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Opening his appointment book, he struck through a fortnight’s worth of engagements, then wrote Gwen Bevans beneath Tuesday’s entry and underlined it twice.
CHAPTER 3
Gwen
“I’m telling you there’s sap pockets running straight through! It’s no good!” Georgie bellowed from the pit, smacking his palm against the timber above him for good measure.
Balancing atop the massive oak tree they were sawing, Lewis's face had gone beet red. “And I’m telling you, the defect is superficial, it is. If you’ll shut your gob and pull your stroke, you’ll see for yourself.”
Gwen’s arrival had done nothing to stop the squabbling.
“You’ll have us waste good time when we’re already behind just to see I was right in the end. Mark me.”
“Ten minutes labor,” Lewis growled. “And worth it to avoid throwing away sound oak because you mistake a bit of bleed for spoiled core.”
“Gentlemen,” Gwen cut them off, already headed towards the ladder that would take her into the pit. “I could hear you clear across the yard.”
Georgie lunged for the ladder just as Gwen planted her boot on the top rung and began her descent, skirts rucked up in one hand.
Lewis let out a strangled sound. “I’ll go down, ma’am. You needn’t trouble yourself; I’ll—”
She skipped the final rungs and landed, catlike, in the uneven dirt, then glanced up to find Lewis, mouth parted, staring down at her.
She gentled her tone. “It’s no matter, Lewis. Truly, it’s better this way. Agnes let slip how that knee’s been troubling you again. You really ought to let me have the physician take a look.”
With her gentle reproach, his embarrassment increased tenfold, dull red blooming over his weather roughened cheeks. “Knee’s just fine. And you shouldn’t be down in that pit when there’s men about to do it.”
Gwen flashed him a grin before turning her attention to the timber. It was a familiar argument between her and some of the older craftsmen, what she should and should not be doing. Gwen knew their objections had less to do with her sex than the fact they had known her since she was small enough to trail after her father through the yard, so she made an effort to curb her irritation whenever she felt it begin to simmer. To them Gwen would always be that lanky girl with perpetually filthy knees, no matter her five-and-thirty years, and the thought of her climbing into the lumber pit or taking up tools alongside grown men inspired a rush of wholly unnecessary—if rather endearing—paternal concern.
Needless to say, Lewis would not be at all pleased with what would come next.
Gwen swept a finger into the wedge, pale sawdust clinging to her sleeves. Squinting into the shadows, she studied the sap pocket, which glimmered faintly even in the muted light. At this juncture, either man might be correct—there was only one way to know for certain. “Make the cut, Georgie,” she said. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
The men looked at one another, a clear but utterly silent battle passing between them over who would attempt to lure her back up out of the pit.
She sighed shortly. “It’s sawdust. Not hot tar. Get on with it, then.”
Lewis grimaced and gave a cautious tug at his end. Flecks of woodchips shimmied free. A few more passes through the timber, and no amount of care on his part could spare her the shower of sawdust that poured down.
A quarter hour later, they had their answer.
Harry's familiar throat-clearing interrupted the inevitable "see, I was right" needling as two shadows fell overtop Gwen's frame. The sound pulled her gaze around, then up, then higher still, sliding past Harry to the unfamiliar man at his side. Gwen blinked sawdust from her lashes, then brushed the back of her hand across them to clear the last stubborn grains.
With the sun thwarting her efforts to properly see the man, she could make out little beyond his general shape—tall and broad, dressed in clothing that looked expensive and had no business in a shipyard. A sharp south-easterly breeze caught his dark hair and sent it fluttering about, but he was quick to smooth it back into place, as though accustomed to its untidiness and faintly annoyed that, despite his efforts, it would not simply obey and remain flat.
She shimmied up the ladder while circumspectly attempting to spit a woodchip from her mouth. The blasted thing clung there as if it had been pressed in with paste, and it took several unladylike—and far less circumspect—efforts before she finally dislodged it. Her eyes met Harry’s as she crested the top, and he took a half step forward. For a horrifying instant, Gwen thought he might scoop her up beneath the armpits, as though she were a child, and deposit her neatly on her feet.
Clearly, that was the sort of mortifying flourish this introduction demanded. She broke eye contact and dashed to the top, then busied herself, shaking debris from her skirts as if it were completely ordinary—and entirely unobjectionable—for a woman to be covered in sawdust.
“Gwen—” Harry began.
Gwen froze in her efforts, still frowning at the woodchips caught up in her plait, which had tumbled down from the haphazard knot she'd pinned in place that morning .
“This is Mr Michael Anson, the consultant we discussed. Mr Anson, Mrs Gwendolyn Bevans.”
Releasing the tail of her plait, she raised her chin and smiled brightly up at him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr Anson. You come most highly recommended.”
He bowed, accepting the praise without comment, though the knowing glint in his eye suggested he understood precisely what sort of recommendation she meant. He was, after all, employed entirely for his lack of scruples.
