“Oh.”More blinking.“Er, two years?”
It was his turn to blink.“Are… you asking me?”
“No.”She flushed, that summer strawberry stain blooming across her cheeks again.“Two years.I’ve known her for two years.”
That out of the way, she nodded and looked pointedly at the seat beside him, her intentions clear.Which, of course, prompted not only his shifting to the middle of the seat but his next hasty question as well.
“And who did you manage before then?”
He really didn’t give a good damn whom she’d managed before, the question merely an attempt to distract her.But her answer, as utterly peculiar as it was, snagged his attention completely.
“No one.”
“No one?”A surprising thing.If one had been hired to manage one of the most famed women pugilists in England, one should have had some experience.Especially for something so important as a much-lauded comeback.
“Were you involved in pugilism before?”
“No,” she replied without hesitation, her attention still on his seat, which he was doing his damnedest to fill completely.“I’d never even been to a boxing match before meeting her.”
“You never attended a boxing match?Ever?”
His disbelieving question finally seemed to distract her from her goal of joining him on his bench.She stilled, pale blue eyes widening as they flew to his.Why did she suddenly look like a rabbit caught in a snare?“N-no?”
He raised one brow.“Are you asking me again?”
Again that delicious flush, though this time it crept down her throat to the modest neckline of her gown.“No.I’m not asking you.I’m telling you, no, I never attended a match before meeting her.”
“And you’ve only known Mrs.Finch two years?”
Here her chin, that delightfully, maddeningly stubborn chin, rose a fraction, as if in defiance.“Yes.Why is that surprising?”
His instincts were on high alert, like those of a hunting dog catching the scent of prey.Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees.It was her turn to pull back now, alarm flaring in her eyes.
“It’s just surprising, is all,” he murmured, watching her closely.“Why would someone of Mrs.Finch’s caliber hire someone with no knowledge of the sport to manage her career?”He paused, narrowing his eyes slightly.“Don’t you agree?”
There was a beat of silence, the only sounds the jangle of the tack and the clatter of the cobbles beneath the wheels and the horses’ hooves.And in that short time, a myriad of emotions flitted across her face, from haughtiness to determination to fear.Oh yes, fear was there in spades, though it was quickly stifled.
“Well, of course I’ve been involved in sport,” she replied, waving a hand in the air as if the very idea of her not having some sort of experience were laughable.“My husband was Gregory Marlow of Marlow Fencing Salon.Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
Oh yes, he’d heard of it.It had been a popular place up until the owner’s death some two and a half years before.And then… nothing.It had seemed to vanish off the face of the earth.He frowned.So this woman was his widow, was she?
“And you were involved in the running of the salon?”
“I was.”That chin came up a fraction more.“Not only the running of the salon, but I also instructed classes and forged our own weapons.”
That last gave him pause.“Forged your own weapons?”
“Yes.”She smoothed her skirts.“I assisted in my uncle’s blacksmith forge before my marriage.I brought those skills to my husband’s home.”
A blacksmith.The woman was a blacksmith.Which would account for the incredible strength he had felt beneath his palms when she’d tripped and fallen in his arms just the day before.This new bit of her history should have given him a better idea of who the woman was.Yet she was even more of an enigma than before.And in the space of a moment, she had suddenly gone from intriguing and maddening to being the most fascinating woman he had ever met in his life.
Something that did not help with his unwelcome reactions to her, he thought as the carriage, finally at their destination, came to a stop.He stole a glance at her as she gathered her things, intensely aware of the rapid pounding of his heart.He unconsciously rubbed a hand over his chest.No, it did not help him one bit.
8
Well, that could have gone better.
Heloise blew out a sharp breath, tilting her head to one side and rubbing at the ache in her neck.Then, grabbing the tongs and pulling the metal from the furnace, she positioned it over the anvil and brought her hammer down on the glowing piece, sending a shower of bright sparks flying.The heat of the furnace pulsed through her muscles and sent sweat trailing between her breasts, the reverberation from the contact of metal against metal traveling up her arm and making her bones shudder.And yet, though she had been aimlessly pounding at the bit of iron since her return to the Wimpole Street house an hour past, though her work typically cleared her mind of its troubles and relieved her tension, it seemed only to be adding to it, making her mind race and the strain in her neck and back become almost unbearable.
