Page 37 of The Blacksmith

Chapter 12

Frustration coiled in Lance’s stomach. His shoulders tensed. Every time she looked at him, he envisioned hauling her against him, continuing where they’d left off two nights before.

There was much he would love to teach her.

As Idalia showed Guy about the keep, she spoke only to him. And his friend’s easy grins did nothing to alleviate Lance’s rapidly deteriorating humor.

“This is one of the only private areas in the keep,” she said, bringing them into a small chamber on the ground floor. “It was once the chapel, before the other was built more than twenty years ago.”

“Why is it so well lit, being abandoned?” Guy asked.

He’d wondered the same but didn’t trust himself to speak.

“My lady,” a voice interrupted from the door. The maid looked as if she’d run through the entirety of the keep. “I was told you might have come this way. Pardon for disturbing you, but the leg seems to be broken on one of the tables in the great hall. It’s been carried away but needs repair before morn.”

“Did you speak to Dawson?”

The seneschal seemed a nice enough man, but he certainly was not the one maintaining Stanton in the countess’s absence.

“Aye, ’twas he who sent me to find you.”

“Our woodworker has been ill these last few days,” she explained to them. Well, mostly to Guy.

“I can assist,” Guy offered. “I was once employed by a woodworker in France. A foul man, if truth be told, but skilled nonetheless.”

Why a woodworker would have use for a mercenary, Lance could only guess. He’d not heard that story before.

The maid looked at Idalia, who nodded.

An idea bloomed, and Lance spoke before he could decide against it. “Guy is capable in many areas,” he said, eliciting a smirk from his friend that thankfully neither of the women noticed. “I have no doubt he’ll fix your table if you would continue the tour.” As he finished, he caught Idalia’s gaze at last.

Her eyes narrowed.

Guy scowled.

The maid simply stood there, hands folded, waiting for assistance.

“Show me the table.” Guy’s tone was nearly brimming with admonishment, but Lance didn’t—and couldn’t—care just now. He wanted to be alone with Idalia to ask her the reason for her animosity toward him this night.

As if he didn’t already know.

“This way, sir,” the maid said, still seemingly unaware of the undercurrents in the room. As she led Guy away, he glimpsed a very brief change in Idalia’s expression.

A crack that he meant to exploit.

She’s not a damn castle, Lance. She is a woman. A beautiful, kind, and very sensuous woman.

“Was that wise?” She did not move from her position as Lance shut the door behind the maid. They stood some distance from each other, candles flickering all around them.

Though it no longer served as a chapel, the remnants of a stone altar stood beside them. Otherwise, it was now nothing more than an empty chamber with more wall torches and candles than he’d ever seen in one space.

He decided to be honest.

“Likely not.”

She frowned. A rare expression, and one he felt ashamed to have elicited.

He was as good for her as he’d been for his mother. Which was why he turned to leave.