Chapter 14

In truth, it was practically unheard of for nobles—or even affluent commoners accustomed to a surplus of servants—to willingly soil their hands in agricultural labor.

Elwin and his father’s shared obsession with plunging elbow-deep into crossbreeding experiments and seedling cultivation was precisely why the county viewed them as hopeless eccentrics. This pampered rake likely mistook greenhouse labor for some elegant, leisurely hobby involving delicate shears and roses.

Elwin frowned, gesturing to Leon’s attire. “Your expensive clothes will be ruined.”

While Elwin wore a rugged, soil-stained canvas jacket, Leon was clad in a sharply tailored, glossy suit that likely cost more than a tenant’s yearly wage. Without hesitation, Leon stripped the jacket from his shoulders, casually rolling his shirtsleeves back against his heavy forearms.

“Then this should suffice, yes?”

He strode past Elwin, heading directly for the greenhouse. Trailing behind him, Elwin felt a begrudging spark of anticipation. The man seemed to know everything, had traveled the world, and spoke flawless Latin; perhaps advanced horticulture was merely another tool in his inexplicably vast repertoire.

He might actually be surprisingly remarkable, Elwin conceded silently, offering the arrogant rogue a shred of grudging respect.

That respect evaporated the instant they stepped through the glass doors. Elwin shrieked in genuine panic.

“Mr. Leon, stop! Do not step there!”

Leon froze mid-stride, his boot hovering mere inches above the soil before he awkwardly retracted his leg.

“That is the vegetable bed,” Elwin gasped, clutching his chest. “Tender garlic and lettuce shoots are emerging right where you were about to crush them.”

“Ah.” Leon nodded sagely, as if he possessed a deep understanding of botanical vulnerability. He then pivoted, confidently jabbing a finger toward the opposite bed. “Then these majestic specimens must be the winter wheat seedlings.”

“No. Those are… barley stalks.” Elwin stared blankly at the knee-high plants. “They are entirely too massive to be considered seedlings. The winter wheat rests in the adjacent seedbed.”

The man’s confident proclamation was astoundingly shameless, considering he was pointing at mature, towering barley. Surveying the intricate grid of seedbeds, Leon’s features settled into an expression of utter bewilderment, like a scholar deciphering an alien artifact.

Elwin sighed, asking with exaggerated care. “Mr. Leon, do you, in fact, know absolutely nothing about agricultural work?”

“Nothing whatsoever. Will you teach me?”

The admission lacked even a microscopic fraction of shame. It was entirely bewildering that an Alpha radiating such supreme worldly competence could not distinguish barley from wheat, yet his earnestness was disarming.

At least he is capable of admitting his ignorance.

All true learning began with that very confession. As a fiercely passionate horticulturalist, Elwin was fundamentally incapable of rejecting an eager student. Besides, Leon had patiently attempted to teach him cards the other evening, even if that lesson had culminated in spectacular failure.

“Very well. First, equip yourself with these heavy gloves.” Elwin assumed his most authoritative professorial tone. “When excavating seedlings, you must use a small hand trowel. It is crucial to sprinkle water to soften the packed earth around the roots before applying any leverage.”

Gathering his hair and securing it with a severe black ribbon, Elwin provisioned Leon with thick gloves, canvas sleeve protectors, and a rusted hand trowel. Suitably armored, Leon crouched before the damp seedbed, his brow furrowed in intense concentration.

Inevitably, disaster struck on his inaugural scoop.

“Oh dear,” Leon muttered.

He had gripped the tender, month-old sprout with entirely too much force, snapping the fragile green leaves within his massive fist. The Alpha flinched, his amber eyes darting nervously toward Elwin to gauge the impending fallout. Suppressing a wince, Elwin simply knelt in the dirt beside him.

“Patience,” Elwin instructed gently. “Position the blade about a handspan away, just here. Lift the soil from beneath with slow, deliberate pressure. If we damage the delicate root structures, the farmers will find the seedlings useless.”

Demonstrating the technique, Elwin slid the trowel deep into the loam and levered up a perfect clump of soil. His gloved hands moved with practiced, surgical precision, binding the earth-encased roots with a twist of straw before nestling the bundle securely into a waiting burlap sack.

Leon scrutinized the process, committing the mechanics to memory before attempting to replicate it. Crouched in the narrow trench—a space tailored specifically for Elwin’s slighter, Omega frame—the broad-shouldered Alpha looked absurdly out of proportion, his thick fingers straining to manipulate the thread-thin greenery.

Yet, there was no mockery in his gaze, only a fierce, studious intensity. Among the rigid upper class, who equated physical labor with moral degradation, Leon’s utter indifference to the filth smearing his tailored trousers was deeply refreshing.

“If the heir to the county personally labors to distribute these, they must be a wildly exceptional crop. An improved variety, perhaps?” Leon carefully parsed the soil clumps, separating the seedlings exactly as instructed while casually tossing out the ultimate bait. “Did you genetically refine them yourself?”

Elwin clamped his mouth shut, fighting the immediate urge to launch into a pedagogical tirade, and managed a stiff nod. But the Alpha’s follow-up question demolished his remaining restraint. The rake had flawlessly isolated the key to his intellectual vanity. Abandoning all pretense of brevity, Elwin plunged into a fervent lecture.

“Precisely. Historically, our local farmers relied on two distinct strains of winter wheat. One boasted profound resistance to local blights and pests but withered under heavy frost. The other possessed inverse traits, thriving in the cold but succumbing rapidly to rot, so…”

Trapped shoulder-to-shoulder in the cramped dirt passage, Elwin held court on the dominant genetic markers of wheat variants and the painstakingly delicate art of manual pollen transfer. Typically, the moment Elwin embarked on this specific tangent, even his adoring sister found an excuse to flee the room. Miraculously, Leon remained anchored, absorbing the torrent of botanical theory with rapt attention and offering sharp, insightful interjections.

The Alpha observed him not with polite endurance, but with a visceral, heated intensity usually reserved for uncovering a profound mystery. Breathless from his own chattering, Elwin paused to suck in a breath and collided directly with that searing amber gaze.

A fierce flush exploded across Elwin’s cheeks.

He rapidly broke eye contact, clearing his throat against a sudden, inexplicably dry mouth. “In any case, if this crossbreed successfully anchors in the open fields, it will exponentially increase the farmers’ winter yields.”

Leon rolled his shoulders, stretching his neck as he surveyed the humid glass expanse. “So, this humble sanctuary is the secret behind Sir Elwin’s miraculous productivity boom. By engineering superior seed yields for each seasonal crop, you achieved the staggering harvest figures you quoted at dinner.”

The praise was lightly delivered, but the memory of Leon eavesdropping on the household’s desperate financial ruin during his very first night flared in Elwin’s mind. His spine snapped straight.

“Yes. I specifically informed you that I was not exaggerating those figures.”

“Hmm. Yet, as your overall harvests swelled, you logically could have levied a heavier tax.” Leon leaned back on his heels, smudging dirt across his pristine vest. “Did you state the tenant-rent rate sits at a mere fifteen percent? Is that not a fraction of the standard extortion practiced by neighboring lords? Our young master possesses a dangerously generous nature.”

Like a silken serpent, the Alpha slithered smoothly from botany into socioeconomic theory. Elwin resented the man’s endless, probing interrogations, yet he felt the irresistible magnetic pull of the debate. Economic reform was another deeply held passion.

“The harvests multiplied precisely because the taxation rate remained suppressed,” Elwin countered fiercely. “Agricultural laborers require a stable economic foundation to cultivate actual ambition. Crushing them guarantees stagnation.”

“A fascinating hypothesis. Most aristocratic gentlemen operate under the paranoid delusion that comfortable tenants breed rebellious insurrections.”

“Men who have bled into the soil their entire lives do not suddenly plot treason because their bellies are full. They forge dangerous ideologies only when basic survival becomes impossible.” Elwin gestured sharply with his trowel. “Examine history. When did the aristocracy suffer its most catastrophic wave of bankruptcies? Was it not during the Great Agricultural Depression, when starved farmers abandoned the fields en masse for the industrialized cities?”

Leon’s amber eyes flared with a predatory brilliance. He looked like a ravenous beast that had just stumbled upon a feast of unmatched intellectual caliber.

“A fair point,” Leon conceded, brushing earth from his knee. “But do the nobility not also fear the inverse? Though exceptionally rare, there is historical precedent for affluent tenants amassing enough capital to purchase the very land out from under their lord.”

A sharp prick of guilt lanced through Elwin’s chest. He had meticulously calculated that exact scenario. Acutely aware that his Omega status permanently barred him from inheriting his ancestral title, he had deliberately engineered the low tax rates, praying the tenants would amass enough wealth to purchase parcels of the estate directly from him, thereby securing his own independent future.

It was a radically subversive agenda—one that would send neighboring lords into apoplectic shock, clutching their rosaries. To the entrenched aristocracy, land was never a mere commodity; it was the literal embodiment of the bloodline, a sacred monolith of pride. Legally stripped of his birthright, Elwin found such sentimental attachments to dirt entirely absurd. Nevertheless, he possessed enough survival instinct to keep his treasonous economic theories firmly locked behind his teeth.

“I suppose such an anomaly could occur,” Elwin offered, his tone perfectly neutral.

Having successfully excavated the designated crop, Elwin packed the final bundle into a heavy burlap sack and aggressively dusted the soil from his palms. Taking the hint, the Alpha rose, towering over him in the narrow aisle.

“Now, these seedlings—”

“Must be deployed to the agrarian village immediately,” Elwin finished smoothly.

“Today?” Leon blinked. “And you intend to haul them yourself?”

“Obviously.”

Elwin reached for a length of rough cord, wrestling with the mouth of the burlap sack. The morning had evaporated; if he intended to catch the village chief before the midday lull, he had to depart instantly.

“If you knot it in that haphazard fashion, it will burst open the second you apply leverage,” Leon noted dryly.

Even as he aggressively hauled on the cord, Elwin privately admitted the resulting lump looked suspiciously pathetic. Foregoing permission, Leon stepped into his personal space.

Elwin scowled. “Then how do you suggest I tie it?”

“First, you establish a primary loop on the dominant side, like so…”

While spectacularly incompetent at basic agriculture, the Alpha possessed a terrifying mastery of cordage, executing a complex, impenetrable knot in seconds. Stung by the display of competence, Elwin seized the adjacent sack, aggressively mimicking the intricate looping process.

“No. The elongated tail must serve as the wrapping anchor,” Leon corrected softly.

“Like this?”

“No. Invert it. Like… this.”

Without a flicker of hesitation, Leon’s massive, calloused hands enveloped Elwin’s smaller ones. He physically manipulated Elwin’s fingers, guiding the rough cord through the intricate weave. His grip was undeniably firm, an inescapable cage of heat, and he only released his hold once the final, brutal knot snapped taut.

Heat flooded Elwin’s neck. He scrambled backward, breaking the agonizing proximity as he violently cleared his throat. “Yes. The mechanics are perfectly clear now. Your assistance expedited the process significantly. Please, return to the manor and rest.”

“Did you not declare we were bound straight for the farming tracts?”

“I am going,” Elwin stressed, emphasizing the singular pronoun. “Therefore, Mr. Leon, you are excused to rest—”

“I am coming with you. I shall manage the cargo.”

Before Elwin could format a coherent refusal, Leon grabbed the tied cords and hoisted three swollen burlap sacks simultaneously. Intimately aware of the crushing density of wet, compacted soil, Elwin stared at the Alpha’s straining biceps in naked horror.