Page 20 of Let Me Be Your Hero
They entered the ballroom.Incomprehensible. How she hoped that didn’t mean that he thought her a little fool who wasted her time writing silly Gothic novels, and the notion that an important man like him would ever be interested in the likes ofherwas patently absurd.
Steeling herself, she asked, “Incomprehensible in what way?”
“Just look at you,” he said, sounding shocked that she had asked. “You’re the most beautiful woman ever to live. And I’m…”
He trailed off, his ears reddening again. Izzie felt a pleasant thrum in the center of her chest.The most beautiful womanever to live—was that truly how he saw her? What a marvelous development!
She was so glad she had summoned the courage to corner him outside the gentlemen’s retiring room.
Archibald tried not to trip over his own feet—again—and embarrass himself as Lady Isabella steered him straight across the ballroom and out the French doors that led to the balcony.
She didn’t stop there but made for the stone steps that led down into the gardens. “I am embarrassed to say that I don’t know much about you, Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy. I have heard that you are a blacksmith. Is that correct?”
It was rare for someone to say that to his face. He glanced at her, expecting the worst, but her expression was all sincerity. She looked… genuinely curious. And she had not imbued the word with the usual note of derision. She said it as if being a blacksmith was no better or worse than being a duke, an earl, or a naval captain.
“I do some smithing, yes,” he said cautiously. “It is often necessary to create the things I want to build. But I primarily consider myself to be an engineer.”
She chuckled. “I fear I don’t know much about what that entails, either. What kind of engineering do you do?”
She was leading him deep into the garden as if this were completely ordinary and not something that could very easily lead to her ruination. “I build machines.”
“That sounds fascinating. What kind of machines?” she asked, tugging him through a stone arch.
The machine he was most proud of was his screw-cutting lathe. He’d been working on it for the past three years, andnow had it to the point that it was ready to replicate. Once he had a dozen of them, he planned to open a factory dedicated to manufacturing machine-cut screws.
The machine represented his greatest goal as an engineer: to introduce true precision into manufacturing. His screw-cutting lathes could make precisely the same size of screws every single time, and they could do it at a volume impossible for a single craftsman working by hand to dream of.
Some people would say they were just screws. And they were, but this was merely the first step. The breakthrough was that they were built with precision. And the possibilities…
The possibilities if he could build things with precision wereendless.
But however excited Archibald was about the progress he had made, he had learned the hard way that no young lady, much less the likes of Isabella Astley, who had the quickest wit of anyone he knew, would be impressed to learn that his life’s work involved makingscrews.
“I wouldn’t want to bore you,” he muttered. “But what about you? I understand that you write Gothic novels?”
They had come to a little stone bench. The rose bushes had been pruned back in anticipation of the coming winter weather, but it was still lovely.
Lovely… and secluded.
“That’s correct,” she said, taking a seat on the bench and pulling him down next to her.
“Won’t you tell me about them?” he asked.
She peered at him uncertainly. “Are you truly interested?”
Did she really have to ask? He could sit and listen to this woman read whatever the most boring book in the world might be…Debrett’s Peerage, most probably… for hours. The chance to hear her talk about the thing that excited her most in the world?
Priceless.
“I am.”
“Well,” she said hesitantly, “I recently finished a story about a poor young priest who takes up residence in a crumbling Welsh castle…”
It was Archibald’s dream come true. Isabella Astley was talking tohim. She started out hesitatingly, eyeing him as if she were nervous about his reaction. Needless to say, he hung on her every word. As she saw that he was genuinely interested, her manner slowly became more open, like a flower unfurling its petals to the sun.
Her book sounded like a madcap romp, full of the vivacious energy he associated with her.
“And then,” she said, leaning forward, “the Marquis de Valeur discovers that his father, the Duke de Meritè, was not killed in the Terror after all, and is, in fact, the ghost living at the bottom of the well!”
