Beauty and the Blacksmith (Spindle Cove #3.5)(7)

This time, he acted. He grasped her slender wrist, cutting her draught short. “Miss Highwood, you shouldn’t.”

“Oh, I think I should. I think this is exactly what I need.”

“But your health.”

“You mean my asthma?” She set the tumbler down, and he released her wrist. “My asthma hasn’t troubled me in years.”

“Of course it has. That’s why you’re here in Spindle Cove.”

She shook her head slowly. “I haven’t had a breathing crisis since the one you witnessed here in this tavern. That was two summers ago. Susanna consulted with physicians in London, and she thinks I’ve outgrown it. People do, she said. Apparently, I’m . . . I’m cured.”

She was cured? Aaron was confused. This didn’t make any sense. Her breathing troubles were the reason the Highwoods had moved to this village—the sea air was beneficial to her lungs.

She fidgeted with the necklace he’d mended just that day—the one with the vial of precious tincture dangling from the chain. “I don’t even need it anymore. I know in my soul, I don’t. I only wear it out of habit.” Her blue eyes met his. “And because you made it.”

Her confession was like a punch to the jaw. It came out of nowhere and set his head spinning.

The whiskey was starting to hit her, too. He could tell from the glassy sheen in her eyes and the unsteady motions of her hands. But mostly, by the ridiculous words spouting from her lips.

He tossed a few coins on the bar and stood, putting a hand under her elbow to help her to her feet, too. “Come. I’ll walk you back to the rooming house.”

He didn’t give her a chance to object, tucking her arm through his in a way that he hoped wouldn’t look improper to anyone who might happen to see.

“You were right today,” she confessed. “I’m not clumsy.”

No sooner had she said it than she stumbled over the doorstep.

“Not usually.” She giggled.

Giggled? He didn’t remember ever hearing Diana Highwood giggle.

“I broke the necklace on purpose, just so you’d have to mend it. So I could watch you mend it.” She shook her head. “That’s dishonest of me, isn’t it? Why would I do that? Lie to you, lie to myself.”

He herded her across the lane and onto the village green. It was muddy, but the shortest route. Getting her home as quickly as possible seemed his best strategy.

“Miss Highwood, you need to rest.”

“I don’t need to rest. I’m cured. I’m perfectly well.”

“Nevertheless, it’s late. And wet. You need to be getting back to the rooming house before your mother and sister worry.”

“No.” She lifted a hand to her temple. “No, I don’t want to go back to the rooming house. I want . . .” Her face scrunched up, and her speech gained in rapidity what it lost in coherence. “Oh, I don’t know what I want. That’s the problem. All my life, I’ve been discouraged from wanting anything. I couldn’t risk Minerva’s love of debate, or Charlotte’s exuberance, or even Mama’s nerves. I had to be calm. Delicate, cool, serene Diana. That’s been me, always. No wild passions. No adventurous dreams. It seemed silly to plan for the future. For all I knew, I wouldn’t live to see it.”

He didn’t like this talk of her dying. “But you said you’re cured now.”

“And then tonight . . .” Her voice broke as she gestured at the Queen’s Ruby. “Tonight, my sister asked me, Don’t I want to start living? And I realized I don’t even know what I want from life. I know what my mother wants for me. I know what everyone else expects. But what do I truly desire?”

Excellent question. Aaron waited for the answer.

Her hand pressed to her chest. “Do I want to have a season in London and marry a lord? Do I want to stay here in the village and become a permanent spinster? Do I want to join a circus? I don’t know, Mr. Dawes. I don’t know, and it terrifies me. All those years of setting aside my emotions. My lungs are healed, but at what cost? I am a stranger to my own heart.”

Raindrops spotted her face, like dew on petals. Damn, this was torture. He wanted to comfort or guard her, but he didn’t know how. She wasn’t his to tend.

He pulled her under the branches of a chestnut tree. The least he could do was shield her from the rain.

“There’s only one thing I feel absolutely certain of,” she said.

“Tell me.”

Whatever it was, he vowed that she would have it.

At last she’d shaken off the manacles clapped on her—the restraints of illness and her mother’s expectations. Good. Good for her. She deserved to have the things she desired.

“This afternoon.” She drew close. “I wanted you to kiss me. I wanted it more than I can remember wanting anything in my life.”

With that, she tilted her face to his.

And closed her eyes.

Aaron stared down at her, watching the white puffs of her breath as it left her lips. He could taste them. Little clouds of whiskey.

Her eyes fluttered open. “Didn’t . . . didn’t you want to kiss me, too?”

“I did.”

“Then why don’t you? We’re alone. No one ever has to know.”

He snorted at that last. “It’s impossible to keep a secret in this village.”