She couldn’t figure out if the sketches were based on an existing prototype or if they were meant to guide the creation of the same.Was it theoretical or practical?
She knelt beside the bottom row of sketches, her yellow skirts spilling over the bottom edges of two of them.She brushed the hem back and pinned her skirts to her legs, hugging her knees.There were no clear dimensions on any of the pages, though numbers were scattered across them, as if Stone couldn’t decide exactly how big it should be.Which suggested the device was purely theoretical.If she knew what it was for, she would know better its proper size.
A knock on her door.
“Yes?”she asked, standing.
“Just me,” Apollo said from the other side of the closed door.“May I come in?”The door was already opening.He wasn’t waiting for permission.He waltzed into the room as if he owned it, bringing with him memories of the last time he’d been there.He’d pressed her into the mattress and rolled her nipples into aching peaks.Her mouth still felt bruised from his kisses and her core clenched when she remembered his muscled thigh pressed hard against the apex of her legs.A moan rose into her throat.She swallowed it down.
“What do you want?”she snapped.
“To drag you out of your lair.”
“No thank you.”
“You’re sulking.”He stood above her.“I do enjoy a good sulk, but you’ll like this.”He pushed her out the door, and when her curiosity began clawing at her insides, she followed him to the back of the house and the large parlor he’d occupied for the last few days.The door was open, and she followed him through, bumped right into him when he stopped suddenly.She flattened her palms against his back to steady herself.Such a nice back, lean and hard and— She snatched her hand away, clutching her skirts to keep from clutching him.
How humiliating.She’d heard of unrequited love, but unrequited lust?Just as horrid.Perhaps worse.Because the body had turned on, and it was difficult to turn back off.Her reaction to him was likely a product of her innocence.If she’d already laid in a man’s bed, she wouldn’t see him as such a temptation.He represented not only the forbidden, but the unknown.It made himtooappealing.A virginal woman like her couldn’t resist.Perhaps she should wander into the village and rid herself of her virginity.Good God, what a scandalous thought.Women like her—well bred, from good families, expected to make dutiful wives—didn’t simply give their bodies out of wedlock.
Yet…
What good was it doing her now?It was accumulating lust and desire like a hearth accumulated dust and ash.Only a fire had someone to clean the detritus away.She would soon be consumed.
“Sybil?”
She blinked up at Apollo, who bent over her, frowning.
“Where have you gone?”he asked.
“Woolgathering.Now, what do you want?”
“For you to look around.”He took a large step backward and stuffed his hands in his pockets.He slouched a bit, looking boyish and bashful.
Beyond him the parlor, the big fireplace, the familiar room she’d spent most of her first week of Foggy Hill House in.But all different.Most of the furniture had been removed, including the small writing desk she’d been using as a worktable and the expensive rugs.At the center of the room now stood a large, thick worktable, and above it, just within reach, hung a bevy of blacksmith tools.One wall of the room, that farthest from the fireplace, had become shelving filled with rows of different types of metals.The fireplace had been swept clean, and flames roared in the grate.Nearby was an anvil, a water trough, and several of the larger tools.The windows had been opened to let in cool air.
He trotted to the fireplace and pulled out a large metal shield.“It’s been set so the heat can’t melt it.We use one in Stone’s forge to increase the heat in the fire.And look.”He trotted to the window and reached up to where some bars and hooks now hung from the ceiling.“You can place things here to cool.And—” He froze.“Good God, what’s wrong?What have I done?”
She knew she was crying, and she wiped her cheeks clear, but the tears kept coming, silently, insistently.
“I’ve mucked it up, haven’t I.Got everything wrong.I know new tools would be better, but this was all that spider-arsed blacksmith had.”
She was shaking her head so hard, her brain rattled around a bit.The room spun.She steadied herself against the worktable.“It’s a forge.The parlor is a forge.”
“Is it?Huh.”He settled a hip against the opposite side of the worktable, hiding the tiniest smile.“I guess you’re right.Wonder how that happened.”
“Why?”
His shoulder lifted, dropped, the most casually practiced movement.“Why not?It used to be my house, my parlor.And you wanted a forge.No reason for you not to have one.”
“How?”
The tiny smile bloomed.“Don’t worry about the how.Just get to work.The lead and gold are over there.”He waved a hand at the meticulously organized wall of shelving.
She found herself floating there on apparently operational legs.She touched the shelf at eye height with hesitant fingers, but it didn’t dissolve.Not a glamour.Not a dream.Real.She needed to hug him.She couldn’t hug him.She hugged herself instead, let the tears fall.
Footsteps behind her, light and steady, and then they stopped.
“Sybil,” he said with such softness.Then he cleared his throat.“Sybil.”This time her name marched with purpose, promised a lecture.“You can’t hide behind your brothers forever.If you want to grasp what you desire, to truly achieve what you say is your purpose, you have to defy people like that blacksmith.You can’t simply bow your head and let others fight your battles.You’re not that sort of woman.You escape dungeons and fix gates and aren’t at all scared of men who should terrify you.”
