Page 80 of Let Me Be Your Hero
“How have you been feeling?” he asked.
“Like shyte,” his grandfather replied, and Archibald couldn’t help but smile. You could take the blacksmith out of East London, but you would never take the East London out of this blacksmith.
“So, what you’re telling me is, dying isn’t all fun and games?” Archibald asked.
“Something like that. I must say, though, your gel has made it a lot less dull.”
“She has a way of doing that,” Archibald said, his heart aching at the possibility that he might not be enjoying much more of his wife’s sparkling company.
“That was the one thing that worried me,” his grandfather noted.
Archibald tilted his head. “What was?”
His grandfather coughed, forcing him to wait for an answer. “You being alone. You’ve always been trapped between two worlds. The one yer parents want for you, and the one I brought you into. Maybe it was selfish of me to take you to Nettlethorpe Iron that day, to start you on this path—”
“It wasn’t,” Archibald said, meaning it. “I… I don’t belong in my parents’ world. If I had to choose, I would choose being an engineer.” He paused. His grandfather wasn’t much for sentimentality, but this might be his last chance. “You saved me,” he said, his voice gruff. “By taking me to Nettlethorpe Ironthat day. I would never have fit in, never would’ve been happy in the life my parents had planned for me.”
“Good,” his grandfather said, voice equally raspy. “That’s good.” He cleared his throat. “But if I’m tellin’ the truth, I’ve been worried about ye. I messed up with yer father, ye see.”
Archibald didn’t know what to say. He could see his grandfather’s point, yet he had no wish to insult his father. “I… well, I don’t think Father was ever going to be an engineer.”
His grandfather barked out a laugh. “No, that he wasn’t. They say sometimes these things skip a generation, and maybe yer proof of that. But I could’ve pushed him to do something useful with his life. He might never have made cannons, but I could’ve forced him to learn the business side of things. He might’ve done pretty well hobnobbing with the princes and kings who come calling. But I was busy at the forge, and instead of taking the time to push him in a good direction, I left him to his own devices. You see where he wound up. Now, he likes to spend my money, but he decided I was an embarrassment. Then he went and married Anna-Maria Ogilvy—not that I’m meaning to insult yer mother. But both yer parents need a strong hand to guide them. Instead, they have each other, one leading the other farther astray.”
Honestly, that sounded… about right. Archibald grunted.
His grandfather continued, “I know that’s what they wanted for you—to marry some fancytongel, who’d appreciate yer coin but never appreciate you. But somehow”—he barked out an incredulous laugh—“you managed to find yerself Lady Izzie.”
Archibald sighed. He’d found her, all right.
And then managed to lose her a mere two weeks after their wedding.
Not that he was going to tell his grandfather as much, especially as he appeared to be drawing comfort from the notion that Archibald was happily settled.
Therefore, he asked, “You approve of Izzie, then?”
“I do. She’s just like you.” At Archibald’s startled look, his grandfather continued, “She don’t fit in her world, neither. She was never going to be someone’s meek little wife, darning their socks and planning some eight-course dinner. Of course, you don’t care about all that rot. And she don’t care that yer not a man of leisure.” His grandfather said the last three words with the same tone most people reserved for the wordstraitor to the Crown. Which was perhaps unsurprising. A man who had spent most of his life sweating next to a blast furnace so his king and country would have the means to win a war wasn’t bound to think much of men with soft hands who rose at noon, and whose chief occupation was going to their club.
“Now, I know you,” his grandfather continued, “and I saw the way you were looking at her while you spoke yer vows—like you couldn’t believe yer luck. And I don’t disagree. Yer lucky to have found her.” He jabbed a finger in the air. “But she’s lucky to have found you, too—someone who likes her as she is and won’t go trying to make her change.”
Archibald sighed. Maybe that would have been enough.
If only he wasn’t a dull fellow whose great passion in life was making screws…
Still, he wasn’t going to argue with his grandfather. “You think so, huh?”
“I know so.” His grandfather gave a jerky nod for good measure. “Now, tell me what’s been going on at Nettlethorpe Iron.”
They spoke for the next half hour about the goings-on at the firm his grandfather had founded. When Archibald noticed his grandfather yawning and struggling to keep his eyes open, he patted his grandfather’s knee. “I’ll let you rest.”
The only answer he got was a soft snore from the bed. He straightened his grandfather’s blankets, lowered the lamp, and slipped from the room.
He was desperate to find Izzie, and he didn’t have to look very hard as she was pacing the corridor outside his grandfather’s room. He took three quick strides and met her halfway down the hall.
“Is anything the matter?” he asked without preamble, although he knew the answer before she spoke. The hurt was that plain upon her face.
“Anne was here this afternoon,” she began, voice betraying that she was upset. “She said—”
She cut herself short, eyeing the two men from Nettlethorpe Iron assigned to the first floor. The man at this end of the hall, Stafford, was staring resolutely at the wall, clearly finding it awkward to witness their lovers’ quarrel.
