Page 12 of The Earl She Once Saved

The older man grinned. “Yes, my lady.”

They worked and the morning seemed to lose its edges. There was only mud, water and the heavy drag of wet earth. Verity directed the relief channel farther south, where the land fell naturally away from the wheat. Twice she changed the angle when the water began cutting too deeply into the bank. She helped haul the first hurdle into position herself, skirts dark with mud nearly to the knee.

Rafe did not just stand watching. That annoyed her, too.

He removed his coat, rolled his sleeves and went into the water beside the men without ceremony. No one asked him to. For some time, no one spoke to him either. It would have been easier to be angry with him if he were acting the proper part of the duke.

Then one of the hurdles shifted under the pressure of the current.

“Hold there,” Verity called.

Rafe caught it.

“Henshaw, turf against the lower side. More than that. Pack it hard.”

Rafe braced his shoulder against the hurdle while the water surged around his boots. Verity looked away. She expected uselessness, simply because two brothers had to be alike. Finding him to be useless would have been easier.

By afternoon the rain stopped. A thin, watery light appeared behind the clouds, turning every flooded hollow silver. Steam rose faintly from the horses where they stood under the hedge. The men still looked to Verity before doing anything: where to cut, where to shore, and which field could safely take the overflow.

No one looked to Rafe for the simple fact that Verity had proven herself to be judge and jury in all matters, solving issues fairly. He appeared neither offended nor surprised. That troubled her more than if he had demanded obedience.

By dusk, the water had begun to fall. The wheat remained sodden, but most of it stood. Verity climbed the bank with mud clinging heavily to her boots and every muscle in her back protesting.

Henshaw surveyed the repaired gap. “That’ll hold.”

“It had better.”

“It will,” he assured her.

She looked over the field once more. Tomorrow, there would be damage to reckon. There would be seed lost, labor required and perhaps three acres to rework if the roots had been drowned too long.

But the field was not lost. For today, that was enough.

They mounted in the first blue-gray of evening. For nearly a mile, neither spoke.

“Do you see?” she asked without offering an explanation.

Rafe glanced across at her. “That sounds ominous.”

“You were not needed.”

His brows lifted.

“The weir is repaired. The men knew what they were doing. I knew what was required. Edgeworth has managed such disasters before without a male Thornlow standing in the mud to supervise it.”

He shrugged. “I did very little supervising.”

“You stood in the mud.”

“I believed that was included in the accusation.”

She looked ahead. “You need not follow me every time something happens upon the estate.”

“No.”

For several strides she thought that was agreement.

Then he added, “But I shall.”