Chapter Three Mud on Her Hem #2
She held the far end of a measuring chain when asked, answered questions about old drains, sent a farm cart around the closed road, and listened while Ambrose explained the level readings to one of his men. She even remained above the stakes.
Then they moved west.
The ground there appeared harmless: a broad green shoulder descending toward the beck, interrupted by a shallow scar where runoff had stripped away turf. Ambrose walked ahead with the leveling staff. Mary Beth followed several yards behind.
“Stay on the ridge,” he called without turning.
“I am on the ridge.”
“The other ridge.”
“You have become very particular about ridges.”
“This one is undercut.”
She saw the exposed soil then, a dark crescent beneath the turf. What appeared solid from above had been eaten hollow by water.
Mary Beth moved left.
Her right boot sank to the ankle.
“Do not move,” Ambrose said.
She almost laughed.
“A little late for that advice.”
“Mary Beth.”
It was the first time he had used her Christian name.
The laughter disappeared.
He had not seemed to notice what he said. His attention was on the ground between them.
“Put your weight on your left foot.”
“I know how to step out of mud.”
“This is not mud. The turf beneath your right side has separated.”
She looked down.
A thin crack ran from the toe of her boot toward the eroded edge.
Ambrose came toward her slowly.
“I thought you said not to move.”
“You should not.”
“Only me?”
“At present, yes.”
He reached her and held out one hand.
Mary Beth considered refusing on principle.
The ground shifted under her, and principle became less attractive. She took his hand.
“Step toward me,” he said.
She did.
Her trapped boot came free with a wet sucking sound. At the same instant the turf beneath it broke away.
Mary Beth lurched forward, and Ambrose caught her.
The rescue had no elegance to it.
One arm went hard around her waist while his other hand closed over her forearm. Momentum carried them two steps backward before he found solid ground.
Mary Beth’s palm landed flat against his chest.
For a heartbeat the entire morning reduced itself to contact.
His waistcoat was rough beneath her glove. His body beneath it was not. She felt the rise of his breath, the strength in the arm holding her, the heat of him despite the cool air.
Her skirt pressed against his legs.
Ambrose went absolutely still, and so did she.
They were too close for politeness to disguise anything.
Mary Beth lifted her face. His eyes had changed enough to stop her next remark.
There was no professional concern in them now. No calculation of drainage, soil, load, or risk.
Only a man holding a woman he wanted.
The certainty of it traveled through her with humiliating speed.
His hand remained at the small of her back.
Mary Beth could have stepped away.
She did not.
Ambrose’s gaze dropped once, briefly, to her mouth.
The gesture was so small she might have imagined it.
She had not.
“You may release me,” she said.
Her voice sounded unlike itself. Ambrose removed his arm immediately.
The absence of it felt colder than the morning.
“Are you hurt?”
“Only in my dignity.”
“That appears durable.”
She gave him a flat look.
He almost smiled.
She looked down at her skirt. Mud streaked the hem nearly to her knee.
“My maid will hold you personally responsible.”
“I warned you.”
“And now I no longer feel the least guilty about her blaming you.”
Ambrose walked to the edge where the turf had given way and crouched to examine the cavity beneath.
Mary Beth remained where she was until she trusted her legs not to betray her.
One of the men approached from the upper line.
Ambrose’s voice became businesslike before the man was close enough to hear. He ordered a second set of stakes, then had the soft section marked off twenty feet farther inland.
Mary Beth watched the transformation with mixed irritation and admiration.
Five minutes earlier he had been looking at her mouth.
Now he was discussing subsurface washout as though mouths had never been invented.
She decided two could play that game.
“How far does it run?” she asked.
Ambrose glanced at her. “We will open a test pit above it.”
“Today?”
“Today.”
“Then I shall see it.”
“From above the stakes.”
“You are becoming repetitive.”
“You are creating the need.”
They worked until noon.
The survey confirmed what Ambrose had feared. Water had been running beneath the surface along an old buried line, escaping through broken joints and carrying fine soil toward the retaining wall. The collapse was larger underground than it appeared from the road.
There was good news too. The damage seemed to stop short of the cottages. A temporary bypass could be cut across the west field without the steepest part of the quarry track, provided Mary Beth was willing to sacrifice a strip of pasture for several months.
She agreed before Ambrose finished explaining.
“It will ruin the turf.”
“Grass grows.”
“You may lose part of next year’s grazing there.”
“The tenants need the road this year.”
He watched her for a moment, then wrote the decision in his book.
Mary Beth wondered whether he had expected an argument over money.
She wondered why his approval mattered.
At luncheon, Ambrose remained with his men near the site. Mary Beth returned to the house, changed her ruined skirt, and discovered a note from Benedict waiting on the salver in the hall.
He had heard about the collapse and offered to send his estate mason.
Mary Beth read the note twice.
There was nothing objectionable in it. Benedict’s handwriting was elegant, his concern properly expressed, his offer generous.
She disliked it anyway.
Perhaps because Ambrose had not once offered to send someone more suitable to manage Blackthorn in her place.
Mary Beth wrote a polite refusal.
At three she went back outside.
The men were working above the retaining wall. Ambrose was nowhere among them.
She asked where he had gone.