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 was finally about 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.

“You built this?” 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 making screws .

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?”

There was no helping it; he was going to have to tell her. “See, right now, virtually all screws are made by metalsmiths, by hand. No matter how skilled they are, it’s impossible to make two screws that are precisely the same. So, you wind up with one box of handmade screws, and another box of handmade nuts, and you waste a tremendous amount of time trying to find a screw and a nut that pair together even remotely well. But if you can build them with a machine that is precise …”

He glanced at her, half-expecting to see her eyes glazing over. But instead, he found her watching him intently. “Go on.”

“If you can achieve precision,” he continued, “then every screw in that box will be precisely the same, and it will fit perfectly with each of the nuts as well. I realized the importance of precision a few years ago when I was obsessed with building locks. You see”—he picked up a file—“my grandfather started me working with hand tools at a very early age. I can build an unpickable lock by hand, but it takes me a full week to build just one. It’s terribly inefficient. But if each piece could be precisely engineered, so they’re interchangeable—”

“Then you could build a hundred locks instead of one,” Izzie said.

“Exactly! It’s not so much about making screws, although… that’s literally what I’m doing right now. Making screws. It’s about figuring out how to build things with precision .” He gestured to his lathe on the table. “Take the central lead screw here. I had to figure out how to cut it so the threads were perfectly even. This one is accurate to one ten-thousandth of an inch—”

“ One ten-thousandth of an inch ?” Izzie’s mouth fell open. “How do you even measure one ten-thousandth of an inch?”

“That was another problem,” Archibald said, grabbing a gadget that looked like a tiny brass table with a wheel on one end. “Because, of course, you don’t know if you’re building with precision if you can’t measure it. So, I had to figure out how to build an extremely precise bench micrometer. See?”

He showed Izzie how to measure the screw with the bench micrometer. “My men call it the ‘Lord Chancellor.’ Because if they’re arguing about whether something they’ve made is sufficiently precise, you can’t overrule the verdict of the Lord Chancellor.”

“That’s terribly clever!” Izzie said, seizing his forearm. She frowned. “But how did you cut the… the central screw, this long one—”

“The lead screw,” Archibald supplied.

“The lead screw, thank you. How did you make it precise to one ten-thousandth of an inch? Surely you didn’t do that by hand?”

“No. I’m good with a file, but nobody’s that good. I had to invent another device specifically to cut the lead screw. It’s over here if you’d like to see—”

“I would!” she cried.

Thus passed one of the most enjoyable hours of Archibald’s life. Izzie didn’t seem bored or unimpressed with his machines. Much to the contrary, she seemed delighted by everything he showed her. Standing behind his wife, with her framed between his arms, he demonstrated how you could change out the parts on his screw-cutting lathe, and even swap in a different lead screw, to make screws of all different sizes. She exclaimed in amazement over each variation and told him he was a genius six times. Archibald knew it was six because he counted. He even let her try her hand at making a screw, and she squealed with delight as it came off the lathe.

“I can’t believe I made this!” She gazed at him, eyes earnest. “Could I keep it?”

He laughed. “Of course.”

“Oh, thank you! I can’t wait to show Mama! She’ll never believe I made this.” Her eyes sparkled. “I fear I’m your opposite in this regard. I’m possibly the least dexterous person you’ve ever met. I can barely darn a pair of stockings, and the less said about my embroidery, the better.”

“That’s all right. I didn’t marry you because I wanted someone to sew my shirts and darn my socks.”

She laughed. “That’s fortunate. I know how severe the Duke of Trevissick is on your tailoring. I can tell you right now that any shirt I made would not pass muster.” She peered up at him, her expression growing serious. “Say, if you didn’t want someone to perform the usual wifely duties, then why, exactly, did you marry me?”

The timing of this question was fortunate because, for the first time, he had the courage to answer it.

He swooped Izzie up in his arms, ignoring her startled squeal, and carried her through the door. He made sure he was looking her in the eyes as he told her.

“I love you.”

She gasped, looking genuinely surprised. “You… you do?”

“ So much.” He shook his head. “You have no idea.”

She looped her arms around his neck. “Oh, Archibald, I love you, too.”

He nodded. He was still having trouble fully believing those words. They seemed entirely too good to be true.

But he was slowly learning that he needed to trust Izzie and listen to what she said rather than assume the worst. His wife knew her own mind, and if she said she loved him, who was he to tell her she was wrong?

They had reached the stairs. He started up, as this was clearly going to end in their bedroom. “I fell horribly in love with you the very second I saw you.”

She looked both startled and pleased. “Did you really?”

“I did,” he said solemnly, turning down the hall. “It was the day of your sister’s wedding to Thetford. I remember thinking you were so beautiful you didn’t look human. That you looked like the daughter of the fairy king.”

She giggled. “That’s very fanciful for you, Archibald.”

“It is,” he agreed, striding into their bedroom. He kicked the door shut behind him. “I immediately concluded that you were the most beautiful woman ever to live. But then, it got even worse.”

“How so?” she asked as he laid her down on the bed.

He followed her down, coming to rest on top of her. He raised a hand to her face and gently swept a lock of hair back from her forehead. “You probably don’t remember, but I was seated just behind you at the wedding breakfast. I could hear every word of your conversation.” He shook his head, rueful. “You were so clever .”

Delight swept across her face. “You thought I was clever?”

“Clever. Witty. Interesting.” He chuckled. “I wished so badly that you were talking to me .”

“How I would have liked that!” Izzie exclaimed. “I was seated next to Lady Hering, who is—”

“A dead bore,” Archibald finished for her. “I had to feign a bout of coughing when you told her as much.”

“I’m surprised I didn’t frighten you off. Most men think me far too outspoken.”

“Most men are idiots. You’re perfect.”

“Perfect?” She laughed, incredulous. “I’m not perfect. I’m an odd bluestocking who pens stories about dukes pretending to be ghosts while living at the bottom of a well. Moreover, out of the basic skills expected of a wife, I do not possess a single one.”

“Perfect,” Archibald repeated. “Clever. Witty. Beautiful. Adept at managing my parents. Kind to my grandfather.”

She tapped a finger against her lip. “Hmm… When you put it that way, I do sound rather wonderful.”

They both laughed, and Izzie smoothed her hands over his chest. “But I think that you are the one who is perfect.”

“Absolutely no one would agree with you,” Archibald noted. “I’m a glorified blacksmith. I get filthy every day doing manual labor at a forge. And my greatest accomplishment is making screws .”

“Point the first—blacksmiths are dashing,” Izzie countered. “The lords of the world pad their jackets so they can feign having the physique of a blacksmith. Point the second—I don’t care whether you get your hands dirty.”

“All of polite society would disagree,” he noted.

She stuck out her chin, offended. “Since when have I given a fig for what polite society thinks? Returning to my list—point the third, I think your screws are marvelous. It’s like the parable of the stonecutters. Have you heard that one?”

Archibald frowned. “I don’t believe I have.”

“A traveler came upon a group of three stonecutters. He approached and asked what they were doing. The first answered that he was cutting stones. The second explained that he was earning his daily bread. And the third said that he was building a cathedral.” Izzie smiled up at him, her eyes sincere. “None of them were wrong, just as you aren’t wrong when you say that you’re making screws. But you’re also building a cathedral. And I think you’re going to change the world.”

Archibald nodded jerkily, suddenly unable to speak. He should’ve known Izzie would see it that way. He should’ve trusted her. She’d never given him any cause not to.

She ran her hands over his shoulders. “And I truly think you’re perfect. I never thought I would marry, you see, because the qualities I required in a husband were nigh impossible to find. Would you like to know what they are?”

Archibald nuzzled her neck. He did want to hear Izzie’s list, but he also wanted to make love to her. “What?”

“Mostly, I wanted a man who wouldn’t dismiss my writing as silly. I can’t tell you how many men told me I should give up Gothic novels and write something ‘important’ instead or who assumed I would stop writing entirely after I married. I needed a man who didn’t care that I wouldn’t be a conventional wife, spending my days sewing his shirts and planning his parties. Because I fear I’ll never be much good at those things.”

She traced a hand across his shoulder, down to the bulge of his biceps. “Of course, if I had my wish, he would be built like a Viking. He would be just like one of the heroes in my stories—strong and brave, and willing to do anything to protect me. And, of course, he would kiss like a Viking, too. Like he was desperate to have me. Yet I would always feel safe in his arms.”

She looped her arms around his neck. “I require a man who is intelligent and kind. I find I don’t care much about what he does for work or if he gets his hands dirty. And I certainly don’t care what high society thinks of him. It’s not as if high society has ever approved of me, after all. In short, I want a man who loves me just as I am and who doesn’t want to change me.” She gave him a little smile. “That’s all.”

“But… but Izzie,” he sputtered as something occurred to him. “That sounds like… like...”

“Like you? Of course, it does.” She laughed. “You’re my ideal hero. You couldn’t be any more perfect for me if I’d written you myself.”

Archibald thought his heart might burst. He’d always thought of Izzie as so high above him, as untouchable as a star in the sky.

Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that she might love him, too.

“You really don’t mind that I’m a blacksmith?” he asked, his voice gruff.

“Well, I don’t think you’re precisely a blacksmith . Engineer. Inventor. Captain of industry. Take your pick. Although”—she twined her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and dropped her voice to a husky murmur—“I can think of several advantages to your facility for smithing.”

“Oh?” Archibald’s pulse was quickening, and his cock had hardened to iron. He began kissing his way across Izzie’s neck. As much as he was enjoying this conversation, he needed his wife rather desperately. “Do you have something specific you’d like me to build for you?”

“It happens that I do.” She leaned up to whisper in his ear. “Wrist shackles.”

He had been aiming a kiss for her ear, but he missed entirely, winding up face-first in the pillow. “Wrist… did you say wrist shackles ?”

“Yes! You see, there’s a page in that book of Harrington’s that shows—”

Now Archibald was really breathing hard. “I’ve a fair idea what it shows.”

Izzie stroked his chest with teasing fingers. “And would you be interested?”

“ Yes .”

She laughed at his hungry expression. “Good!”

She started to tug his lips down to hers, but Archibald paused, holding her delicate wrist up next to his thick one. “Wait… do you want me to build the shackles to fit your wrists? Or mine?” He couldn’t decide which scenario sounded better. He obviously loved the idea of being able to do anything he wanted to Izzie, especially because he suspected such a scenario would arouse her unbearably.

But he found that the idea of being at her mercy was also extremely appealing.

She smiled up at him. “Why not both?”

Why not both, indeed? With this woman, he could be both a working-man and a white knight, both an industrialist and an intellectual.

He could be both a hammersmith and a hero.

He could be himself, and that was enough.

“Both it is.” His lips found hers, and there was no need for conversation for quite some time.