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He was too focused and intent on his task to hear her. She’d have to venture closer, to the hammer... and the rogue.
She was near enough to reach out and touch him, but he was still unaware of her presence.
She was fully aware of all six foot and more ofhim. Damp white linen clung to his arms and chest. Dark brown hair curled against his wide neck, and the muscles of his shoulders strained and bulged with every swing of his hammer.
“You should put more cloths on the books,” she yelled. And while he was at it, he could wear more cloth himself instead of attacking her good sense with such a mouthwatering display of muscularity.
He paused midswing and spun around, hammer raised, chest heaving. “What?”
She could see that he had cotton stuffed into his ears to block out the noise. She pointed at the bookshelves. “More protection!”
“Already patched the leak in the ceiling and that was the real danger. Stand back now.” He raised his hammer.
She grabbed hold of his solid biceps with both of her hands, physically stopping him from swinging. Too late, she realized the inadvisability of touching him.
The shock of contact lanced through her body, reaching her heart and setting it racing.
He looked down at her with a bemused expression.
She dropped her hands.
He was dirty—not just around the edges, ragged fingernails, and such. He wasreallyfilthy. Covered in dirt and plaster dust. Smudges across his cheek. He smelled like sweat and earth.
The men of her acquaintance smelled of hair pomade and brandy.
If he laid his hands on her, he’d leave dirty printson the pale yellow gown her mother had chosen for her to wear today.
How would she explainthat?
Still, she wasn’t going to give an inch, even if he was holding an enormous hammer and towered over her like Vulcan in his forge.
He lowered the hammer to the floor and removed the cotton from his ears. “The books are adequately protected. It’s you who looks the worse for wear. What’s wrong, Lady Beatrice? Why such a cross expression?”
Blast. He was too perceptive. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Then I still have half a wall to pulverize after which there will be a pint of ale with my name on it waiting for me at a dockside tavern.”
“It’s this dratted bargain with my mother.” Beatrice’s shoulders slumped. “It’s working too well. It turns out that all I have to do is pretend to be someone else and suddenly everybody loves me.”
For some reason admitting that brought her perilously close to tears.
For the past two days, she hadn’t been herself at all. She’d been playing a role, and here she was in a space that was entirely free from her mother and the weight of all that pretending had crashed into her chest, just like Wright’s hammer into plaster.
“So you’re not a wallflower anymore.”
“Regrettably. I preferred reading books behind the potted ferns. I hate being the center of attention.”
“Why is that?” He regarded her steadily, his question asked in earnest, as if he truly wanted to know the answer.
She’d noticed that about him. When he asked her a question, he was genuinely interested in her response. There was nothing blasé or disinterested about him.
She was accustomed to speaking with wealthy lords and beautiful ladies who always appeared to be looking for someone more interesting to talk to.
Wright’s conversation, while teasing and often infuriating, was directed wholly at her, and he listened to her when she talked. He was right there with her, not waiting for something better to come along.
It made her want to tell him the truth.
“The Earl of Mayhew is taking an interest in me when he never even knew I existed before now.” She scuffed the toe of her boot against a pile of plaster chunks. “We’ll be together at the opera house tonight, and I’ll have to pretend to hang on his every vainglorious word. The entire world revolves around him, to hear him tell it. I have to listen to his self-aggrandizing stories and pretend to enjoy them because of the bargain I made with my mother, and I loathe myself every second I’m with him. I can’t believe my mother wants me to marry the man.”
