Page 71 of Let Me Be Your Hero
He snorted. “You obviously didn’t see how filthy I am. I’m sorry, Izzie. I didn’t mean for you to see me like this, and I certainly didn’t mean to touch you when I’m covered in grime.”
“It’s all right.” She made a bleak sound as she unpinned her jaunty little hat. As she suspected, it was crushed. “I suspect I’m not looking my most elegant, either.”
His only response was a grunt. She took the opportunity to look around his office. It was a plain room with whitewashed walls and bare boards on the floor. There were a pair of windows overlooking the factory floor, but they were situated at either end of the room, and Izzie couldn’t see out of them from this angle.
Archibald’s desk was not particularly neat. As he was still scrubbing his hands, she took the liberty of straightening a few stacks of papers and placing them out of the way so she wasn’t sitting on his things. She moved an inkwell back out of the way and almost dropped it. That was when she noticed that her fingers were trembling.
It was probably shock setting in. “Archibald?” she called, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “Are you almost done over there?”
He had taken up a brush and was scrubbing his nails. “Not yet,” he grunted.
“Please hurry.” A tear streaked across her cheek.
A minute passed, and he was still scrubbing. Her shoulders began to shake, and she wrapped her arms around her midsection, trying to hold herself together as best she could. “Have you finished yet?”
He held his hand up to the light, inspecting it. Izzie couldn’t see a single speck of dirt. “I don’t want to come to you in all my dirt. It’s bad enough that I got that smear of grease on your cheek.”
Izzie frowned. “My cheek?” She didn’t recall him touching her cheek. She raised a hand to her face. She couldn’t feel any grease or grit, but the spot over her cheekbone was exquisitely tender.
“Oh! That wasn’t you, and it isn’t dirt. I think a bruise must be forming. That’s where my would-be kidnapper slapped me.”
The scrubbing brush clattered to the floor. Izzie glanced up and found Archibald bent over the washstand, head lowered, gripping its sides with white knuckles. “Someone slapped you?” he asked in a quiet voice that was ten times more frightening than a bellow.
“Y-yes.”
Archibald said nothing, but if Izzie were a betting woman, she would have wagered all her new books that the thought going through his head was,that man will die.
His expression dark, he began washing his forearms almost violently.
Izzie had had enough. “I’m sure you must be very clean by now.”
“Not clean enough to touch you,” he muttered.
She tried again. “Believe me, a slight smear of dirt will be far from the worst thing that’s happened to me today.”
“Humph,” was his only response.
“Archibald!” she cried, and at least this had the effect of causing him to look at her. He seemed to notice for the first time that she was in distress.
She swallowed, trying to compose herself, but felt a tear trickle down her cheek. “I do not need for your hands to be perfectly clean. I do, however, need for you to hold me.”
He crossed the room in three strides, not even bothering to dry his hands.
CHAPTER 33
Archibald cursed himself for a fool as he scooped Izzie off the desk and into his arms. He couldn’t do anything right. For starters, he’d failed to keep her safe and had obviously failed to catch whoever it was who had designs upon her life.
Then he’d let her see him looking like a common blacksmith. So much for his carefully constructed façade of being a gentleman. She knew the awful truth now.
Then, he’d been in such a panic upon learning that she’d been attacked, he’d gone and made things ten times worse by grabbing her with his grubby hands and pressing her against his soot-stained work clothes. By the time they reached his office, he’d calmed down enough to realize his mistake.
But then, he’d taken too long about it and failed to comfort her.
He felt worse than useless. But much to his surprise, Izzie wasn’t shouting and upbraiding him. As he settled on the desk in the place she’d just been occupying with her in his lap, she made a sound of relief, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and burying her face in his sweaty neck.
“I’m sorry,” he said because he was fairly certain he wasn’t smelling like a rose.
“This is so much better,” Izzie whispered. “Please, just hold me. I always feel so safe when I’m with you.”
