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A middle-aged man neared him, and he halted to listen to what the older man was saying. The sound didn't reach her. But she could see Mr Hill so clearly from her secluded spot. He was tall, too tall for a miner to crawl through the cramped tunnels carved in Earth's own womb—where the black treasure that made her family one of the richest in England was extracted at the cost of blood, sweat and death. At least six feet four to her five feet five, his height filled with a powerful body not even his bedraggled clothes managed to hide.
His eyes roamed the alley distractedly as the older man continued to talk. Blue, two pools of cobalt on a face constantly smudged with coal soot. They shone like stars in a moonless night. The astronomer in her marvelled at them. Angular, rugged, his smudged front only made him more arresting, his eyes brighter, his power rawer. And she was incapable of tearing her stare from him. Fortunately, he couldn't see her from where he stood. Or so she hoped.
The middle-aged man left, and Daniel Hill strode to the derelict cottage he lived in, even smaller than Mrs Higgs’s. In it, he lived alone, his family consumed by the life-eater mine.
A rough hand plucked out his worn-out cap as he stopped by the water barrel at his entrance. The ousted cap revealed a hair blacker than coal and as dusty. Straight, it fell in strands over his brow. The headpiece dropped to his feet as he bent to wash, those big hands diving in the water and cupping it to throw on the dark stubble that lined the square jaw.
Her gaze followed each droplet dripping from his skin. Jealously. The weather was damp and cool, but her body came alive like coal in a grate. Albeit damp.
Even if she lived to be a hundred, she wouldn’t be able to look her fill. He was simply magnificent.
Having grown up in a mansion surrounded by the mine and the miners’ village, she had become more than used to the people that inhabited this place. For her, they weren’t a nameless, faceless crowd. They were her neighbours, people who she saw and talked to every day.
And Daniel was the forbidden man she gobbled with her eyes even aware that, if they lived close, they were a precipice apart. But, for the love of her long-gone mother, every time her starved eyes fell on him, it caused a raucous revolution to course through her. Sleep eluded her, food disgusted her, and a sort of languid mood dominated her insides. Her lids pressed closed, her nostrils absorbing rarefied air. She had to get a grip on this stupid pull. Joseph, like her father, had high expectations for her. A title in exchange for a ridiculously fat dowry, the reason she’d been travelling so often to London and mingling with nobility.
A noise made her open her lids to see Daniel pushing the run-down door to his cottage and disappearing into it, cap back in hand. Hurriedly, she left the doorjamb to head to the mansion where her family entrenched themselves.
Daniel nearly banged the frail wooden panel and then had this urge to smash it to dust. He threw his cap on the small table as if it were a big piece of coal against an imaginary window. She’d jammed to Higgs’s door, but he’d seen her. Impossible not to.
Even if he hadn’t, he’d sense her, know she was around. Invariably. Since the first time he had the unfortunate chance to lay eyes on her, things happened to his unruly body. Things that shouldn’t happen, like a fucking cock-stand. No, a cock-stand was when he found a willing woman to assuage his needs with. The sight of soon-to-be Lady Something, nee Miss Bolton, made his rampant erection explosive. The naked hunger in her eyes when she looked at him didn’t help.
As a miner from the age of sixteen, he strived to keep out of the way and, most importantly, out of trouble. At thirty, he toiled in the Bolton Mine during the day until his muscles tore and his bones splintered. If he survived the day’s work, he’d have an ale with his mates in the tavern that served the poor. Or paid for a tumble with some doxy from the nearest town, who sometimes came to offer their services in the same tavern. The miners’ village counted one, Bessie, but he didn’t want to get involved with someone he saw growing up. Life was short, and he wasn’t about to pass on the few pleasures he might afford.
But the sight of Miss Bolton always muddled his mood, as he couldn't stop thinking about how it would feel to drive his unrestrained craving into her until he died of it. Until both died from it. He had to extricate her from his fantasies though. Her milky, slender form wasn't for the likes of him, with his calloused hands, sooty skin, and sweaty clothes.
The sound of shiny, expensive leather boots echoed in the alley. And his body didn’t even consider stopping before moving to the closed door. Through a crack in it, Daniel watched as Miss Bolton trudged past as though she hadn’t been eating him alive with those huge caramel saucers. The brief sight caused his rampant member to react again. And he almost took off his shabby clothes to dive in the freezing water in the barrel.
As if the relief would last. Tonight, that doxy would have to work hard.
