Here was the division between customer and smith. And the border between the two could not have been more stark, or more meaningful. The ground around the forge was packed with black, smudgy cinders. Neatly swept and fitted stones paved her half of the smithy, where visitors waited for their work. “Be good for me now.”ĭiana turned her gaze downward, focusing on the floor. With a steady hand and a low, rich baritone, he finessed the broken clasp. “That’s it.” Perspiration glistened on his brow. He’s realized that refined, perfect, gently bred Miss Highwood comes to the smithy to gawp at his brute manliness. Sculpted chest muscles, bronzed skin, dark hair. She caught a moment’s glimpse of pure, superheated virility. As he removed the glowing bit of metal from the fire and placed it on his anvil, his open collar gaped.ĭiana averted her gaze-but not fast enough. He pumped the bellows, commanding the flames to dance.īroad shoulders stretched his homespun shirt, and a leather apron hung low on his hips.
How could she help staring? The man had wrists as thick as her ankle.Īs always, he wore his sleeves rolled to the elbow, exposing forearms roped with muscle. Destined, her mother vowed, to catch a nobleman’s eye.īut here, in the smithy with Aaron Dawes, all her delicate breeding disintegrated. From an early age, she’d been marked as the hope of the family.
She was a gentlewoman, born and raised in genteel comfort, if not opulent luxury. Thick as my ankle.ĭiana Highwood took her glove and worked it like a fan, chasing the flush from her throat.
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