Felicity felt as though a ball of ice had slammed into her midsection.
For years, she’d been consumed by the thought of when and whom she would marry. Never had it occurred to her that Giles—coach smith extraordinaire and fêted Curricle King—might share those same thoughts. Have his own nonnegotiable set of requirements. A list of bridal contenders in his pocket.
Her name would not be on it.
Giles’s future wife was someone who would live with him here above the smithy, who would bring a wooden tray of lemonade down to the workshop, where her sons and daughters did their best to imitate their handsome father.
She shouldn’t care what Giles did, Felicity reminded herself. She wasn’t here for a romantic interlude, but to work on her brother’s curricle. It didn’t matter how free and relaxed she felt with him; how much at ease he put her with his pots of tea and borrowed trousers and complete confidence in her ability to dismantle and rebuild an even better carriage. How she wished he would kiss her.
Oh, who was she fooling? It took everything in her power not to launch herself into his arms right now.
The more he didn’t try to make her fall in love with him, the more he simply accepted without question whatever she did or did not wish to do or give or share, the more she couldn’t help but carve a secret place for him deep in the recesses of her heart.
Her hands shook. She had to get out of the smithy before she let her feelings get in the way of logic.
Felicity shot to her feet. “I—”
His hand touched her arm. “What is it?”
She forgot what it was. His hand was on her arm. Warm and strong through the thin sleeve.
Oh, blast. Nothersleeve.Hissleeve. She was still wearing the clothes he’d purchased for her.
“I… ought to return your clothes,” she managed.
His hand was still on her arm.
She hoped he never moved it.
“If you leave them here,” he said, “they’ll always be waiting for you on that stool, in exactly the same condition you found them today.”
Was it possible to swoon over a gift of boys’ trousers? Yes. Yes, apparently it was indeed possible. Her heart would not stop racing.
“I’m sorry you always see me like…this.” She gestured at herself. Or meant to gesture at herself.
Apparently, her hand had an agenda of its own, because her fingertips now lightly grazed his arm. This wasn’tquitean embrace—her fingers touching his upper arm, his thumb caressing just above her wrist—but they should definitely put a stop to it.
Right away.
Or perhaps in a few more minutes.
“I don’t find you less beautiful because you aren’t wearing some gown you hate,” he said softly. “To me, you look the most beautiful any time you allow yourself to just be yourself, rather than pretend to be someone else.”
“That’s…” Words failed her.
He winced. “Too forward?”
Not forward enough.
She placed her trembling palms on either side of his muscular chest and met his cobalt blue gaze. “For the past week, I haven’t stopped wondering what it would be like to kiss you.”
“You cannot imagine how much I would love to help with that.” He cradled her face in his rough hands as if she were the most precious thing he had ever touched. “But your brother—”
“—isn’t here,” she whispered. “No one is. Just you and me. What are you going to do about it?”
He slanted his mouth over hers before she finished talking.
Had she thought a forge was hot? Those flames were nothing compared to the heat his kiss stoked deep within her. She slid her hands up his chest to his wide shoulders and laced her fingers behind his neck.
