Page 21 of A Bloom for a Blacksmith

“I have plenty at the shop, and I can always prevail upon my husband to help. He’s endowed with rather large, muscled arms. Unfashionably so, but I’ve never minded.” She waggled a brow as she displayed an impish grin.

Color once again suffused Iris’s cheeks.

Stella suddenly stood and made her way to the door, peeking around the corner. “I expect Mr. Streater has completed his talk with the bobby.”

“The bobby?” Iris repeated, her expression conveying confusion.

“I do wish it was someone from the City Police. They see to the law in the city’s center,” she explained. “But this bank is not in the City of London, so we’ve got a bobby from the Metropolitan Police.” She paused as she continued to watch whatever was happening at the end of the corridor. “It appears he will see to arresting that clerk who took the money from your account,” she added, crossing her arms when she spied the tall officer holding onto the upper arm of a young man who appeared at turns unrepentant and scared to death.

Stella was quiet for a time, imagining Darius as the man arresting the errant bank clerk. Over the centuries, he had held a number of such positions when he wasn’t leading troops in battle or acting as a soldier of fortune. Perhaps when he finished his current project, he could be compelled to apply to be a bobby. Given his size—he was tall and frequently mistaken for a pugilist when his fists were better suited to wielding a sword—he would certainly suit the requirements of a policeman.

A frisson shot through her lower abdomen, and she inhaled softly at the welcome sensation. Why thoughts of Darius as a fighter—as a leader of soldiers—should have such an effect on her, she wasn’t sure.

Perhaps it was because he had been in such a position when he had taken her to wife.

I was fifteen summers old, she remembered.

He had announced he would do so years before that, arranging for their eventual joining with the man she had known as her father. He had chosen her because from the moment Darius had first met her, he had known she was an Immortal.

It would be a long time before she met any others like them. People who survived their deaths, sometimes over and over again. People who didn’t seem to age after their first encounter with the Grim Reaper.

One such Immortal, Augustus, had always believed they were gods, even if they didn’t seem to possess powers beyond immortality. As far as she knew, none of them could manipulate their environment with magic, shape-shift, or exhibit super-human strength. She knew for certain they couldn’t create life, because none of the Immortals she had met over the centuries was capable of having children.

“Is something wrong?” Iris asked quietly. She had joined her at the door to sneak a peek around the jamb.

Pulled from her brief reverie, Stella asked, “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five,” Iris replied.

Stella chuckled softly. “I’d been married for ten years by the time I was your age,” she murmured.

Iris gasped. “So young,” she whispered.

“Young, yes, and frightened nearly to death, and very much in love,” she said with a grin.

“Do you regret it?” The words sounded as if she wasn’t sure how to interpret Stella’s comment.

Stella shook her head. “No. I adore my husband,” she replied. “He is my king, and I am his queen.” She turned her attention fully on the young woman. “Have you a suitor?”

Iris shook her head. “No. I thought perhaps my brother would introduce me to one of the carpenters he worked with, but…” She shrugged and sighed.

“Where did he work?”

“Miller Furniture. In St. Martin’s Lane.”

Stella gave a start. “Mr. Frank Miller?”

Iris nodded. “You know him? Is he the Mr. Miller you mentioned a few minutes ago?”

Chuckling, Stella lifted her head to once again glance at the ceiling of the corridor. “He is the very man who asked me about the upper floors of my shop,” she replied. “He has built all the bookshelves for the Antiquarian Quill.”

Her eyes widening, Iris said, “My brother would have carved all the trimming. The moldings,” she clarified.

Stella inhaled softly. “You know what this means?”

Iris shook her head. “Coincidence?” she guessed.

“Kismet,” Stella stated.