Page 16 of Let Me Be Your Hero
His nursemaid was promptly dismissed for failing to mind him sufficiently. His mother was fluttering about the room in despair when John Nettlethorpe appeared in the doorway, just in time to hear his grandson protest, “But, Mama, I can put it back together!”
“Put it back together!” his mother cried, wringing her hands.
“Archie, my boy,” his father said, “do you have any idea how much that clock cost?”
“Icanrebuild it,” five-year-old Archibald insisted. “I’ve done it three times already.”
His grandfather chose this moment to stride into the room. “Let’s see ye do it, then.”
That hadn’t stopped his parents’ fretting. But, with John Nettlethorpe watching in silence, young Archibald had, indeed, reassembled the clock.
“Oh, thankgoodness!” his mother cried when the clock was once again ticking away.
“You must promise me you’ll never take the clock apart again, Archie,” his father said.
“But Papa!” To be sure, he had some nice toys in his nursery. But nothing nearly so interesting as the clock. “I’ve showed you I can put it back together.”
“Promise yer father,” his grandfather said firmly.
Archibald winced. He had hoped Grandfather would take his side. Grandfather was the only one who didn’t seem to disapprove of his curious nature. “I—I promise,” he whispered.
His mother was back to wringing her hands. “We’ll find a new nurserymaid by tomorrow. But who will watch you today?”
Archibald remembered perking up, wondering if this meant he might get to spend the day with his mother.
“I’ll get one of the kitchen maids to do it, I suppose,” she said, and Archibald’s heart sank.
“Don’t bother,” John Nettlethorpe said, going down on one knee so he and Archibald were at eye level. He fixed his grandson with his blue-grey gaze. “You, my boy, are coming with me.”
“Withyou?” his mother cried in the same breath that his father said, “Out of the question!”
At the time, Archibald hadn’t understood why they were so upset. He hadn’t understood that his grandfather was the worst thing you could possibly be, according to his parents, anyway: a working man. He hadn’t understood that John Nettlethorpe represented everything they were trying to leave behind.
But John Nettlethorpe’s money also paid for their lavish lifestyle, so when he calmly threatened to cut them off, the argument ended in an instant.
In short order, Archibald found himself climbing into the plain brown carriage his grandfather used to get around town.
“Where are we going?” he asked breathlessly.
His grandfather’s eyes twinkled. “To the best place in all of London. Nettlethorpe Iron. And don’t you worry, Archibald.” He leaned forward, holding his grandson’s gaze. “I havemuchmore interesting machines to show ye than that clock…”
Archibald blinked back into focus. He must have nodded off. The shadows had grown longer in the room. Someone had brought in a pot of tea, but it had gone cold.
His grandfather was still asleep. He straightened the blankets, then slipped from the room.
He was heading to his bedroom to dress for the Waldegrave ball when his mother emerged from the portrait gallery.
“Archie!” his mother called. “Oh, Archie, come and see!”
Although he was careful to keep his face neutral, the nameArchiegrated against his ears, as it always did.
It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the name Archie. But “Archie” sounded like a young man with a mop of blond curls and soft white hands. “Archie” enjoyed racing his highflyer at reckless speeds and was known for the elegant flourish with which he opened his snuffbox.
Meanwhile, Archibald had to use lye soap to get the grease out of his knuckles at the end of each day. He was burly, swarthy,andhairy and had not only calluses but burn scars on both of his hands. The closest thing he had to an elegant hobby was boxing, but he hadn’t learned to box at Gentleman Jackson’s, as one did. Oh, no, growing up, he had learned to box by sparring with the boys his age who were apprenticed at his grandfather’s forge.
Sparring against actual ironworkers had prepared him a little too well, and when, at his parents’ urging, he finally did show his face at Gentleman Jackson’s, he’d managed to make the wrong impression by knocking his sparring partner unconscious within the first ten seconds of their bout.
He hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t even hit him that hard. Did the man not know how to move his feet? But nobody had wanted to partner with him after that, and so, his days at Gentleman Jackson’s had been put on hiatus for a few years until Michael Cranfield, the Earl of Morsley, whom Archibald knew from serving on the board of the Ladies’ Society for the Relief of the Destitute, had invited him to go a few rounds.
