Page 14 of One Night to Remember
Even if he hated every minute of it.
“How much did you wager?” Lady Felicity whispered to her brother.
“It’s not the coin,” the duke murmured back. “It’swinning.”
“You’ll win,” Lady Felicity assured him, then turned her sparkling gaze and plump lips toward Giles. “We’llwin.”
“I know,” the duke said simply. “You two are the best. And now you’re partners.”
Temporarypartners. Fourteen days and counting.
Giles relaxed his shoulders. “You may consult as you please, but no hands-on interference.”
She shook her head. “My house, my rules.”
“In thecarriagehouse,” he said patiently, “myrules.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “It’s my carriage house.”
“It’s yourbrother’scarriage house,” he reminded her. “Your brother’s horses, your brother’s curricle,mylife at stake during the race. I will personally ensure the vehicle remains in pristine working condition.”
“Pristine condition isn’t enough.” She touched one of the axle’s cast spindles with the tips of her fingers. “Cole just wants to win his wager.Ithink we can exceed everyone’s expectations. If we change these skeins for—”
“You want to renovate an already perfect curricle?” Giles asked in disbelief.
She lifted her chin. “I want to innovate an even better one.”
“If it doesn’t work, we’d have to start over,” he pointed out. “If we don’t have time, we’ll lose the race.”
“It’ll work,” she insisted. As though being a lady meant anything she dreamed would automatically come true.
“It’s a terrible idea,” he said in a flat voice. “The answer is no.”
“You two seem to have things well in hand,” the duke said briskly as he opened the town house access door and vainly attempted to fling the kitten from his shoulder. “Make the magic happen.”
With that, he and the kitten dangling from his collar disappeared inside.
The wide, airy carriage house suddenly seemed closed and confining, as if Giles and Lady Felicity were not in a large open chamber but rather trapped inside a tiny glass box. He swallowed. She was standing several feet away from him and still seemed close enough to touch. Too close.
He could smell a faint hint of lavender, as though she had just taken a fragrant bath before heading out to the dirty mews. He wondered if the scent came from her skin or hair, and was vehemently grateful he was not close enough to find out.
She lifted her worn leather satchel off a nail and looped the wide strap over one shoulder.
Without another word, she marched over to the curricle and, point for point, began making the same methodical inspection Giles had begun when he’d thought he was waiting on Bunyan.
Giles couldn’t help it. He was impressed.
“You’re very thorough,” he said gruffly as he followed her through each point.
They were crouched shoulder-to-shoulder behind the curricle’s single axle, ostensibly to confirm the current condition of the dumb irons and elliptic springs.
Giles accidentally also took this opportunity to confirm the lavender-scented condition of Lady Felicity’s soft, dark hair.
Respected colleague, he reminded himself. The duke’s threat to ruin Giles was not idle. Colehaven’s support had increased the Langford smithy’s popularity. Colehaven’s censure could make Giles’s smithyunfashionable just as quickly.
Lady Felicity turned her head to face him. When her eyes met his, the corners crinkled and he could swear their pretty irises twinkled, even in the shadows.
“I can’t be the worst partner to have. You’ve said for years that Cole’s carriages are always kept in the best condition you’ve ever seen,” she told him. “You just didn’t know I was the one doing it.”
