Page 7 of A Bloom for a Blacksmith

For the rest of her life, Iris would remember these as Jacob’s last words. He died before the physician made it out to the cart.

Chapter Three

A Lonely Man

Meanwhile, in Darius Agremon’s workshop

“Mrs. Agremon seemed very worried about you,” Angus Thompson remarked. Stella had taken her leave only the moment before, and he had noticed the tears on her cheeks. “As was I. I thought sure you were a dead man, sir.”

Darius joined his apprentice in completing the clean-up of the workshop, his attention on the position of the coal burner in the vehicle—or rather, what was left of it. “Takes a lot to kill me,” he replied. “I’ve a hard head, son.” He tapped his closely cropped hair.

Angus wiped his hands on a rag before helping himself to a clean one. He began wiping the soot from the metal surface of the vehicle. “Pardon my askin’, sir, but have you been married long?”

Straightening, the remains of the coal burner clutched between his hands, Darius seemed to ponder the query for a few seconds before he said, “More than half my lifetime, I would guess. Why do you ask?”

Helping himself to another rag, Angus seemed hesitant to reply. He resumed his work, cleaning the metallic plates he had forged in the workshop only the week before. “I wish I had a wife, is all,” he murmured.

Darius placed the ruined burner on a workbench and regarded his apprentice with surprise. “You’re not married?”

“No, sir.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-five, sir. But I didn’t start my apprenticeship until I was almost nineteen.”

“A little late for an apprenticeship as a blacksmith,” Darius commented, knowing most boys started at fourteen. By the age of twenty-one, they had completed their seven-year obligation and could start their own forge.

“I wasn’t earning very much making horseshoes, and now that it looks like these contraptions…” he motioned to the four-wheeled vehicle, “… might one day replace horses completely, I think I made the right decision to work for you.”

Darius chuckled. “I appreciate your vote of confidence. Seeing as how steam buses are becoming the norm for transportation over in the German Confederation, I thought to build a version here for an individual to drive. Like a… a phaeton, but without the horses,” he added. “So, is this your way of asking for a raise in pay?” he queried.

Angus’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, sir. I think I earn enough now to take a wife,” he replied.

Furrowing his brows, Darius turned from the workbench and asked, “So, what’s the reason you’re not already wed?”

Pausing in his polishing, Angus sighed. “I don’t know how to find a wife, sir,” he admitted. “Might I inquire as to how you met Mrs. Agremon?”

The coal burner forgotten, Darius leaned against the workbench and crossed his arms. “Well, I first saw her in her father’s…” Here he paused, realizing he couldn’t tell the young man he had first come upon Stella in an olive grove when she was only a few years old. He would sound like a lustful satyr from Greek mythology. “On her father’s farm,” he finished.

“Did you know then she was the one you would marry?”

Grinning, Darius nodded. “Oh, yes,” he admitted. Despite her young age, he knew then Stella was like him—that she was an Immortal. He had sensed it somehow, a pleasant buzzing in his head whenever she was near. He grew to crave that sensation. To crave her. He’d had to wait for her to age, of course, although waiting for twelve years was but a blink of an eye for a man who had already lived more than six hundred years at that point in time. “I knew right away.”

“So… love at first sight?” Angus prompted.

Darius nodded. “Something like that,” he agreed. “Surely you’ve noticed young ladies about town,” he added, deciding it was best they turn the discussion back to Angus. “Mayhap at your church or in shops you frequent? A costermonger, perhaps?” He would have mentioned where he lived, but Darius knew the young man occupied the ground floor of a bachelor house while another man lived on the first floor.

Angus screwed up his face in a grimace. “Maybe,” he hedged. “I suppose I’m not one to… to simply introduce myself, though.”

“Shy, are you?” Extracting one of the elements from the coal burner, Darius examined it before setting it aside. “You could hire a matchmaker,” he suggested.

“Oh, I don’t think I could do that, sir,” Angus countered, quickening the movement of his arm as he polished the undamaged metal sheeting on the vehicle. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“I think it’s clean enough, son,” Darius commented, nodding in the direction of the vehicle. He suppressed a grin when Angus nervously straightened. “Apologies, but you’ll need to remake some of these parts on your forge.” He indicated the ruined pieces from the coal burner.

“Now, sir?”

Darius glanced towards the two open doors leading to the mews. Dusk had already begun to settle over Mayfair. “Not tonight, no. On the morrow. It’s getting dark, and Mr. Stover has your horse hitched up to your phaeton. Past time you made your way home, young man.”