by Lenora Bell
He demonstrated the motion and the nail popped free.
“Oh, so that’s how it’s done. May I try?”
He handed her the crowbar and the claw hammer, and she practiced the movements he’d taught her. She managed to pry the board loose and remove a nail with less difficulty this time.
“Very good. I’ll join you after I have my coffee.”
She set to work, feeling very industrious now, humming bars of Mozart as she pried and denailed the boards. It was difficult, but it wasn’t impossible, with the proper tools.
Ford returned and began moving down the opposite row of water-damaged floorboards. He removed boards much faster than she did, but that was to be expected.
He reached her quickly, setting to work on the adjacent floorboard, their elbows almost touching.
“There’s something so satisfying about the ping of the nails as they slide free, isn’t there?” Beatrice asked. “And then when a whole board is removed—it’s visible progress. It makes me want to continue just for the satisfaction of reaching the end.”
“Try doing this for a whole day in the hot sun on the deck of a ship. You might not like it so much.”
“I’m sure it can become tiresome. But then again smiling at loathsome earls at balls is irritating to no end.”
They worked in tandem for a few minutes, the sound of their breathing mingling with the ping of nails and the scraping of metal against wood. “Doesn’t your father want you to stay in Cornwall and take over as carpenter to my brother?”
“Of course he does. I’m his only child.”
He didn’t elaborate. Very well, she’d have to pry the information out of him like he was a nail stuck in a board.
“Why did you choose the Royal Navy instead of taking over your father’s position?”
“I left home after an altercation with my father. I was young and hotheaded. I wanted to see the world. That village was too small for me. Still is.”
“What did you argue with your father about?”
He sat back on his heels. “If you must know, the fight was about your father, the late duke. He rarely visited the estate in person, but when he did, he made his presence known. He visited our cottage one evening. He was screaming at my father about something and I wanted my father to stand up to him, but my father bowed and scraped and apologized until I flew into a fit of temper. I insulted the old duke, who left in a rage, vowing to have us thrown off his lands.”
He bent back to his work, his hammer ripping nails free, as he spoke of his past. “My father tried to force me to apologize to the duke but I refused. We had a huge fight. He told me that I needed to be realistic, to learn my station in life, and I told him he needed to grow some . . .” He paused, his breathing ragged.
“Bollocks,” she said primly. “Germanic at root, from the Old English beallucas, meaning testicles, deriving from words that mean leather bag, balls, nuts—”
“That’s quite enough etymology, Beatrice.” He smiled briefly, but his face soon clouded over again. “I ran away to the docks and didn’t return to Cornwall for three years.”
Beatrice set down her hammer. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but stopped herself just in time. “My father, the cause of your flight from home, died when I was fourteen. I barely knew him. He was this menacing presence lurking around the edges of my life, disapproving and aloof. How old were you when you ran away?”
“Fifteen. Brash, hotheaded, believing I was invincible.” He gave a short laugh. “I was a handful, and I had to fend for myself on ships full of rough and ready sailors. What were you like at fifteen?”
“Even more awkward than I am now, though that’s difficult to believe, I know. My mother tried her very best to polish me to gracefulness, but I was all knobby knees, sharp elbows, and even sharper opinions. I’ve never been particularly decorous or feminine.”
“You have an economy of motion that I prefer to grace. You’re doing very well at removing this flooring.”
Her heart warmed at his praise. She resumed working. “Fifteen can be a challenging year. My brother Drew, the duke, was kidnapped at the age of fifteen and it changed him. I was only a small child at the time so I didn’t know him well, but I knew that he used to pick me up in his arms and kiss my cheek and after the kidnapping he became distant and withdrawn. I later learned that he lost himself in London’s underworld, searching for oblivion in unhealthy pleasures. After our father died, he retreated to Thornhill House and I barely saw him anymore. I wanted to follow him to Cornwall. I worshipped him.”
“Your brother’s a fair and honorable man. I remember when he arrived to live at Thornhill. My father wrote to me that the old duke was dead and the new one had taken an interest in the estate. His system of crop rotation has done wonders. He’s increased profits for his tenants exponentially and everyone is very loyal to him.”
“Except Gibbons, it would seem.”
“Gibbons never had to worry about where his next meal would come from. He’s made of the same stuff as Foxton—greedy and grasping.”
“What does your mother think about you sailing around the world? She must miss you.”
“There’s always a letter from her waiting for me at every port. Some of my fellow sailors spend all their pay on the fleeting pleasures available around the docks, but I like to visit as many new sights as possible so that I can write back to my mother and describe it for her.”
“Aha!” Beatrice waved her hammer in the air. “I’ve found a vulnerability in that rogue’s armor of yours.”
“I doubt that.”
“You love your mother.”
“Every man should love their mother. She gave them life.”
“I mean that you really love her.”
“I’m not ashamed to admit it. She’ll be coming to London next week to see me off on my next voyage.”
“It must be painful for her to visit London if she was disinherited.”
“She only comes here once a year. She meets with her estranged sister in secret. I’ve never even met my aunt, or my young cousins who live here. Our family was sundered and the two sides can never be rejoined.”
“Well, even so, I think you were lucky to be raised in a family where there was genuine love and feeling. My parents shared nothing but a name and a house.”
“You had every luxury and privilege.”
Beatrice plucked a nail free, welcoming the physical exertion. It kept her from becoming too wistful. She had a specific task, and her heart wasn’t to perform too many maudlin meanderings.
“What are luxuries when there’s no love?”
“Spoken like a lady who’s never had a Christmas morn with no gifts to unwrap.”
“I would have traded my expensive gifts for a Christmastide filled with love and laughter. My father was always absent. When he was home, it was worse than when he wasn’t. And while my mother loves me, it’s a smothering kind of love that seeks to change me. I’m never good enough. In the same way that we’re transforming this bookshop, my mother wants to make me more conventional and presentable. All I want to do is retire to Cornwall and work on my dictionary. What’s so terrible about a solitary life surrounded by books?”
“Sounds a little lonely, that’s all.”
“I could never be lonely surrounded by books.” She’d said the same thing to her friends, and she’d meant it, but now she wasn’t as certain.
Would it be lonely? Was she making a mistake?
When Ford had seen her walking alone in Cornwall, he’d thought she held herself aloof because she believed she was above everyone else.
But now he knew better.
She’d chosen to isolate herself because of the pain of her childhood, and because her mother had attempted to place her inside a box. No one could grow and be happy inside a box.
It flew in the face of everything he thought he knew about the privileged and perfect lives of highborn ladies.
She wasn’t holding herself apart now.
“I’d like to meet your mother,” Beatrice said softly.
Ford nearly struck his thumb with a hammer. Those were dangerous words.
He made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. This conversation was heading for rocky shoals.
He’d thought that she’d hammer her thumb or drive a splinter beneath her nail and that would be the end of it. He hadn’t considered the possibility that a highborn lady who’d never done a real day’s work in her short, pampered life would actually learn to denail boards.
But she’d taken to it easily, learning to move the length of the board and not attempting to lift it free until all of the nails were loosened.
And she looked altogether too enticing working alongside him, wearing those skintight trousers that hugged every one of her slight curves. He could see the shape of her breasts, small and round, under the thin cotton of her shirt. Her hair was tied into a simple knot that could be easily undone. He longed to see her hair unbound, tumbling around her shoulders and glowing in the morning sun.
She worked with a fierce look of concentration on her face, biting her lower lip as she pried a board up in intervals along the length until she arrived at the end.
She picked up the board with both hands and lifted, shimmying it from side to side.
He moved to help her, their shoulders touching. The board lifted clear, and Ford threw it onto the growing pile. They wouldn’t have to replace the whole floor, only the water-damaged boards.
He pulled a tool belt out of the bucket. “This frees up your hands and ensures that all of your tools are at the ready. Lift your arms.”
She set down her hammer and lifted her arms. He resolutely ignored the swell of her breasts while strapping the leather belt around her waist. “It’s too big of course.” He cinched it as tight as it would go. “But it’ll stay up. Your hammer goes here.” He showed her the loop made for the hammer, and she slid it into place.
“How clever. I love it.” She threaded the crowbar through another loop. “Shall we continue?”
Was there any sight more arousing than a beautiful woman wearing a leather tool belt?
Not that he’d ever seen such a sight before. This would be his new benchmark for arousing sights.
Without thinking, because his hands knew what to do and he always kept busy, he began helping her pry another board loose.
They worked side by side, finding the rhythm that worked best, she taking the first nails and moving down the row while he lifted the board, making it easier for her.
She was dirty and disheveled, but there was a new kind of smile on her face, a less guarded one. It made him want to smile back.
It was such a disconcerting sight, this lady with a capital “L” working with him, down on her knees, in the dust and dirt.
He’d never worked with a woman before, much less a woman wearing tight trousers that strained over her rounded bum every time she bent over.
Their hands kept brushing accidentally on purpose.
She paused for a moment, wiping her brow. “It’s hard work.”
“But it’s an honest profession. I come from a long line of carpenters. My father, and his father before him. Most of them were house builders. I’m the first to join the navy as a carpenter.”
His father’s hands were these large gnarled things, swollen and battered. Bruises under the nails. They would be his hands soon enough.
“I’ve never been on a boat before,” she said.
“Now that’s an experience. Standing on the deck of a ship, the vast ocean on every side and you floating in a tiny speck of wood, iron, and pitch—the only thing between you and the briny depths. It’s an awful lot of faith we put in the craftsmanship of man when we go out for months at a time.”
“An awful lot of faith in you, Ford. Have you seen battles?”
“One. And one was enough. I emerged unscathed when others died. They say I saved lives.”
“You’re very resourceful.”
“I’m the man you want to have around in case of an emergency. I think about that sometimes. What if there was a flood, or something catastrophic happened, and civilization was upended. I’d be the one who survived.”
“There’s a word for that—apocalypse, from Church Latin, apocalypsis, meaning revelation. Though that generally refers to the end of the world.”
“I’m not talking about the world ending. I’m talking about some catastrophic natural event that returned civilization to the wilderness. I’d be the one with useful skills. Real skills. Noblemen wouldn’t survive without their servants and their silver tea sets. I never rely on others to do for me. I don’t need anyone or anything.”
“I would find a way to survive. Just look at how I’m learning to remove floorboards.”
“You’re surprisingly useful.”
“Thank you.”
“All right, tell me this, if you were washed ashore on a desert island and you could only take one item with you, what would it be?”
“Are you assessing my likelihood of survival?”
“Yes.”
She pulled a few more nails before answering. “I’d bring a book.”
“Ha.” Ford laughed. “Typical.”
“Well, what would you bring?”
He grabbed his father’s invention from his tool belt and flipped it open. “This versatile tool. It’s all I’d need.”
Beatrice held out her hand and he handed her the tool. “It’s ingenious. I wonder that your father hasn’t patented it—didn’t Isobel say something similar?”
“My father is a dreamer. He’s always concocting these wild schemes, inventing these tools. He’s always so certain that the next one will be the one that earns him a fortune. But they all come to naught. And he’s just a carpenter on your brother’s land. He owns nothing of his own and has no capital for patent applications. This one is his best invention, though.”
Ford placed no trust in dreams or schemes. He believed only what he saw, what he touched with his hands. He was a self-made man.
“I would use the blade to carve wooden spears to use for defense, and to catch wild game and fish to eat. This tool is all I’d need to build us shelter. It even has a fork so that you could eat the food I provided.”
“Oh, so now we’re stranded on the desert island together?”
“That’s right. And the only thing your book would be good for would be to start a fire.”
“That’s not true. I didn’t tell you which book I’d bring with me.”
He raised his brows. “Well?”
“A desert island survival guide.” Her smile was triumphant.
“Being stranded on an island with me might not be so bad. I’d teach you how to swim, how to spear a fish.”
“How do you know I don’t know how to swim?”
He raised his brows higher.
“You’re right,” she admitted. “I don’t know how. Ladies aren’t taught many practical skills. Do you know how to swim?”
“I’d better. I’m a sailor.”
“Isn’t the water dreadfully cold?”
“Not off of Greece. Before the war for Greek independence began, my mates and I would sometimes have time for a swim.”
He stopped working, remembering the hazy, sun-dappled pleasure of it. “The sun painted a sparkling trail across the water that seemed to lead directly to me, water like glass, waves rolling and then breaking closer to shore. I was far out, where land was only a line on the horizon. I dipped my head underwater, and what I heard was a profound silence. It’s peaceful out there, and you float, and your feet could never touch the bottom, and there’s a fear in that but also a freedom.”
“In Cornwall I liked to stand on the cliffs and watch the waves battering the land. I certainly never felt the desire to be tossed about in those stormy seas.”
“Too cold to swim off that coast. I prefer Greece. Or maybe our desert island.”
“It does sound enchanting. Though I’d have to bring paper, pens, and ink to continue my dictionary.”
“No dictionaries on our desert island. No pens and ink. You’d have to chisel your words onto stone, write on the side of a cave, memorize your words and pass them down to your children.”
“I’m not going to have any children.”
He lowered his hammer. “How do you know that?”
“Because I’m never going to marry. Have you forgotten?”
“I haven’t forgotten. You’d have no talent for it. You wouldn’t want anyone telling you what to do.”
“That’s it.” She wrenched a section of board out too hard and the wood split down the middle. “Drat. You won’t be able to salvage this one.”
“Happens sometimes. Don’t worry. But if you’re tired you should take a rest.”
“Why don’t you rest, as well? We could have a cup of tea. Mrs. Kettle isn’t here yet but I think I could manage.”
“I have to finish—this floor isn’t going to replace itself. I never leave a job half-finished.”
And he never sat around sipping tea with his work partners. Or dreaming about being stranded on desert islands together.
Because his work partners had never been slim-hipped young ladies in tight trousers that left little to the imagination.
And her shirt left even less unseen. She would have to choose a threadbare linen shirt, one that had been laundered so many times it was as fine as silk.
He could clearly see her nipples. He was too busy looking at them to watch what he was doing. He lifted a board so forcefully that it flew up and smacked him in the forehead.
“Ford! What did you do that for? Here, come and sit down.” She took his hand and led him toward a chair. “You’re bleeding.”
He wiped the blood away from his forehead with his shirtsleeve. “It’s only a scratch.”