Chapter One
There was an angry mob outside and what they wanted was inside Gwen Cully’s shop.
She tugged off her thick work gloves and tossed them aside. Her leather apron slapped at her legs as she walked to her window and curiously peered out, appreciating the fresh breeze on her heated face even as she gasped at the wild sight before her.
There were no less than thirty villagers charging down the lane—her friends and neighbors with faces mottled red with ire. She had no notion of what had precipitated their wrath. She had never witnessed the like in all her eight and twenty years. Not in the entirety of her life in Shropshire.
They were not frothing at the mouth. They did not wave pitchforks, but several of them held sticks in a militant fashion. Mr. Fyfe, the village wainwright, waved a fire iron that she herself had crafted years ago for him. At the time she had not imagined it to be used as a weapon.
The horde growled like a beast coming closer. Their shouts were indistinct, one great amalgamation of voices growing in volume as they advanced down the street of the village.
What they wanted was inside her shop and what they wanted was a man.
A specific man.
She whipped back around and squinted into the murky confines of her shop, her gaze searching, seeking him, the intruder, the interloper . . . their prey. Moments ago, he had exploded inside her smithy and flew across the space in a blurred streak.
Hands on her hips, she peered into the shadows before moving cautiously past her burning forge. She found herself wishing for additional light. Less lighting was needed for her work, so she could better see the glow of heated metal, and yet she wished for the full light of day now as she came to a stop and glared down at the figure concealing himself in the corner behind a worktable. Although conceal was not really the proper word. Indeed not. The man was too big to be concealed anywhere.
Even crouched as he was, she could see at once he was a veritable giant. Impressive shoulders and biceps filled out his jacket. His thick thighs strained against his trousers. Her stare fixed there on those muscled tree trunks. It was with some difficulty that she moved her attention away, sliding her gaze lower, assessing the boots that hugged a pair of well-muscled calves.
She blinked and swallowed and reminded herself that she was irritated and not . . . enthralled.
With a form like that, she would have assumed him to be a man accustomed to work and vigorous labor. And yet his garments told another story.
He was dressed as a gentleman of means, but she had never encountered a gentleman who knew a thing about hard work. His jacket was made of the finest merino wool and his boots expensive Hessian leather. Gentleman or no, he had done something wrong. Something grave indeed for the villagers to be after him.
“You are trespassing,” she accused in a stern voice, her gaze resting on his face and not that riveting body.
Although his face was equally distracting.
He stared up at her with wolf dark eyes framed by lashes much too long and thick for a man. The face possessing those dramatic eyes was too rugged to be called pretty, but still quite arresting. On anyone else his nose would be too large, but it fit his granite-carved features perfectly.
She swallowed. Altogether he was the kind of man she admired. At least physically. Big and well formed with hands larger than hers. Able to carry her from a burning building if the need ever arose. And carrying a woman like Gwen was no easy feat. In fact, no man had carried her since her papa. And not since the age of five.
Even flattened in displeasure, his wide mouth was surprisingly lush. “Please.”
The single word uttered in his deep voice did something, twisted something inside her. Pity gave way and crumbled loose within her before she could stop it.
She fought for detachment and demanded, “What did you do?”
“Do?”
“Yes. What did you do?” She motioned to the window. “Believe it or not, the good people of this town do not usually lose their heads and chase a man down the streets without just cause. They are, for the most part, sane. You must have done something. What did you do?”
“You don’t recognize me?”
She blinked and looked him over again as though she could have perhaps forgotten him. Impossible, but she reassessed him nonetheless since he seemed to think she should know him. “Should I?”
It was his turn then to survey her. He looked her considerable form up and down, missing nothing of her near six feet.
She held her ground, unblinking, unflinching, reminding herself to breathe and feel nothing under his perusal. She had long ago accepted herself as she was. She would wilt under no one’s inspection.
He glanced away and swept his gaze over their surroundings before again fastening his gaze back on her. “Who are you? What is this place?”
Who was she? Who was he?
“You mean the place you have taken refuge?” She snorted and crossed her arms. “It’s a smithy. I’m the blacksmith.” She inwardly winced. Not the blacksmith. Unfortunately not anymore. Not in this town. Rather, she was a blacksmith.
Once the only smithy for miles and miles around, her family’s long-standing business ever since her grandfather, ever since her father and uncle, had now fallen to her.
Gwen was the third generation Cully to manage her family’s forge. The third generation wielding hammer to anvil. The third generation . . . and she was alone.
Her grandparents and father and uncle were no more. They had schooled her in all there was to smithing and she did it herself. There was not a sibling to share the load. Not an uncle, aunt, cousin. No one.
The smithy was hers alone.
She was no longer the only blacksmith working in the village. Now there was another. Another blacksmith who did not bear the name Cully, and he had set up shop and was taking her business.
She inhaled against the sharp sting of that hardship—and she was no stranger to hardship. She knew loss, but this was particularly bitter to consume.
Over the last few months, she had gone from having more business than she could manage to a decided decline in customers. When she confronted her longtime clientele and asked why she had lost their patronage, they all had the same explanation. She took too long. She was slow. Unreliable.
The truth stung.
The last few years she had been generally slow to complete all her work in a timely fashion, to be certain. With her uncle ailing and bedridden, she alone had been responsible for his care. Her attention had been divided and the shop had suffered for it. At first it had not mattered though, as she had been the only smith in town.
Until now.
Meyer had recently arrived with his two strapping sons. They’d opened a shop one lane over and had steadily been taking all her business, the three of them working so much more quickly than she could.
It did not matter that her uncle had passed away over a month ago, expiring from a long, wasting, cancerous sickness and she was now able to devote more time—all her time—to her work. The damage was done. A goodly amount of her customers had already left her for Meyer and his sons.
Faith in her had been shaken. She liked to think it had nothing to do with her gender. She had lived in Shropshire all her life. Worked here all her life. These people knew her. They were her neighbors. Her friends. She did not wish to think they were more at ease with a newcomer simply because he was born a man. That seemed vastly unfair and a cutting betrayal.