Page 74 of Let Me Be Your Hero
“Archibald!” She tickled his side, causing him to squirm. “Do you really not know?”
He captured her wrists, planting her hands against his chest. “No.”
She blew a lock of hair off her forehead. “I was coming here! To Nettlethorpe Iron.” At his blank look, she made a sound of frustration. “I wanted to see your workshop, you silly man!”
He froze. “My… my workshop? You were coming to see…”
“Of course! I’ve only been begging to see it all week.”
He struggled to process the fact that, on her first opportunity in weeks to leave the house and go somewhere, the place she had wanted to go washis workshop.
She kissed his cheek before climbing out of his lap. “Well, I suppose I’d better see it today. Goodness only knows when I’ll be able to leave the house again.” She scooped her stays up off the floor. “Help me get back into these, will you?”
Archibald obediently began fumbling with the laces. All the while, his mind was scrambling for an excuse to keep Izzie out of his workshop. It was bad enough that she had seen him covered in grime on the factory floor.
If she found out that his life’s purpose was something as pedestrian as makingscrews, it would be the death knell for the budding regard she seemed to have for him. And, although he knew that eventually she would find out and come to despise him, he couldn’t bear for it to happen quite so soon. He wanted as many weeks and days and minutes to bask in the glow of her affection as he could possibly scrounge before he entered the dark, cold night of her disdain.
Once they were both dressed, she took his arm and towed him toward the door. “Which way is it?”
He pulled her to a halt. “Izzie, I’m so sorry, but I think we need to get you back to the house with all possible speed.”
Her face fell. “Surely we can spare a half hour!”
He shook his head. “Whoever is trying to kill you knows exactly where you are right now and exactly where you’reheading. It’s an ideal opportunity for them to prepare an ambush. The longer you linger here, the more opportunity they’ll have to set their trap.”
Her shoulders sagged. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he was, in the sense that he was sorry she was disappointed.
Her blue eyes were pleading, which all but destroyed him. “I couldn’t have the tiniest peek? Just five minutes?”
In truth, five minutes probably wouldn’t make much of a difference. Not that he was about to admit as much. He pressed her hand against his heart. “There is nothing I prize more highly than your safety.”
She heaved a theatrical sigh. “I suppose you’re right. Well, then. Let’s return the princess to her tower.”
He led her back through the offices and down to the factory floor. Archibald noticed that four of the forge’s wagons, which were normally used to bring in loads of the coke charcoal needed to fuel the blast furnaces, had been pulled up alongside the carriage. A group of around fifty men were milling about.
“What’s all this?” Archibald asked.
“Her ladyship’s escort,” a caster named Josiah Digby said. He swung a sledgehammer up on his shoulder. “I’d like to see them try to take her.”
There was a chorus of agreement. Archibald noticed that most of the men were carrying sledgehammers, pickaxes, or shovels.
“Thank you,” Izzie said tremulously. “Truly, thank you for risking your lives to protect me. Speaking of which, how is Jack?”
“He’s fine,” Digby said. “Surgeon gave him a few stitches. But it was a glancing blow.”
“I volunteer to step in front of the next knife!” someone in the back called, and everyone laughed. Archibald took it that word had spread about Jack’s reward.
Archibald opened the carriage door and offered his hand to help Izzie up. “Shall we?”
Izzie nodded crisply, and he was pleased to see resolve in her eyes as she accepted his hand. “We shall.”
CHAPTER 34
They made it back to the Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy mansion without incident, which didn’t surprise Izzie in the least. What sort of fool would attack a convoy of ironworkers armed with pickaxes and sledgehammers?
Of course, a man with a gun would change the balance of power considerably. But Izzie thought it noteworthy that, up until this point, none of the attackers had brandished a firearm, which seemed curious for a group smuggling those very weapons.
