Page 4 of The Duke's Bartered Mistress

Clearly Baron Endymion had allowed his estate to go to ruin…but she knew he was here. Before she’d left London, Georgia had done her research; the Baron had been injured in a train fire on the way north to his estate in Scotland, and hadn’t left since.

There! She’d been correct. Like many other grand homes built at the same time, Castle Endymion had a walled garden tucked up against the lower level, within sight of the stables. She would guess that the kitchen entrance was through that gate, although she couldn’t see past the high walls.

But as she grew closer, she heard the sound of an ax hacking at wood, intermingled with a man’s grunts. A gardener, perhaps, cutting wood for the coming winter? She picked up her pace and came to the open gate in time to hear a sharp twang as the blade hit incorrectly.

“Fook me!”

The growl came from the man standing before one of the overgrown climbing roses, although to call him a “man” would miss the opportunity to call him a “hulking beast on two legs” or a “primitive brute of arousing muscles” or even “dear God, I can see his knees!”

The man bent rolled his shoulders and resettled the ax in his hands. With another growl—really, it couldn’t be anything but a growl—he began to attack the poor defenseless climbing rose once more.

Georgia winced.

It was possible he was trying to do something useful, but all she saw was attempted murder. If he continued hacking at the rose, it would severely weaken the plant, no matter how old and established the roots were. She stepped into the garden, preparing to point out the flaws in the poorly trained gardener’s technique, but something stopped her.

Something? Be honest, it’s his legs.

Well, yes, it was his legs, but it was rather rude of her subconscious to point that out.

Each time the man swung, his kilt would sway against his legs, revealing not just his knees, but tantalizing glimpses of the backs of his thighs.

“Backs of his thighs” is only a few inches from “buttocks.” I wonder if he’s tanned all over?

God in Heaven, he was beautifully built; the fact he wore below his waist only a rough pair of boots and a kilt made that fact abundantly clear. With that dark hair hanging down around his shoulders, he looked like an ancient Highlander who’d stepped off the pages of one of Georgia’s more lurid novels.

When she realized her breaths were coming more quickly and her pulse had picked up pace, she wondered if the book she was thinking of was in fact A Harlot’s Guide to the Forbidden and Delightful Arts.

Another hesitant step forward, then a third. He hadn’t turned, but was now grunting with each swing of the ax at that poor plant. She was beginning to realize that the man was too large to be a mere gardener. A woodsman, perhaps? But surely not a villager from Banchot; the man had to be a member of the Endymion estate.

And then the ax caught a thick node too close, and stuck.

“Beetle-headed varlet,” he growled, and bent forward to wrench it free.

She owed it to the pitiable rosebush to speak up. She had no choice. “Pardon me, but you are doing that incorrectly.”

When he swung around, ax clutched in his hands and a scowl on his face, Georgia fought the urge to step away from his anger.

Actually, she had to fight the urge to turn and run, or possibly scream and hide her head in a hole.

The man was—was beastly. Burns scarred the left side of his face, such that the dark hair swinging about his chin did nothing to hide the damage, and continued under the open collar of the old-fashioned shirt he wore. She blinked in surprise, willing herself not to react to his appearance.

“What?” he snarled. It took her a moment to realize he was asking her to repeat herself.

So, clearing her throat, Georgia nodded to the rose bush he was currently mutilating. “It is still early in the winter to be pruning, but if you insist upon it, you should be focusing your cuts a few inches from the nodes of the side shoots, not hacking willy-nilly. You are in real danger of damaging the main stem.”

His hands had tightened around the handle of the ax, and she couldn’t help but notice the strength in those fingers, the sheen of sweat along his forearms. He’d removed his coat and waistcoat and rolled up his sleeves, even in the cold November air.

A gentle throbbing began between her thighs, and she managed not to groan in irritation. Now? Her carnal urges decided to make themselves known now?

Well, he is remarkably well built.

Hopefully the woodsman hadn’t noticed. Could a man notice?

“Who the bloody hell are ye?”

Oh good, he hadn’t.

Georgia drew herself up. “I am the woman who knows how to prune a climbing rose, and understands the propriety of using foul language in front of ladies.”

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