Chapter 8
Felicity tucked a fresh rag into the waistband of her trousers and returned to her task of reseating new wheels. Now that Giles had allowed her to tinker with his most treasured possession, she was determined to prove herself worthy of his trust.
They were alone in his smithy, working on each other's carriages in a companionable silence intermittently broken by a technical question or a teasing comment about the other’s obsession with cast tapered sleeves or the like.
Felicity couldn’t remember passing a more delightful morning in quite some time.
When her brother had unexpectedly inherited, his reaction had been the exact opposite of hers. Cole never wanted to lay eyes on a forge or a slitting chisel ever again.
It wasn’t that he believed himself above hard work, now that he possessed a title. He’d had to work harder than most to make top marks at Oxford, and he applied that same diligence and energy to both the House of Lords and his tavern.
To Cole, entering a smithy felt like failure. It smelled of poverty and angry tears and made his stomach twist with remembered hunger.
But Felicity did not remember the time when they’d lived with their parents in a tiny cottage outside London where the meals were simple but could be counted upon, along with the hugs and the smiles and the laughter.
To her, the smithy had meant warmth and camaraderie and a place to belong. It had meant being useful, being needed. “Little Felix” was a favorite, which only made her love the other lads all the more.Theywere the first home she could remember. The first time she had family other than Cole to count on.
Leaving them had been hard. Not just because she’d had to go from Little Felix to Lady Felicity, but because she’d had to learn to navigate an entirely new world.
Swage blocks were easy. Minuets were hard. Embroidery was impossible.
But she’d tried her damnedest, and somehow, she’d muddled through. High Society was her new home now. She had to remember that.
“Want more lemonade?” came Giles’s voice from the other side of the shop.
She leaned an elbow on the tug stop. “What happened to the lemon tarts I ordered?”
“Kitchen’s that way.” He gestured toward the far door, then dropped back to the felloes. “Make a double batch. I’m peckish.”
She laughed under her breath as she tested the security of a nut flange. The last thing Giles would expect was for her to take him up on his offer, and march into his kitchen to whip up a batch of fruit tarts.
Hedidexpect her to do every bit as expert a job, when it came to spoiling Baby, as he and his father had done before her. His faith meant more to her than a thousand sonnets.
Not that she was in the market for love poems, she reminded herself. Just because she felt as much at home in Giles’s smithy as her own did not mean it was ever going tobeher home.
It just meant she had to enjoy every minute of their time together because she’d never again have moments like these to share.
She couldn’t even enter her own brother’s tavern without destroying her reputation in the process, much less pursue an eyebrow-raising friendship with a coach smith.
Even if he could waltz like an angel and gave kisses more tempting than the devil himself.
Giles poked his head over the footrest. His handsome, irresistible smile made her pulse flutter anew. “I really am peckish.”
“And I’m really not making lemon tarts,” she said with arched brows.
Truth was, she didn’t know how. If she did, she’d be tempted to bake a dozen every day, just to have an excuse to spend more time with him.
He tossed his apron onto the closest clear surface. “Come on. Let’s go get some tea.”
Her pulse leapt. Go…in? Inside his private quarters?
Felicity’s stomach growled right on cue. Whether she was hungry for tea or more of Giles’s drugging kisses remained to be seen.
Probably both.
She placed her apron beside his and followed him to the rear door.
Tea was not courtship, she reminded herself. Tea was something everyone drank. It meant nothing at all.
