Page 81 of Let Me Be Your Hero
“You can head downstairs, Stafford,” Archibald said. “I’m here now. Take Collins with you.”
“Yes, sir,” Stafford said, sounding relieved. He hastened toward the far end of the corridor to collect Collins.
Archibald turned back to Izzie. “What did your sister say?”
Izzie’s blue eyes were full of hurt. “She mentioned that you received her inside your workshop once. You had made some kind of long-handled broom to help the chimneysweep boys, and you showed it to her in there.”
“I did,” Archibald admitted. Was that it? Was she jealous that her sister had been inside his workshop, but she was yet to have a turn?
Izzie drew herself up with wounded dignity. “Anne said you have one of your screw-cutting lathes in there,” she said, nodding toward the closed door. “Is that true?”
“I do,” he said in a clipped voice. “What of it?”
Izzie peered at him, as if she wanted to find something in his face that wasn’t there. “Diana said she read an article about it. She said it was your most important invention.”
He tugged at his neckcloth, which suddenly felt suffocating. “I consider it to be my most significant invention to date, yes.”
“Then why did you tell me you didn’t have anything of note in there?” she asked, her voice rising. “I specifically asked to see some of your creations, and you said there was nothing worth seeing. That it was just a hodge-podge, a room full of junk. Then I discover that you have your most important machine behind that door. You lied to me, Archibald!” She ran a knuckle beneath one of her eyes.
He dug his handkerchief out of his pocket and thrust it at her while he scrambled for something he could say in his defense. She accepted it reluctantly.
“I didn’t mean to lie to you. It would be more accurate to say that I didn’t think there was anything that would interestyouin that room.”
“Because I’m too stupid to understand it?” she asked, voice breaking.
“No!” he said, genuinely shocked. “You’re not stupid at all. You’re one of the most intelligent people I know.”
“Then I’m what. Frivolous?”
“No! Of course not!”
She continued, undeterred. “With my silly little Gothic novels?”
“Your novels are not silly,” he said, voice rich with feeling. “They’re brilliant.”
“This is why I don’t understand you at all!” she cried. “You say all the right things, and I feel like you mean them at the time. And you do all the right things, too. But as soon as I ask you the simplest question about yourself, it’s like getting a door slammed in my face. You always find a way to change thesubject, or you do something to distract me. It’s like you don’t want me to know you!”
Because I don’t. He couldn’t say that, obviously. But if Izzie got to know the real him, she would discover that he wasn’t the dashing fellow she’d built up in her head who went around saving her from roving brigands.
He was nothing but a tedious drudge whose greatest accomplishment was makingscrews. She would discover just how unworthy of her he truly was.
Although it sounded like it was too late. She knew about his screw-cutting lathe. Everything she needed to know was right there in the device’s name.
She dabbed at her eyes with his handkerchief. “I can’t tell you how small I felt standing here with my sisters. They knew all about your screw-cutting lathe. And I hadn’t even heard of it! I’m your wife, and they knew more about it than I did. I felt like such an idiot!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it. Because he had obviously hurt her, and that was the last thing he would ever want to do.
Even if this was the beginning of the end.
She was looking everywhere but at him. “I just… I love you. I love you so much.”
The words should have made him feel elated.
Instead, they tore at his heart. Because he knew she only loved the illusion he’d created, that he was some kind of hero.
That he was a thousand times more interesting than he really was.
“But I don’t feel like you respect me,” she continued. “I feel so confused sometimes, and—”
