“My what?”He blinked.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the unset key she’d placed there thoughtlessly before her abduction.“It means the study of names, the history of, the meaning of, etcetera.”She handed him the key through the bars.
He held it close to his orb and studied it with a raised brow.“How do you know that?And if you’ve had a key this whole damn time, why are you still here?”
“Your cousin Diana mentioned it once.I tend to remember interesting things.I find it useful to do so.And that is not a key to this cell.It’s not really a key to anything.I had it when they took me.It’s not set metal.You can reshape it to fit the lock.”
“I tend to forget things Diana says.They’re boring.And no, I cannot reshape it.”He handed it back to her, tried to.
She didn’t take it.“Of course you can.You’ve apprenticed for almost a year.This is the sort of alchemy any locksmith can do, and they do not require great training.”
His jaw tightened.His eyes darkened.“I cannot.”
“You’re lying!”
“I wish I was.But the only thing I’ve learned in the last year is how to not burn the skin off my palm when it encounters the tiniest candle flame.”
Her mouth dropped open.“That can’t be true.”
“Good God, I would prefer not to be insulted when I’m trying to do a good deed.It rather puts me out of the mood of doing good entirely.”He waved his hand flippantly and stepped away from her cell.
“No!No, no.Don’t leave.I’ll teach you.”
He stopped mid step.“You can do that?You can’t do that.”
She might not be able to.“I can.I’ve had no formal training, of course.But I’ve been teaching myself.Secretly.”She shouldn’t tell him, hadn’t planned on it.But she’d spill every one of her secrets if it got her out of here.“If I can teach myself, I can teach you.”
He held the key she’d given them up between them.“I do this assuming failure.On both our parts.Now”—he cleared his throat—“what do I do?”
“Mm.”She was about to try to teach him something she couldn’t do herself—shape metal without a fire.And iron at that.“Let’s see… Find your heat.”
“My what?”
“Your body’s heat.You need it.It’s your power.Seek it, coax it forward.”
His eyes glowed.The edges of his lips curled upward.“How?”
That she could never fully figure out.She’d been told, but it never worked.Still… “Think of what makes you hot.A sunny day.A warm bath.A roaring fire.”
His mouth became a sumptuous curve.“What makes me…hot…”
“Yes.And then you mimic that thing, in your mind.You recreate the sun’s beaming heat or the fire’s glowing coals, imagine your bones those very coals.Or?—”
“What if it is something else that makes a man hot, hotter than all those things?”
She tilted her head.“Hotter than the sun?”
He reared back, the sensuous curve of his lips twisted all away.“Good God, you’re a virgin, aren’t you!”
“That’s neither here nor there,Chester.”The unmitigated gall of the man.She might not be a titled lady, but she was still a respectable woman and deserved equally respectable treatment.But… what if he was on to something?In all her explorations of inner heat, she’d never thought… never tried to imagine…
But she had seen Temple and Diana once, brows sweaty, cheeks bright red.They’d looked like they’d been in the forge, but they’d been in the bedroom.She inhaled and released the air in a heavy rush.
“Try it,” she said.
“Pardon me?”
“Ifthatmakes you hotter than the sun, then think ofthat.”Hestia, shewasacting like a virgin.Natural, since she was one, but she should still be able to saymaking loveormarital congresswithout stuttering or hesitating.“Imagine sexual relations.”There.She’d said it.
