Page 34 of Her Impeccable Scoundrel
Grooms ran to saddle their mounts.
“Did the downpour last night cause this?” Graeme asked.
“I saw that drain. It shouldn’t have.”
“Right, then.” Graeme mounted and followed Jarrow out of the stable yard.
Blythe and Louisa Stockwell each hefted a heavy basket, while behind them, Joseph, their man of all work, trudged along carrying three shovels and grumbling.
Rupert, one of the young grooms, had brought word that the lower fields had been flooded. It had taken longer than Blythe wished to settle the children with Hermione and the nursemaid, find shovels, and organize food.
They came through a thicket and saw the field.
Tears sprang to her eyes. A sloping field of young budding plants rolled down and disappeared into a shallow lake.
Joseph swore quietly and Louisa gasped. Blythe choked down the moisture flooding her throat.
In the distance, they saw the men wielding shovels. The weather had turned and the day was unseasonably warm, the sun high in the sky. Some of them had shed not only their coats but their shirts as well.
“They’re sure to be hungry,” Louisa said, her quiet voice restoring equanimity to the moment, as usual.
“Yes,” Blythe said, and led the way through the higher ground, dodging the young plants so as not to squash hope for at least a small harvest.
With their attention focused on the task at hand, the men did not see them coming. But the tableau spread before them became clearer as they approached.
Four horses grazed languidly. There were seven—no eight men—with shovels, digging. Five of them had stripped down to their trousers.
Blythe halted. Louisa paused beside her and put a hand up to shield her eyes.
“I see I won’t have to wash mud out of my man’s shirt,” she said. “And is that Mr. Jarrow? What would his mother say if she saw him like this?”
Blythe heard the humor in her voice, but her heart pounded wildly and she couldn’t look away.
“That’s Mr. Sanders from Holly Farm and his son,” Louisa said. “But who is that tall fellow? He has almost as fine a back as my Samuel.”
Yes. It was a fine back; much finer than Archie’s had been. She’d never imagined anything so muscular under the linen and wool of his shirt and coats.
And he was digging, wielding a shovel with men who worked the land—his land.
Stockwell would certainly, after so many years working for Archie, find this a novelty. For her part, she could stand here a while and watch the play of the muscles across his back.
He turned and a ripple of lust went through her. His chest was just as enticing, with its sprinkling of brown hair narrowing down to his waistband.
Graeme thrust the shovel into the wet ground, wiped his hands on his trousers, and went for his shirt.
Blythe hastily turned to Louisa.
“That’s Graeme Blatchfield,” she said.
Louisa’s eyes widened. “Lord Chilcombe? What is he like now?”
“You remember him?”
Louisa had been a young maid at Bluebelle Lodge before Blythe met Archie. Perhaps she’d seen Graeme when he called there, and later, at Blythe’s wedding.
“Of course. He’s the one who raised the alarm on your, er, indiscretion, and caused all the fuss.”
Shame rose in her. Despite the years that had passed, she still remembered the night Graeme had stumbled upon her and Archie in the dark garden.
