Chapter Two The Man at Her Door #2
Mary Beth remained above the road while Ambrose and his assistant traced the wall eastward. When he finally came back up the path, he removed his coat and carried it over one arm. His shirtsleeves were rolled twice above his wrists.
Mary Beth disliked the accuracy with which she noticed this.
“Now the channel,” he said.
“I know where it is.”
“I was afraid you might.”
She led him uphill.
The old drainage line crossed a rough strip of meadow behind the quarry road. Grass had grown over most of the buried stonework, leaving only occasional edges visible after heavy rain. Mary Beth took him to the place she had opened that morning.
Ambrose knelt beside the shallow cut.
The spade remained where she had left it.
He picked it up.
“This yours?”
“The estate’s.”
“You know what I meant.”
“Yes.”
He drove the blade into the wet ground, levered up a square of turf, and exposed the stone beneath. Another cut revealed packed silt where an open joint should have carried water.
Mary Beth crouched opposite him.
“What do you think?”
“I think your mason charged you for work he did not do.”
“I had reached that daring conclusion myself.”
“I also think the channel is too small.”
That silenced her.
“It has served for more than a century.”
“So had the wall.”
Mary Beth sat back on her heels.
Ambrose scraped mud from the stone with the edge of the spade.
“The estate has changed,” he said. “More roof area. More hard road. Field drains that were not here when this was built. Water reaches the slope faster than it did when your great-grandfather was worrying about Napoleon.”
“My great-grandfather worried mainly about cards and actresses.”
“Then the water had an advantage.”
The answer caught a laugh out of her.
Ambrose glanced at her, and the humor left his face.
This time he did not smile.
His attention settled too directly.
Mary Beth became aware of the absurd intimacy of their position: both crouched in wet grass, separated by a ditch scarcely two feet wide, her skirt gathered carelessly around her boots, his sleeves turned back, mud on his hands.
The air between them seemed to contract.
Ambrose looked down first.
He drove the spade into the earth again.
“We need the estate plans.”
Mary Beth stood a little too quickly.
“Of course.”
“And every drainage alteration made in the last thirty years.”
“I can give you twenty-two.”
“Why twenty-two?”
“That is when my husband’s father began keeping proper engineering accounts.”
“Your husband?”
“My late husband.”
Ambrose’s hand stopped on the spade.
“I am sorry.”
“You did not kill him.”
“No.”
“Then you need not apologize.”
He studied her, perhaps deciding whether the answer concealed grief or merely discouraged sympathy.
Mary Beth let him wonder.
Her marriage had not been tragic, which made it harder to explain neatly.
Her husband had not beaten her, squandered Blackthorn, or kept a mistress in London.
He had simply believed, with complete confidence, that a wife’s mind was a pleasant household ornament: useful when agreeing with him and tiresome when applied independently.
He had died after nine years of marriage and left her the manor because there had been no child and because the property, unlike the Blackthorn family’s lesser holdings, had been his to leave.
Mary Beth had mourned him.
She had also discovered she could breathe.
Both things were true. Ambrose returned to the channel.
“Who has authority to approve the work?” he asked.
“I do.”
“I mean contracts.”
“So do I.”
“Trustees?”
“No.”
“Solicitor?”
“He reviews what I ask him to review.”
Ambrose sat back and regarded her.
“You own Blackthorn outright.”
“I wondered how long it would take.”
“I was told Mrs. Blackthorn required an engineer. I assumed someone else would have final authority.”
“A Mr. Blackthorn somewhere nearby, waiting for the numbers to matter?”
“Yes.”
At least he had the grace not to decorate the answer.
Mary Beth brushed soil from one glove.
“There was. There is not now. Blackthorn is mine.”
Ambrose nodded.
“Then I owe you an apology.”
“For assuming I was decorative?”
“For assuming you were not the person who would decide.”
That was better than she expected.
“Accepted.”
He rose and handed her the spade.
He offered the spade by the handle, leaving her room to take it without brushing his hand.
Mary Beth noticed that too.
They spent the next hour tracing the channel westward. Ambrose used a thin steel rod to probe through turf at intervals while Mary Beth supplied what she knew of old field boundaries and later drainage work. He stopped questioning why she knew things. Instead he began asking her directly.
When was the upper pasture tiled?
1871.
Had the west barn roof been enlarged?
Twice. The last time in 1878.
Where did the spring run in dry weather?
Below the alder stand, unless August was unusually hot.
How often did the tenant road flood before this year?
Once badly in eleven years, and that had followed snowmelt rather than rain.
By the time they reached the old quarry edge, Ambrose had ceased directing questions through the steward even when the man rejoined them.
Mary Beth pretended not to be pleased.
At the quarry, Ambrose stopped beside a broken boundary stone and stared across the cut.
“You know this place,” she said.
He took longer to answer than usual.
“My father worked Calder Moor quarry. Blackthorn bought stone there.”
“So did half the county.”
“Yes.”
“Were you a quarryman?”
“When I was young.”
“How young?”
His eyes came back to her.
“You ask many questions.”
“You have been doing it all afternoon.”
“I am being paid to.”
“Not yet.”
That nearly earned another smile.
“Fourteen,” he said. “Full time by fifteen.”
Mary Beth glanced at his hands again. Some scars were pale and old; one near the thumb had the smooth shine of a deep cut long healed.
“And from there to railways?”
“Eventually.”
“That word usually conceals the interesting part.”
“It conceals a long part.”
“You may tell me when it becomes relevant to my drainage.”
“I will try to survive the suspense.”
That dry edge beneath the severity surfaced again.
Mary Beth liked it far too much.
The sun was lowering by the time they returned toward the house. Men had already placed new braces against the questionable section of wall. A wagon waited to move the nearest cottage family to relatives on higher ground. Ambrose inspected the work before allowing anyone to leave the site.
He corrected the angle of one brace himself.
No one argued with him, and Mary Beth understood why.
He never raised his voice or staged authority. He simply knew what should happen next, and the men around him sensed it.
Benedict possessed authority because every room had been arranged to give it to him before he entered.
Ambrose Tavener appeared to have built his from nothing and carried it with him.
Mary Beth tried to dismiss the comparison. It followed her all the way back to the terrace.
Inside, the butler had lit lamps in the morning room and laid out tea that had long since gone cold. Estate maps covered one end of the table. Ambrose removed his muddy boots at the side entrance despite Mary Beth’s assurance that the floor had survived worse.
“Your housekeeper will disagree,” he said.
“My housekeeper disagrees with most of my decisions.”
“Then she sounds competent.”
“She is indispensable.”
He entered in stockinged feet carrying his boots in one hand.
Mary Beth stared.
“What?” he asked.
“I was imagining Benedict Sablehurst doing that.”
“Should I know who he is?”
“No.”
“Then why imagine him?”
Mary Beth turned toward the maps.
“No reason at all.”
Ambrose set down his boots by the door and came to the table.
For the next forty minutes they worked.
The only word for the next forty minutes was work. There was no social call, no flirtation, none of the strange fencing men sometimes attempted with Mary Beth after hearing stories and deciding to test whether she was as improper as advertised.