He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Nathaniel. Fear, raw, and instinctual flashed across his eyes before he yanked his flat cap from his head and bowed stiffly. "Your grace," the man mumbled to the mud. "Mr. Higgins," Nathaniel replied, his voice flat, devoid of warmth. He remained on his horse, a looming, intimidating figure against the gray sky.
This was how he ruled. Through fear and distance, I swung down from my mare before Nathaniel could offer assistance. My boots sank an inch into the freezing muck. "Mr. Higgins," I said, stepping forward, forcing a pleasantness into my voice that I did not feel. I am the Duchess of Harwood.
We have come to look at the drainage ditches in the lower field. The tenant stared at me, then up at Nathaniel, utterly bewildered. The ditches, your grace, there flooded. The stone collapsed a month ago. We haven't had the hands to clear the debris.
Show me. For the next 2 hours, I waded through ankled deep mud, inspecting the ruined infrastructure of the farm. Nathaniel followed in silence. He didn't intervene when I peppered Higgins with questions about crop yields, seed costs, and the health of the sheep. I wrote the figures down in a small notebook, shielding the pages from the mist with my body.
We found the collapsed ditch at the edge of the property. A massive limestone boulder had dislodged from the hill, crushing the stone culvert and damning the water, turning an entire acre of arable land into a useless, freezing swamp. "We tried to move it," Higgins said miserably, shivering in his thin coat. "Me and my boys, but we'd need a team of draft horses and block and tackle we don't have." I looked at the boulder.
Then I looked at Nathaniel. He didn't say a word. He dismounted, handing his reigns to a terrified farm boy who had crept out to watch us. He walked to the edge of the ditch, his boots sinking deep. He stripped off his heavy riding coat, tossing it over a nearby fence post.
Underneath his linen shirt clung to the broad, heavy musculature of his back and shoulders. He stepped down into the freezing water. "Nathaniel, what are you doing?" I demanded, stepping forward. He didn't answer.
He waded to the boulder, wedged his hands into the thick muck beneath its base, and braced his boots against the slick stone of the collapsed culvert. "Higgins!" Nathaniel barked, the gravel in his voice cutting through the wind. "Get down here and wedge that iron bar beneath the left side. When I lift, you pivot it into the mudbank."
Higgins scrambled into the ditch, driven by shock and the sheer command in the Duke's voice. Nathaniel closed his eyes. The muscles in his back coiled tightly against the wet linen. He let out a low, guttural breath and drove upward. The sound of sucking mud and grinding stone filled the air.
For an agonizing second, nothing happened. Then slowly, painfully, the massive boulder began to shift. The veins in Nathaniel's neck stood out like cords. The unscarred half of his face flushed a deep crimson. "Now!"