he swung off his cloak and slung it over the rough wood of the gate. He hung his hat over the gatepost and pulled off his frock coat.
“What are you doing?” Her eyes widened.
His coat joined his cloak over the gate. He was undoing the buttons of his waistcoat. “It would seem,” he said, “that there is only one man available to do the job.”
Marged snapped her teeth together when she realized that she was gaping. “Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no, you don’t. I don’t want your help. Get off my land.”
He looked at her coolly as he rolled up one immaculately white shirtsleeve above his elbow. “The last time I checked, Marged,” he said, “it was my land.”
“I have paid my rent on it,” she said. “I was not even a day late.”
But she had lost her audience. He was striding out into the field. His boots were so highly polished that he could probably see his face in them when he bent down, she thought. And he was walking into a bare field with them? His trousers were dark and obviously very expensive and hugged his legs well enough to show that they lacked nothing in shape or muscle. His shirt was flapping in the breeze but was anchored at his very slim waist, where it was tucked into his trousers. Even when the breeze died for a moment, the breadth of his back and shoulders prevented the shirt from collapsing about him. The hair on his arms was as dark as that on his head.
Marged caught the direction of her thoughts and snapped her teeth together once more. She strode after him. This was her farm and this was her job. But by the time she came up to him, he was already bending down and picking up stones and tossing them into the wagon that she would have the horse pull away when the task was done or when it was full. Well, she thought vengefully, leaning down beside him and resuming her work without a word, she hoped he would get filthy. She hoped that his back would get so sore from the unaccustomed manual labor that he would be unable to straighten up when he was finished. She hoped he would never come back, for fear that she would have some other heavy task awaiting him.
And damn him, he was moving faster than she. And he was picking up two stones with each hand, except for the larger ones, as Eurwyn had used to be able to do.
She could not believe how quickly they finished. They worked for perhaps a couple of hours, stopping only at the end of every second row to drink from the water jar she had brought out with her after luncheon, not speaking a word to each other. And it was done. She had expected to work until dark and even then perhaps not be quite finished.
And then, when they were back in the yard together, she watched as he prepared one of the horses and led it out to the field, hitched it to the wagon, and led it to the stone pile, which he must have seen for himself at one corner of the distant pasture. Eurwyn had used the stones to build some walls. His father before him had used them to build the pigpen.
Marged was tempted while he was gone to rush into the house to wash her hands and face, to comb her hair, and to change her apron. But she would be damned before she would do anything to make herself look more attractive in his eyes.
Besides, she thought, watching him in some satisfaction as he brought the horse back, he was not looking very immaculate himself any longer. His boots were dull with dust and caked with soil, his trousers looked gray rather than black, and his shirt was liberally stained with dirt. And there were circles of wetness beneath his arms. His face and hands looked grimy.
She had wondered at one time whether he would look so splendid if he were not dressed so immaculately. She had her answer, she thought grudgingly. Geraint would be beautiful even if he still lived up on the moors, scratching a living mainly from poaching. But she was glad he was dirty and sweaty. She hoped that he felt uncomfortable. She hoped that tomorrow he would be too stiff to move.
He came and stood in front of her, rolling down his shirtsleeves as he