Chapter 7
Giles stood alone outside the doors of his smithy with a wicker basket by his feet.
After days of harmonious smithing—and several stolen kisses—he was tired of pretending the undeniable connection between him and Felicity was temporary and meaningless. Their first kiss had been incredible, and each subsequent embrace was both briefer and more desperate than the last, as if the less they allowed themselves, the more they tried to take.
Today, he intended to prove to Felicity that they could be so much more than colleagues.
He suspected she sensed it too. Not just because of the kisses. Anyone could kiss someone else without it meaning anything more than mere sexual desire.
But because she’d agreed to a picnic. His blood hummed with anticipation. This would be their first rendezvous outside of a smithy. No agenda, no apprentices, just the two of them seeing where this might go without a carriage standing between them.
If she put in an appearance.
Giles pulled his pocket watch from his waistcoat. Although it seemed like hours had passed, the hands of the clock showed barely five minutes past noon. Granted, Grosvenor Square was but a mile from his Oxford Street smithy. Just because Giles had been standing outside since ten minutes to twelve did not mean Felicity had even left—
One of the passing hackneys pulled to a stop directly in front of the smithy.
Please don’t be a new customer,Giles prayed.Please don’t be a new customer.
The door opened to reveal a faceless figure wearing the limpest, floppiest, least visually practical bonnet in all the world.
His heart leaped and he rushed forward to meet the carriage.
“I’m going to be very upset if that straw monstrosity is hiding someone other than my stable lass,” he murmured as she placed her hand into his.
He felt, rather than saw, her smile.
She lifted up the brim of her hat to reveal twinkling brown eyes. “I missed you, too.”
Those four simple words electrified him to his toes. They’d just seen each other the day before, yet he knew exactly what she meant. It didn’t matter whether she was out of his sight for ten minutes or ten hours—she never left his mind.
Rather than help her down from the hackney, he swung the basket onto the seat across from her and hoisted himself into the carriage to give the driver the direction to St. James’s Park.
Felicity glanced over at Giles in surprise. “I’d hoped we might be taking Baby.”
“I worried you’d think her too recognizable. Besides,” he said with narrowed eyes, “if I let you touch Baby, you’ll never climb back down to have a picnic.”
She inclined her head. “Fair.”
The brim of her hat fell back over her face.
Giles undid the ribbon and stuffed the bonnet into the basket.
She leaned back against the seat and sighed. “I hate that thing.”
“The basket?”
“The bonnet.”
“Set it on fire,” he suggested. “I’ll help.”
“It’s unnecessary once I’m out of Mayfair,” she admitted. “In these clothes and out of the usual haunts, I doubt I would be recognized by anyone but my own brother. But I still need the bonnet to escape Grosvenor Square.”
Giles’s jaw tightened. She could not risk being seen because she intended to keep her place in high society, not lower herself to publicly gadding about town on the arm of a blacksmith. His mere presence would ruin her reputation. He ought not to forget it.
He lowered his gaze to the picnic basket. Perhaps a romantic afternoon would change nothing at all. A week from now, the race would be over and that would be that.
Then again, she had eagerly agreed to today’s outing. Disguised, so as to be unrecognizable to her peers of course, but at least she was here.
