Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

S o, she does know my name.

That was the last coherent thought to emerge from Archibald’s brain before Isabella Astley pressed her lips against his.

He hadn’t been sure. When he first made her acquaintance, at the wedding of one of her sisters to Viscount Thetford, he was introduced not to her but to “the twins.” Her sister, Lady Lucy, had been the one to say the requisite greetings and carry the conversation while Lady Isabella stared across the room, her lips curved into a bemused half-smile and her thoughts clearly a thousand miles away.

She hadn’t been the only one struggling to attend to the conversation. Seeing Isabella Astley for the first time had felt like getting run over by a brace of oxen. She was that beautiful. She had the large, dark blue eyes that were an Astley family trait. But, unlike most of her sisters, her hair was not blonde but a rich, dark brown, which, combined with her pale, creamy skin, made her eyes all the more striking. She was tall for a woman, only an inch shorter than him, and quite slim with only the barest hint of a bosom. She had a delicate quality about her that made him nervous to even bow over her hand out of fear that he might break her with his meaty paw.

All of this combined into an otherworldly quality. He remembered thinking that she did not look human. She looked like the daughter of the fairy king.

Up until that moment, Archibald had spent precisely zero minutes of his life thinking about the daughter of the fairy king . His thoughts tended to be consumed with cannons and coal, steam engines and screw-cutting lathes.

Yet, there he was, pining after Isabella Astley like a lovesick schoolboy.

But then, at the wedding breakfast, it got a thousand times worse. Because that was when he finally heard her speak.

She was so clever . He had been seated at the next table over, only a few feet away and at such an angle that he could just see her out of the corner of his eye. His assigned dining partner had decided to ignore him in favor of trying to flirt with Lord Graverley across the table. With nothing to distract him and seated in such close proximity, he hadn’t been able to help but overhear Isabella Astley’s every remark.

She was different from any young lady he had ever encountered. She stated her opinions with an assurance most women twice her age did not possess. She seemed to have little knowledge of the latest gossip. Apparently, she read Gothic novels obsessively and was even trying her own hand at writing them.

When Mrs. Whitcombe informed her that the Gothic novels she loved were “tawdry,” Lady Isabella had squealed, pulling a pencil and a little bound notebook from her reticule. “You must have read some very good ones to lead you to such a conclusion. Please, won’t you tell me their titles and describe their most tawdry elements?”

Later, Lady Iveson pointedly told her that it wasn’t decorous for young ladies to wear bold colors, a thinly veiled criticism of Lady Isabella’s red gown.

“Should I meet a decorous young lady,” she replied with grave sincerity, “I will be sure to mention it to her.”

Then, during the dessert course, Lady Hering complained that the Ancient Egyptian artifacts decorating the bridegroom’s family home were “ghastly” and anyone who would choose such a garish theme was “immoral.” Lady Isabella replied, “At least my new family-by-marriage’s decorations aren’t a dead bore, unlike your conversation.”

Archibald had to feign a bout of coughing to cover his laughter. She was like a solitary streak of oil paint, vivid and confident, on a sun-faded watercolor. Even though he knew next to nothing about her favorite topics, he could have sat listening to her all day, feeling nothing but delight at the extraordinary sentences that emerged from her rose-pink lips.

She never seemed to notice him over the months and years that followed, not even when he had come to stay as a guest at her family’s home. He didn’t blame her. How could he expect this ethereal creature to notice the likes of him , a glorified blacksmith who spent his days laboring either in his family’s iron forge or his own machine shop? It was as ridiculous as expecting Aphrodite to notice Hephaestus.

Well, of course, Aphrodite had noticed Hephaestus. Hell, she had even married him.

But everyone knew how that had turned out.

So, Archibald had contented himself with admiring Isabella Astley from afar and dreaming about her each night, never expecting her to look at him, much less speak to him.

So tonight, when she threw her arms around his neck and pressed her lips eagerly against his?

His brain ceased functioning, immediately and completely. That was the only explanation for the extreme impropriety of what he did next.

He did not kiss her the way a gentleman should kiss a lady—a restrained, closed-mouth meeting of the lips designed not to unsettle her delicate sensibilities.

Instead, a primitive growl emerged from his throat. Mine was the word that echoed through his skull. He proceeded not to kiss her so much as to devour her. She tasted of cherries, sweet and tart and utterly delicious, and he could not get enough of her. She felt so, so perfect in his arms. She was slight compared to his own hulking frame, but it would be a mistake to call her weak, for her kiss crackled with a vivacious energy that left him breathless.

He must have kissed her in thoughtless abandon for some minutes, for when Archibald was next aware of anything, he saw that he had pulled her close, pressing his body against every inch of hers, from throat to thighs. One of his burly arms was wrapped around her waist, and the other snaked across her upper back. His meaty hand was tangled in her hair, depriving her of any chance to escape.

He pulled back, regret and shame flooding him. He was ten times as strong as she, and he had just forced himself on her. “Lady Isabella, I… I’m so sorry.”

Her eyelids fluttered open. She was so dazed that she looked almost drunk, but her eyes slowly came into focus.

She stared at him for ten agonizing seconds as he sheepishly disentangled his fingers from her hair.

Just as he was preparing to step back, she said it.

“ I’m not .”

And then she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him back to her.