Chapter Fifteen

OLLIE

Next morning, I rolled out of bed to find that either the house was getting warmer or I was growing used to its temperature. I'd kept Jack up late last night telling him all about Archer being a blacksmith.

No banging Mr Rochester he'd reminded me again as we'd signed off.

Today, I planned on exploring the folly and the maze. Archer had insisted Mia or Tim go with me to the folly. "The tower's basically one huge spiral staircase, and we have a rule that no one climbs it alone in case they fall. It could take a long time to find you if we didn't know you were there."

About to inform him of the miraculous invention of mobile phones, I didn't because I remembered that Mia and Tim were only seventeen and eighteen. They'd been kids not long ago, when the rule would have been eminently sensible. I guessed Archer hadn't adjusted to the fact they were now adults, more or less.

The folly was set on a small hill, and after climbing millions of stone steps, winding around and around in a way that left me dizzy, I stood on the top and my breath caught at the view. This part of the country was beautiful, rolling hills, green fields and woods, and I could see for miles. I stepped closer to the crenellated wall that surrounded the top, and Mia caught my arm.

"Don't get too close," she warned me.

"Why not? Is the stonework loose?" It couldn't be, surely, because I'd seen Archer perching up here.

"No, but… Oh, damn. Look, Archer told me to keep you away from the edge." She looked exasperated and embarrassed, but my heart sang. He wanted to protect me. I didn't know why I loved that idea so much, but there was no doubting that I did.

I took some photos, and after a little longer enjoying the view, we climbed back down. I tried counting the steps but gave up after a hundred and fifty.

"Who needs a gym when they've got a folly?" I asked her, because I'd be feeling the climb in my quads for a while.

Her smile was a little preoccupied. "Listen, Ollie, could you make lunch today? I've got homework to do over the Easter break, and I haven't actually touched any of it yet. I should make a start."

"No problem." I asked her what she was studying and we compared notes on English A level texts on the way back to the house. I'd enjoyed reading the books, even though our tutor had a thing for Victorian literature. Or maybe because she'd had a thing for it. I'd loved the melodrama of the Bront?s and Wilkie Collins. Not so much Jane Austen. Not enough happened in her books.

"She wasn't a Victorian author, though," Mia said as she opened the front door.

"And that would explain why I failed my exam," I told her.

She grinned at me. "Thanks for this, Ollie. If you take Archer his lunch, make sure you don't go into the workshop until he's heard that you're there and told you it's safe to go in."

It made sense to be careful around fire, but I wondered if Archer was this careful around everything—phone in the maze, company in the folly, permission in the workshop. Did it come from having kids around or was it more to do with control?

Now I came to think about it, who had brought up the kids? I hadn't seen any family photos around the place. Obviously, one of his parents must have died for him to become head, but what about the other one?

As I looked in the fridge and worked out what to make for lunch, I realised how little I knew about Archer. I'd have to remedy that.

ARCHER

"There you go." Ollie was beaming with satisfaction as he put a plate down on my workbench. "Made it myself."

"You shouldn't have done that," I said, and he was instantly crestfallen. "I mean, you shouldn't have had to do that. You're our guest. But thank you," I added, as he still looked rather squashed. For Ollie. Which was pretty damn perky for anyone else.

"Honestly, Archer, I think I'm going to go mad if you don't let me pitch in around here. What am I supposed to do, sit and read Jane Eyre in the library and wait for someone to bring me tea and cakes?"

"I'm not sure we have a copy of Jane Eyre ," I said.

"You know what I mean."

I did. Damn it. I'd have to fill his days before June spotted the weakness and invited him to garden parties and art galleries and whatever else she did while Chris was working to afford their lifestyle. "If you'd like, come back when you've had lunch and I'll show you a few of my sculptures."

"You're really inviting me to see your etchings?" Ollie's eyes were bright with laughter.

God, if only I could.

"I can't wait to see what you make," he said, somehow having missed the big eagle sculpture in the middle of the workshop. I wasn't going to draw his attention to it right now. I'd like to eat my omelette while it was still warm.

"Okay, well, I'll see you later." He sketched a wave at me.

"What's that?" I grabbed his hand and examined the plaster on his thumb.

"I grated my thumb when I was doing the cheese. Don't worry, I picked it all out."

I eyed my omelette suspiciously. Perhaps I'd shift before I ate—my dragon wasn't as fussy as I appeared to be.

"Come back in an hour or so, and I'll show you round," I said, and with a grin, he bounced out of the door.

I didn't know where he found the energy to always be so enthusiastic. It seemed Ollie's life was a succession of treats and excitement. I envied him, more than I could say.

OLLIE

"Oh my God." I couldn't find any other words. The eagle was amazing. The open wings arched as if it were flying, and the statue was so big and its face so fierce that even my dragon grumbled at the threat it conveyed. The bird was made from metal, but its lines flowed and curved as if it were alive, and the detailing on the feathers… "How do you do this?"

"I'll show you if you want." Archer's offer sounded offhand rather than enthusiastic, but I wanted to spend more time with him. Especially like this, where it was just the two of us. The sculpture was so incredible that I wasn't even thinking about how he looked when pounding metal on his anvil. I wanted to know how he could make something so realistic and beautiful.

"I'd love that," I said.

"This isn't one of my favourites," he said. "The clients want to mount it on a stone plinth to match other sculptures in their garden, but I think it needs to be on an open metal stand, talons gripping a bar as it leans at an angle. But this is the design they picked out of the ones I sketched for them, and the client is always right."

"How long did it take you to learn how to do this?"

"Years," he confessed. "I lost a fair amount of skin in the early days."

I looked at his large, capable-looking hands. There were darker flecks of shiny skin on them, and on his forearms. "Those must have really hurt," I said, taking the excuse to touch his arm, and then I stood there like an idiot because I was touching Archer's skin and his warmth and strength…

I snatched my hand away, willing my dick to behave.

He looked at me a little strangely, before explaining what he used each machine for. I was fascinated both by what he told me and by the way he changed as he spoke of his craft. He evidently loved what he did, and for the first time, he seemed more like a normal dragon than the head of a family.

"That's probably more than you ever wanted to know about metal and smithing," he told me as he finished the guided tour. "I'm sure Mia or Tim will have told you, but no one's allowed in here unless I'm here and have said it's safe to come in."

"That must have been difficult when they were younger," I said, hoping it might lead to him telling me more about his family

"They were teenagers by the time I got the workshop set up here."

And? Didn't Archer know how to make conversation? The idea was to keep talking.

"Is the sundial in the gardens one of yours?"

He nodded. "I sell almost everything I make, but I liked that one."

"How do you get your ideas?"

But it seemed my tour was at an end. "I need to get back to work," he told me. "I'm on a deadline for the eagle."

"It isn't finished? But it's perfect."

His lips raised at the corners. "Not quite, but thank you. Can you let whoever's in charge of supper know I'm going to be working late tonight?"

"Tonight?" I asked, my heart plummeting. "But we—" Shit . Shut up, Ollie. He's just spent more than an hour with you, and he can take you flying another time. But my dragon protested. He wanted to fly.

He must have seen it in my face. "We'll fly when I'm done," he said. "I haven't forgotten."

"Thank you," I said, because it was that or fall at his feet and kiss them. Although, if I were on my knees in front of him, it wouldn't be his feet that I'd be kissing…

"See you," I choked out and headed swiftly for the door.

In the afternoon sunshine, I could breathe again. It had felt as if we'd been in our own world in that workshop. It was his space. I'd felt that unmistakably. Yet he'd let me in and shown me around.

As well as the eagle, there'd been a couple of wrought-iron garden gates and a whole box of black metal brackets and hooks that he'd made. "My bread and butter," he'd said.

I'd looked at the perfect curves, the symmetry of each of them, and known that creating even a hook would be beyond me. He was so talented, and while that fact made him even hotter, it was also depressing. I could never do anything like that.

My enthusiasm for exploring the maze had gone. I was happy and healthy and that should be enough. Those were the most important things, Mum had said, after she got over the disappointment of me failing my A levels and losing my place at uni.

But I didn't believe her. She had graduation pictures of herself, Dad, Peter and Ian on the bookshelf in her study, where there was no picture of me. There were other photos in the living room of all of us, but I didn't get a place on her prized academic bookshelf. That wouldn't matter if I could do something like blacksmithing as brilliantly as Archer could, but I couldn't even pass a driving test, for God's sake.

I headed back to the donkeys, hoping they'd remember me and let me pet them. The comfort of their furry bodies and soft muzzles made me feel better enough after a while to message Jack and tell him all about my private guided tour of Mr Rochester's lair.