Page 15 of How to Ruin a Duke
She smiled.“Come and go once more, if you don’t mind.Come back to the shop, and take a look at the window before you go.”
As they retraced their short path to the luthiery, she admitted that there was a sort of security in knowing that her life had always been decided.“It’s allowed me to be more than if I’d been born into a different family.As a Fairweather, I’ve learned a trade—really, an art.I’ve become part of a tradition.”As Simon opened the front door for her, the little bell jingling a greeting, she added, “I’m not only…me.”
“There is nothingonlyabout you,” he said.
She greeted the maid who had kept watch over the shop—the girl’s name was Alice, Simon recalled—then led Simon into the workshop to poke about the space.
“Do keep the curtain drawn,” she requested.“My hands aren’t very pretty.That’s part of why I didn’t want the shop window to show me at work.I hide my hands when I can, since they’re unfeminine.”
Simon shook his head.“They’re attached to your body, so they must be feminine.”
She laughed, replacing a violin bow in a rack along the wall.“Please don’t think I’m not proud of what I can do.But I recognize it’s not within the scope of the ordinary.”
“That is why you shall triumph.”Simon stepped closer to her, and before he could restrain himself, he took up her hands in his.“Your hands repair musical instruments, so they are talented.Your hands care for an old woman and a household and a hedgehog, so they are caring.And your hands belong to you, so they are beautiful.”
She blushed.“You say exactly what people want to hear.”
Did he?Maybe he did think about what would suit his audience.A man who sold his labor—be it metalworking, copying documents, playing a horn, or training a horse—needed to win over the people who might hire him.He needed to convince potential employers he was capable, even when he knew himself to be nothing of the sort.
But with Rowena, he’d come to her in a state of incompetence.Twice!First with an unplayable horn, then without a job.And somehow, both times, she’d chosen to work with him.
To accept his presence in her life.
“I say what I mean,” he told her, because behind every heartfelt desire to persuade was simply desire.To find security.A chance.To find…hope.
Still holding her hands, he lifted them to his lips.Brushed his lips over them both, each in turn, then released them.He didn’t mean it as a seductive gesture; it was just something he couldn’t stop himself from doing.
Rowena was looking at him with flushed cheeks; with wide eyes and lips parted in surprise.
He loved it.“I should say I’m sorry, but I won’t because I wouldn’t mean it.”
“I’m not sorry.”She sounded dazed.Delighted.
“Well.”For a moment, they only blinked at each other, two souls surrounded by exotic woods and beautiful instruments.Simon had the urge to stay here, to beg to stay.To belong here as he never had before.
“Well,” he said again.“I should go.But,” he was unable to refrain from saying, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“You will?”
“With a sign for your shop window.”
“Oh, right.”Rowena still looked misty.“I will look forward to it.”
To seeing him?At the very least, to accepting his help.Which meant that he could make her life a bit better.
It seemed a wonderful goal.
She spread out her hands before her as if they’d changed.Could she still feel his touch on her skin?The scent of her skin had captured him.The pressure of her fingers lingered within his.
Who was he trying to fool?The touch of her hands wasn’t enough.He wanted a place in her life, in her wonderfully certain and solid life, and he wouldn’t stop longing for more.
Even a come-and-go fellow wanted, sometimes, a place to stay.
Chapter Four
“It is too late, it is presumed, to enquire whether [the public] interests are or are not injured by the description of desperate characters, depraved conduct, and daring crimes?”
FromGlenarvonby Lady Caroline Lamb
