Page 31 of One Night to Remember
Her eyebrows raised. “Someone like me?”
“Someone who thinks they’re better than me.”
Felicity’s jaw dropped. “I don’t think I’m better than you!”
“Why wouldn’t you?” He counted on his fingers. “You have a fancy title and I don’t. You live in a fancy neighborhood and I don’t. You have fancy clothes and fancy airs and go to fancy parties and I don’t. You have more connections, more money, more influence… Shall I go on? You probably even think you’re the better coachmaker and driver.”
“Just coachmaker,” she snapped. “I’m the second-best driver.”
He cast her a flat look.
“You’re right,” she said with a frustrated sigh. “Not that I think I’m better than you, but that in many ways, society thinks I am.”
“Highsociety,” he corrected.
“High society,” she agreed. “Point taken. Neither of us should make assumptions. Do you know why I started tinkering with carriages at a young age?”
“I do not,” Giles answered.
Felicity bit her lip. Was she truly ready to share this part of her past? Would sheeverbe ready for someone to know all of her secrets?
“Indulgent parents?” Giles guessed.
“No,” she said softly. “Suffice it to say, I know exactly how fortunate I am, and that I’m not any better than anyone else. If I was, one of the gentlemen on the list would have married me by now.”
Practical reasons or not, she couldn’t pretend it didn’t sting. If any of her short-lived suitors had wanted Felicity as a person and not just as a bauble for their arms, they would have signed any betrothal clause her brother wished. That they preferred to select someone else to wed… well. Felicity couldn’t let herself be hurt. She hadn’t chosen them for their personalities either.
Marriage was a contract. A business decision. She could not allow feelings to get in the way.
“Is that really what you want?” Giles asked softly.
Felicity dropped her gaze. He was too big, too talented, too much. She loved every moment of working with him. Even dreamed about it at night. Of a world in which their partnership didn’t have to be temporary. She curled her fingers about a head iron to withstand a rush of longing. Someday soon, she would have to walk away from Giles and his smithy and never look back. No matter how much doing so might hurt.
Ever since they’d met, a great yawning emptiness now filled her chest at the thought of everything she’d have to give up in order to fulfill her dream of giving more to those who needed it most.
If she broke the promise she’d made to the children, she wouldn’t simply be no better than anyone else.
She’d be worse.
Giles was perhaps the one person who would understand why she’d marry a wealthy man she despised over a penniless man she loved. There could be no higher goal than providing for children. She had not known they shared that in common, too, until yesterday. It only made her like him more.
He was a good man, but he was right about the differences in their social statuses. The charitable work in his smithy was the perfect example of what she hoped to see, but it would not change laws in the House of Lords. Felicity didn’t want to help just one neighborhood. She’d vowed to help them all.
“Tell me about your local helpers,” she said. “When did the lads start coming by?”
“The moment they smelled biscuits,” Giles replied. “You might think rats have a keen sense of smell, but rodents are amateurs compared to twelve-year-old boys.”
“Come for the lemonade, stay for slowly smelting iron over a blistering hot fire?” she asked dryly.
He flashed an irreverent smile. “Everyone has their price.”
“What’s yours?” she asked. “Do you get something from volunteering your time?”
“Children in the smithy,” he answered without hesitation. “I loved my childhood. I spent every waking minute of it right here with my father.”
She glanced around with interest. “This was your father’s smithy?”
“A third of it used to be. I’ve since expanded twice. There’s plenty of room for children to learn and grow. Someday, my offspring will also be following at my heels asking thousands of questions. But until I wed, the local children are more than enough.”
