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A shadow passed across his face, or maybe it was just a smudge of dirt she hadn’t noticed before.
“I’ve come here to escape lecturing mothers and pompous earls, if only for a few hours.”
“Here.” He held the wooden handle of the hammer toward her. “Take a swing. It’ll make you feel better.”
“I can’t lift such a heavy hammer, I’m too small.”
“You can lift a sledgehammer and you can swing it. Trust me.”
He lifted her hand and wrapped it around the handle of the hammer. A tremor began in her belly like the fronds of an ostrich feather waving atop a bonnet.
He wrapped her other hand over the top until she held the hammer with both hands. It was warm from his touch and solid in her grip.
He moved behind her and his arms bracketed her elbows, positioning her grip lower on the hammer. “Widen your stance. Bend your knees slightly.”
Now she really wouldn’t be able to lift it—not with his arms hugging her and turning her knees to jelly.
He removed her spectacles and set them high on a nearby shelf. “You don’t need these. It’s a large target and I wouldn’t want your spectacles to fly off and be damaged.”
He stepped away. “Now, aim for the wall.”
She swung the hammer at the wall and only made the smallest of dents.
“Is that all you’ve got? You won’t achieve much if you hit like a lady.”
Like a lady.
She’d been behaving like a docile and decorous lady for three days now, and she was sick to death of the deception. She hefted the hammer and heaved with all her might. A chunk of plaster flew into the air on the other side of the large gash in the wall.
If her mother could see her now, her mouth would gape open.Lady Beatrice, wielding a hammer is not a suitable activity for a lady. You’ll damage your gown. You’ll damage your reputation.
“I don’t care,” Beatrice said aloud, answeringthe voice in her head. “I don’t care about my reputation.” She swung with everything in her soul. A larger chunk of plaster disintegrated beneath the blunt iron of the hammer.
“I’m not docile, or decorous, or obliging.” With each word she blasted the wall.
“That’s better. Now you’ve got the swing of it,” Wright said.
Sweat dripped down the back of her gown. It would be ruined but she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was obliterate her mother’s voice in her mind. Drown it out forever.
“I’m Beastly Beatrice.” She slammed the hammer into the wall again and again. The hole grew bigger. She blew her hair away from her forehead and redoubled her efforts. “I hate balls.” She smashed another chunk. “And ball gowns. And puffed-up pillocks of earls.”
“That’s right. Break free and live a little!”
She raised the hammer again, pretending that she was one of the mighty Amazon warrior princesses that the Duchess of Ravenwood had given a lecture about to the League, and brought it down so forcefully that she stumbled backward.
He folded his arms around her, taking some of the weight of the hammer in his hands. “Easy there, tiger.”
“I’m not a well-behaved lady,” she said forcefully. “I’m prickly, bookish Beatrice.”
“My friends call me Ford,” he said, his voice rumbling low in her ears.
She rested against his solid chest. Were they friends now? They were certainly in intimate proximity. “I find that I like hammering, Ford. It’s very freeing, isn’t it?”
“Try doing it for a whole day. You might think otherwise. But, yes, smashing things can be liberating. That’s why I gave you the hammer.”
Did he know what his touch did to her? His breath tickling her neck, his arms around her. The heavy hard hammer in her hands and the large solid man behind her, cradling her gently.
Her breath coming in gasps from the exertion and from his nearness. She wasn’t thinking anymore, only feeling.
