‘Mr Thorpe thinks that he owes me a debt. He doesn’t, but I’m glad for his help anyway. You see, that was where my accident happened, in his workshop.’
‘A jet workshop?’ Arthur drew his brows together.
‘Yes. You see, a grinding wheel revolves about nine hundred times a minute. It needs a lot of water and sometimes the stone cracks under the pressure.’
‘That’s what happened?’
She nodded. ‘I was standing next to the grinding wheel when a piece splintered off and hit me in the face. Right here.’ She pointed to the arch of her cheekbone. ‘I was lucky it missed my eye.’
He looked sombre for a moment and then reached a hand up. ‘May I?’
‘If you want.’ She nodded, fighting the instinct to retreat as he pressed his fingers against the damaged skin.
‘Did it hurt?’ His voice sounded softer.
‘Very much at the time.’ Her mouth turned dry as his thumb trailed a path down the side of her face. Apart from her mother and the doctor, no one else had ever touched her scar. ‘But not any more. Except sometimes, when I sleep on that side, it wakes me.’
‘I don’t understand.’ His brows were drawn together so tightly he looked almost fierce. ‘What were you doing so close to a grinding wheel? Accidents like that shouldn’t happen.’
‘But they do, far more often than they should. It’s a dangerous process, but we shouldn’t have been there in the first place.’
‘We?’
‘Yes.’ Her heart started to race all of a sudden. ‘My fiancé took me.’
Chapter Ten
Frances tipped her head to one side so that Arthur’s hand fell away from her face. For some reason, she didn’t want him to still be touching her when she told him about Leo.
‘You were engaged?’ His expression didn’t alter though his gaze seemed to darken.
‘Yes, for all of a month. It was several years ago.’
‘Who to?’
‘Leo Fairfax.’
‘Fairfax?’
‘Yes.’ She blinked at the sudden strident tone of his voice. ‘Do you know him?’
‘I used to.’
‘Well, we were engaged. I was only seventeen, but it was a very good match. Everyone said so. His father was a merchant like mine.’
‘So it wasn’t a love match?’
‘No-o...’ she hesitated ‘...although I tried to persuade myself otherwise. I was young and I still believed in romance, but really it was all arranged.’ She swallowed, feeling as though there were a knot in her chest that was tightening as she spoke. ‘He knew all about my interests, though he called them my funny little hobbies just like everyone else. We got engaged very quickly, too quickly, but it made my parents happy, and then...well, he decided it would be fun for us to visit a jet workshop on my birthday. Mr Thorpe didn’t want to let us in, but Leo insisted. We were only there five minutes before it happened.’ The knot was painfully tight now, but she fought against it. ‘I think perhaps the boy at the wheel was nervous about us standing so close, but it was an accident. I didn’t blame him, but Leo...’
He lifted an eyebrow when she faltered. ‘He did?’
‘Yes.’ She swallowed. ‘He blamed everyone except himself. Poor Mr Thorpe was horrified by what had happened, the poor man, but at least he had the good sense to summon a doctor. Leo wanted a policeman instead. He just stood there ranting, threatening to prosecute everyone, but I refused to allow it. That was the beginning of the end for our engagement.’
‘Surely he didn’t break it off because you disagreed with him?’
‘Oh, no, I was the one who broke it off. To my mother’s enduring dismay, I might add. It wasn’t because we argued either. He was just so horrified by my scar, so much that he could barely stand to look at me. I think he was trying to find a way to break our engagement without seeming dishonourable, but in the end the whole situation became too embarrassing for both of us. He was relieved when I offered him a way out.’
‘I’m sorry.’