He huffed. “At least wait until the boys get a bit more digging done around that bush before you start pulling on it. I won’t have the young miss straining herself because of their lack of preparation.”
“Of course.” I waved Walter over. He came jogging up to us, shovel in hand. “Can you loosen the roots of this gorse?” I asked.
Walter nodded and gave me one of his toothy grins, then stuck the shovel into the ground and jumped on it with all his weight. Mr. Harris gave the boy a satisfied nod, then left to help Anders several yards away.
Footsteps sounded on the path behind us. In only a week of waiting to hear David join us every day, I’d become very familiar with the rhythm of his gait. I didn’t turn around, instead keeping my eyes trained on Walter. I always needed a moment for the excitement to settle before I met David’s gaze. It was a delicate balance we had to keep as husband and wife.
“Let me spell you for a bit, Walter.” David’s playful, spirited voice made it impossible not to glance at him. His coat and jacket were gone, and he was in his shirt and waistcoat. The waistcoat looked to be an older one, made for warmth instead of style. He wore thick work gloves with his shirtsleeves rolled up just above his wrists.
David had come to work. Images of his powerful arms swinging his leggett on the Walkers’ roof flooded my mind. It wasn’t gentlemanly to work so deftly with his hands, but his skill at it made me feel sorry for any young wife not fortunate enough to have the pleasure of watching her husband handle tools and work up a sweat.
His hands gripped the shovel as he ruffled Walter’s hair and bumped him out of the way. Almost immediately, the shovel hit one of the strong roots that had prevented Julia from removing the gorse earlier.
David lifted the shovel, slammed it into the root, and jumped onto the blade with both feet. What little bit I could see of his arms, just above the top of his gloves, flexed as he pushed the handle of the shovel straight down. The root snapped under his weight, and the shovel sank deep into the earth. I knew I shouldn’t spend the afternoon watching David shovel dirt and pull bushes out of the ground—especially after I’d chided Mr. Harris about allowing Julia and me to do our part—but I also couldn’t look away.
He worked the shovel from side to side, loosening the earth around the roots in steady increments. The bush groaned and lifted in response. Walter and Anders were only a few years younger than David, but those years had added a strength and power into David’s lean frame that the Mortensen boys couldn’t match.
Julia turned to me and opened her mouth to speak, but then stopped. She tipped her head to one side and raised an eyebrow.
Immediately, heat rushed to my cheeks. My appreciation of David’s vigor must have been written on my face. “What is it?” I whispered in her direction.
She took a step closer to me. “If I mentioned the way your eyes like to devour him while he is working during dinner tonight, I wonder what David would say.”
A strangled laugh escaped my lips. “Eyes can’t devour someone.”
“It seems yours are trying very hard to do just that.”
“No, they are trying very hardnotto. And your brother doesn’t need anyone telling him he looks decent while working the land. I’m certain he already knows it.”
“He spends most of his time with me, Mr. Allen, and some of the tenant families’ sons. He might need someone to tell him.”
“Well, it won’t be me.”
“Would it be so terrible for my brother’s wife to find him handsome?”
“Julia.” We’d had too many talks about this while working. It was unfair of her to say things like that, and I’d told her so every single time.
“You and David can lie to yourselves if you want to. I never agreed to do the same.”
“We aren’t lying to ourselves,” I hissed. “We are keeping to our agreement.”
“And your agreement included not enjoying watching him work?” she asked.
I gritted my teeth and didn’t respond. If Julia had noticed the way I couldn’t keep my eyes off David, then I might as well enjoy watching him while I could. Because she was right, our agreement hadn’t forbidden it. In some ways, it encouraged it, especially when we had an audience. David moved on to another stubborn bush. At the moment, there were no roots to break through—only dirt—but even his less-forceful shovel strokes didn’t take away from the fact that his arms flexed with each movement or his hair flopped forward until he blew it away with an exasperated huff or dragged his forearm along his forehead to get it out of his eyes.
His body was compact in a way that spoke of muscles ready to spring and lithe movements waiting just below the surface. When we sat still at dinner or when he wrote letters with us in the drawing room, all that power was buried beneath the surface, but I could always feel it, humming and waiting for him to unleash it with a kick to an unsuspecting rock on our walks or on bushes that refused to give up their place in the ground.
He was achingly attractive.
How in the world had I landed myself such a specimen of a husband?
That answer was obvious, of course. I was destitute, and he was kind.
He glanced up and caught my gaze. I don’t know if I was making the same face Julia had teased me about earlier, but the head of the shovel landed in the ground with less force than its earlier blows, he put no force behind it, and gravity alone pulled it to the earth.
He took two heavy breaths—from exertion, certainly—and raised one solitary eyebrow in my direction. “Am I doing this correctly? You look concerned.”
Concerned? I looked concerned?
