Page 90 of Let Me Be Your Hero
Milner’s eyes were showing more white than blue. “I think I’ll pass,” he said in a reedy voice.
Izzie came over and tugged at one of his raised fists. “It’s all right, Archibald. It’s over now.” The smile she gave him was tiny, but he was relieved to see that it reached her eyes. “Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER 39
They left some of Archibald’s men to secure the house while Mr. Daubney performed his investigation and made his arrests. The Runner waved off the rest of them. “I’m sure this has been trying for Lady Isabella. Go ahead and take her home. My interview can wait until tomorrow.”
Archibald offered to carry her, but Izzie insisted she was well enough to walk across the square.
And so it was that a quarter of an hour later, after having bid Izzie’s family goodbye, they strode through the front door.
Archibald paused in the foyer. “Do you want to rest?”
“Honestly?” Izzie gave a bleak laugh. “Before that elaborate disaster ensued, I wasfinallyabout to see your workshop. I would rather do that than lie down.”
Archibald bowed his head. “Very well.”
His heart was racing as he led her up the stairs. He still dreaded her reaction to his machines, but if there was one thing he had learned from their argument that afternoon, it was that Izzie wanted honesty from him even more than she wanted a personal library.
He summoned his courage. “I’m sorry I didn’t show this to you earlier. The truth is, I’ve been nervous of your reaction to my workshop.”
“Nervous?” Izzie looked surprised. “Why would you be nervous?”
“I’ve been worried that you won’t find my machines all that impressive when you finally see them,” he confessed. “Specifically, that you’ll find them pedestrian. You spend all day dreaming up these fantastical worlds and marvelously creative storylines. I fear you’ll find what I do decidedly humdrum by comparison.”
Izzie gave a little huff. “I’m sure I won’t.”
Archibald didn’t share in her confidence, but they had reached the door. This was it. “I guess we’ll see,” he said, holding it open for her.
The room was bright as he’d turned on all the lamps before his hasty departure. Izzie gasped as she entered the room. If she was bothered by the crunch of metal shavings beneath her slippers, she gave no sign of it.
She unerringly wandered over to his screw-cutting lathe, which made some sense. Archibald supposed it was the most sophisticated-looking machine in the room.
He tried to see it through her eyes. It was one of his smaller models, about two and a half feet long, its cutting mechanism raised from the bench by a stand on each end. Between a pair of slide rests ran a long screw that Archibald had taken pains to cut very, very precisely. There was a large wheel at one end and a variety of cutting tools resting on the bench around it that could be attached to the slide rests.
“Youbuiltthis?” Izzie’s hand flew toward the wheel, then froze. She glanced at him, her expression almost guilty. “Can I touch it?”
“Of course.” Archibald spun the wheel himself, showing her how it caused the central screw to turn. “This is one of my screw-cutting lathes.”
“Your screw-cutting lathe,” she breathed, staring at the machine.
She lapsed into silence while Archibald shifted back and forth on his feet. “Would you like to see it work?” he asked after a moment.
“Oh!” She shook herself. “Yes, please.”
He loaded a short metal rod into the machine and adjusted the cutting tools to make a basic screw with eight threads per inch. Once everything was ready, he gave the wheel a spin.
Beside him, Izzie gasped. Archibald cringed. Now she knew the awful truth.
His greatest accomplishment was makingscrews.
He pulled the finished screw out of the machine and held it out to her. “So, you see, it’s just what it sounds like. It literally cuts scre—”
“This is the most perfect screw I have ever seen in my whole entire life!” Izzie shrieked, snatching it out of his hands. “And you made it in four seconds!” She rounded on him. “However did you think to design such a thing?”
“It’s not really an original design,” Archibald confessed. “Lathes have been around for hundreds of years, and this isn’t even the first one designed to cut screws specifically. What I’ve tried to do is improve upon previous designs, to perfect them. I have this idea…”
He trailed off, certain he must be boring her, but she was looking at him eagerly. “Yes?”
