Everleigh, that I am in no mood for informality. If you cannot cut wood, then you can do this.”
Minny picked up the large buckets and held them aloft.
Henry—Mr. Everleigh, she must not get into bad habits—stared. “Buckets?”
She sighed. What on earth had this man done before he had come to darken her doorway? The man had never seen buckets before?
“Yes, buckets,” she said impatiently. The furnace would be almost cold now, all her hard work to get it ablaze wasted. And she had a pair of horseshoes to do and a plough to straighten. “Buckets. For water. From the well.”
Henry continued to stare. Eventually, he said, “You cannot mean for me to—that’s servant work!”
The words had escaped his mouth seemingly before he could stop them. Minny stared, curiosity curling around her heart.
Well, yes, of course it was. Or homesteader’s work. Or the work of someone like her, who had no ability to pay for servants and so had to do the hard work oneself.
Something Mr. Everleigh should be entirely aware of…but the way that he said—
“I mean,” Henry said hastily, correcting himself. “The work of your manservant.”
“How many times do I have to tell you,” Minny said testily, “I do not have—”
“No man at all about the place? No one coming here to help you, no brother, no friends…at all?”
Minny swallowed. Henry’s face was all of a sudden sharp, questioning her as though there was a secret he could winkle out of her.
And she had one, more’s the pity, Minny thought wretchedly. Not one she would give up lightly. No one would ever hear the truth from her lips. She had sworn, hadn’t she? To keep it a secret. To protect those she loved, those who could not protect themselves.
And no man, not even a handsome one, was going to make her give up her brother.
“I heard tell at the King’s Head a man comes to help you on occasion,” Henry persisted.
“The well is on the village green,” she said quietly, refusing to rise to the bait.
For a moment, they stood there, the buckets between them, locked in a strange battle of wills Minny did not understand.
Yes, it was possible Ted could have mentioned her brother.
He would not think of the danger. It was natural village chatter, hardly even gossip, to mention her brother’s infrequent visits.
Minny tried not to show the fear warring in her heart.
But that did not mean she was going to explain anything. No one would understand, particularly not a stranger.
“The village green,” Henry said eventually.
Minny tried to smile. “I am sure you’ll find your own way back.”
“I certainly will.”
It was a relief to return to the prickling heat of the forge. Minny breathed out slowly as she pressed her hands to the cooling anvil.
How was it possible for a man she had met but days ago to get so swiftly under her skin? Why was it so easy for him to irritate her?
Minny closed her eyes for a moment, grounding herself on the anvil, the part of her life that would never change, never alter.
The forge, the furnace, the anvil, the tools of her trade. They were what she could count on. They were her livelihood.
And so, for the rest of the day, Minny did just that.
She made two horse shoes and sent them over to Farmer Jones with a note saying she could fit them herself, if he wished.
She undertook the complex mending of the plough, bent after hoeing a line over an old oak tree whose roots had crept toward the sky.
She made a note in the pocketbook of the work, and the charges, and who had paid and who had not.
She mended two of her own hammers, which had become slightly unbalanced. She made a note of how much wood she would need brought in and whether there was sufficient iron for the rest of the month.
And Minny studiously did not watch Henry Everleigh.
She did not watch him walk along the road, through the small forge window, to the well.
She did not watch him strain against the well rope, his strength visible even from a distance.
She did not watch him return, time and time again, with heavy buckets slopping water as he filled the trough at the back of the forge.
She especially did not watch him slyly from the kitchen window as she went to make herself a small luncheon platter, attempting to chop the logs again. His determination to prove himself was delightful, as was the way he learned, slowly, his arms clearly aching by the end of the afternoon.
Minny sighed as she wiped her hands on a cloth as the day neared its end. She could not lie to herself.
Every minute of the entire day, she had been conscious of where Henry Everleigh was. With each passing hour, her curiosity grew.
He was a strong man, even if he had seemingly never done some of the most basic chores a body could do. So where had he come from? What did he truly want with her, with her forge?
It was a mercy he had not asked to sleep at the forge. Minny started to hang up her tools, clean and ready for work the next day. The thought of Henry in the bedchamber next to hers—
“Miss Banfield?”
Minny almost dropped the hammer. “What?”
She whirled around and saw much to her irritation that Henry—that Mr. Everleigh was smiling.
“I thought I would let you know that I am going back to the King’s Head now,” he said calmly. “I hope my work has pleased you.”
The highly suggestive word made Minny blanch. “I am sure I—Mr. Everleigh, where do you come from?”
The smile immediately disappeared. “What business is that of yours?”
Ah, now that was interesting. “Only that if trouble were to come to my forge, I would be responsible for you as your employer,” Minny said as matter-of-factly as she could manage. “I have the right, I think, to know a little of your history.”
Now that was interesting. As curious as the man was, it appeared he was in no mood to reveal anything about himself. That was, if the tight-lipped, cold expression was anything to go by.
“My history is dull,” he said quietly. “I have worked hard all my life in my father’s…business. I have left that business behind. For now.”
Minny hesitated. There was evidently scandal there, but then, who has not wished to leave behind one’s life at times and start out afresh? Was she to judge a man merely because he had managed it?
“I pay you to learn your craft,” said Henry quietly. “Not reveal anything about myself—and as we are on the topic of your craft, when will I have the opportunity to—”
“Not today,” Minny said heavily.
The very thought of picking up a hammer now…no. Her bones were tired and her mind ached with the intensity of Henry’s presence. She needed to be alone.
“Tomorrow?”
Her eyes met the determined gaze of the man before her, and Minny’s treacherous heart fluttered. He really was most attractive.
“Perhaps.”