by Brenda Novak
But first… he wanted to speak with Mrs. Poulson.
He waited until Blackmoor Hall’s housekeeper came out and intercepted her as soon as she started down the path. “What did you tell him?” he demanded.
She lifted her hand to her heart as if he had startled her, but he could tell she felt no real surprise. She’d expected him to be watching; she just hadn’t expected him to confront her.
“I wanted a word with Mr. Stanhope.”
“About… ?”
“Cook makes a special dish he likes. He asked if I could bring it tomorrow. I was letting him know that she has been unable to locate one of the ingredients.”
“And what dish is that?” he asked.
There was a long silence. But she eventually came up with an answer. “Kidney pie.”
“Which requires the simplest of ingredients.”
“Providing one remembers to order the kidney from the butcher.”
“Surely Cook could do that tomorrow morning?”
“I’m afraid she will be far too busy. Now that Lord Druridge is betrothed, she wants to focus on impressing our new mistress.”
Linley moved the reins of his horse to the other hand and nudged his horse forward. “Ah, Rachel. You like her so.”
“I don’t have to like her to serve her, Mr. Linley.”
“No, you don’t. But you do have to be employed at Blackmoor Hall.”
A wary look entered her eyes. “You’re not planning to get me sacked for trying to give Mr. Stanhope word of his favorite dish.…”
“No, I am planning to get you sacked for betrayal.”
She lifted her chin as if she was ready for the challenge his words presented. “The earl will never go along with it. He promised his poor mum he’d look after Wythe, and Wythe loves me. Maybe it would be different if you could prove something against me, but you can’t.”
“We will see about that.”
He could have offered her a ride home. The rain was falling fast. But she was already soaked through and he had no interest in sparing her any discomfort. Besides, he was heading in the opposite direction.
“Good evening, Mrs. Poulson,” he said and started off.
He had once heard Elspeth talk of retiring.
He would offer her the chance to do it somewhere much warmer than Creswell.
The rain had turned into a constant drizzle. Rachel kept one eye on the weather and the other on the clock as it grew later and later. Lord Druridge had not returned. Anxious to see him, she had been waiting in the drawing room so she would be sure to hear him when he came in, but the passing hours had turned to an agony of worry. It was nearly one o’clock. She couldn’t imagine what could be keeping him so late.
Had his meeting with Cutberth not gone well? Had the clerk reacted violently or prevailed upon some of his most trusted miner friends to jump the earl on his way home?
At the very least, Collingood, Greenley, Thornick and Henderson would be eager for a chance to express their unhappiness and dislike.…
She wished she could seek out Mr. Linley and ask him to create a search party. But he had left shortly after their talk in the parlor and hadn’t come back either. She didn’t know who, other than Mrs. Poulson, would have the authority to take over for him. And there was no way she wanted to include the housekeeper.
The only ally she had left was her brother, and he was, no doubt, blissfully unaware that she was pacing the floor while he slept. She couldn’t even talk to him without heading out into the cold and barging into the dormitory-style room above the stable. A lady would never intrude on the privacy of those men and boys, but… the earl’s life could be at risk.
Should she send Geordie out to find Truman? Or would that only put her brother in danger too?
He was too young to go out alone, and he wouldn’t be any good to the earl if the earl was hurt—wouldn’t know what to do. She would have to go herself. No one else would be as determined to find Truman or save him, if necessary. She couldn’t bear to stand around another second anyway, not when she was imagining such terrible things.
After retrieving one of the earl’s cloaks—it was heavier and warmer than her own—she lit a lamp she could carry to the stables. She had to wake one of the grooms to saddle a horse; the tack was locked up. But since she wasn’t after Geordie specifically, she could just bang on the door until someone answered.
As she passed the drawing room where she had spent the evening, she remembered the shadow she had seen earlier. Was it Poulson who had been standing at the door, listening in?
If so, and if she had carried what she’d heard to Wythe, there was no telling what was going on in the rainy dark. But Rachel was determined to find out and to offer her betrothed whatever assistance he needed.
Rachel was soaked by the time she reached the mine. She hadn’t seen anyone along the way, and the place seemed deserted. She confirmed that the offices were empty when she slid off her horse and peered in through the windows. There was no lamp burning, even in the main office. She banged on the door and called out, but she couldn’t get in.
“Truman, where are you?” she cried. Tears burned behind her eyes as she turned in a slow circle, searching for the earl’s horse or some other sign that he had been here. Had the meeting taken place?
Logic suggested he had made it this far. If there were going to be trouble, it would most likely occur after his confrontation with Cutberth rather than before. Given how hard Cutberth had struck her, she could easily see him losing his temper. Had he become enraged at the prospect of being sacked and pulled out a pistol?
“God, no,” she whispered. “Please, no.”
So what should she do now? She had no idea where the earl might have gone. Elspeth’s was the only place where people might be up this time of night, but he wouldn’t go there. Something or someone had to be keeping him or he would have returned home.
She bit her lip, wondering if she should have gone to Creswell in search of Linley. Had she brought him, she wouldn’t be alone. But finding the earl’s butler would have taken at least an hour, if she could find him at all, and she hadn’t been willing to take the time. Wythe would have been on her way, if he was at Cosgrove House, but just remembering the chilling, vacant quality she had noticed in his eyes made her shiver.
She would go to Cutberth’s house, she decided. That was her only real option. She would ask if he’d met with the earl and, if so, what time they had parted. She needed a starting place, needed to figure out who had seen him last. But as she led her horse to the mounting block, her eyes landed on the gate that secured the pithead. There was something different about it, something that…
She froze when she realized what it was. Usually after hours the gate was locked to stop people from getting hurt or from disturbing, even sabotaging, the machinery.
It wasn’t locked tonight.
Chapter 24
As Rachel gazed into the shaft, she couldn’t see so much as a hint of light. For all intents and purposes, the mine looked as abandoned as she would have expected to find it in the dead of night. But someone had unhooked the machine that was used to lift and lower the cage so that it could be manually manipulated. And, when she listened carefully, she could hear the faintest echo of voices.
Was it Cutberth? Had he and some of the men taken the earl into the mine? Did they plan to kill him there so they could easily drag his body off to an abandoned tunnel where it might never be found?
She knew at least some of those who had been pushing for the formation of a union would find poetic justice in burying the earl in his own mine. She could easily imagine Thornick, Collingood and the other hewers who had attacked her smiling as they went back to work once Wythe inherited Stanhope & Co.
She couldn’t let it go that far. She had to stop whatever was happening now. But how?
The thought of going into the mine, with its foul-smelling tunnels, throat-clogging coal dust, urine-filled puddles and bad memories made fear rise up like
a monster inside her. It was so dark and close in there. And she would have to carry a light, which would announce her presence to anyone who happened to see it.
But they would know only that someone was coming. They wouldn’t be able to tell who it was—or that it wasn’t a man. Maybe seeing her light would be enough to scare them away, make them run. Maybe then they would leave the earl as he was.
She just hoped he wasn’t too bad off already.
Whether she got lucky enough to save him or not, she had to do something, and she had to do it fast. If the men she could hear in the mine were planning murder, the earl would be dead before she could bring help. Whoever was down there couldn’t allow themselves to be found inside the mine come morning, and it was inching closer and closer to dawn.
Bringing the cage up so she could use it was much harder than she had anticipated, however. It was possible to lower oneself down—she had seen plenty of men do it—but she had never had to do it herself. Just lifting the metal contraption to the surface proved difficult. She tried to pace herself with a pull, a deep breath, a pull and a deep breath. But the strain caused her arms to shake, and the squeal of the rusted pulleys stretched her nerves taut. Whoever was down there had to be able to hear the noise.
Would they be waiting for her when she reached the bottom?
Once she saw the glimmer of the moon hit the cage, she breathed a sigh of relief that she had managed thus far and hesitated to listen again.
All had gone quiet. Were they in a panic? Would they soon come rushing toward the entrance?
She held her breath and almost collapsed in relief when the same steady hum rose to her ears. Whoever had been talking was still talking. Nothing had changed. But she couldn’t take a regular lantern into the mine, not with the firedamp down there, or she could cause an explosion. She would need a Davy lamp, and she would need a weapon—a pick, if she couldn’t find anything else. That meant she had to figure out a way to break into the supply shed behind the main office.
Fortunately, that wasn’t as hard as she’d anticipated. There were several picks lying around, together with shovels and other tools. They were old and rusted—nothing anyone cared much about—but she was able to use one of the better picks to smash open the door so she could get a safety lamp and some oil.
Her heart felt like it was trying to escape her chest as she hurried back to the cage. Putting the pick and the light at her feet so she could use both hands, she slowly and painstakingly lowered herself down. She refused to imagine what she might encounter when she got there. It took all of her concentration not to let the coarse rope slide through her hands so she wouldn’t go crashing to the bottom.
“I’m coming,” she whispered over and over to herself.
Because of the darkness, she had no way of estimating when she would reach the flats. Thanks to that, she landed with a solid thud, but at least it wasn’t as bad as it could have been had she been going any faster.
The smell, so familiar from when she had worked here, curdled her blood. She hated this place, feared it like no other. Tommy had died here. She couldn’t say if he had been killed quickly or had to suffer for several days, because it had taken a week to dig out the bodies of the five who had died. She didn’t want to face the same end. She would rather die any other way.
But she couldn’t bear the thought of Truman being harmed. So, as quietly as possible, she climbed out, got the pick and the light and began to follow the sound.
The men weren’t far. She had known that going in. If they were very deep she would never have been able to hear them, wouldn’t have known they were even here. She decided to be grateful for that one small thing—that she wouldn’t have to go into the nether regions of the mine, where it was less ventilated and far more dangerous.
It was only a few seconds later that she could pick out distinct voices from the steady drone of earlier. Fortunately, the men were just past where the tunnel curved to the right—at the loading dock—so her light didn’t give her away.
She had expected to recognize Cutberth’s voice as the dominant one. He had been asked to meet the earl at the office and was the most recent person to lose his job, so it made sense. But as Rachel crept closer to where the tunnel turned, she recognized Wythe’s voice and stopped.
What was he doing here? She’d assumed he had gone to Elspeth’s. Had he been there and back? Did that mean Mr. Linley had found him—or not?
It didn’t appear that he had. None of the men had brought their horses. Maybe that was how Wythe had slipped away from the butler.
“Like Thornick just said, we been loyal to ye. We ’aven’t told a soul what we know.”
A fresh wave of chills went through Rachel, and these had nothing to do with the cold. Collingood was speaking. She easily recognized his voice. So… Wythe was with Collingood and Thornick? Had they formed an alliance? Was that part of the reason he had assigned her to Number 14 Stall? So he could better keep her under his thumb?
No wonder he had been so reluctant to sack those men. She is only a village wench, my lord. Some of these miners have worked for us for years. We arrived in time. There wasn’t any harm done. Couldn’t we leave them with a warning and be about our business?
“But ye ’aven’t paid us a farthin’ for months.” Thornick’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Ye got us to come all the way out ’ere in the middle of the bleedin’ night, thinkin’ ye ’ad some coin for us at last, and all we’re gettin’ is more bloody excuses!”
“I couldn’t meet you in town. I was afraid I would be followed. It took long enough making sure I could safely come out this direction.”
“A waste of effort, if ye ask me. Yer all talk.”
That was Henderson, Rachel realized. So he was here too.
“You have to give me more time,” Wythe responded.
“Time? ’Ow do ye expect us to survive? ’Tis not like we’re workin’ these days!” Henderson snapped.
“That wasn’t my doing,” Wythe told him. “You have only yourselves to blame for that.”
“But we should be able to fall back on yer promises. We’ve done our part.”
That was Greenley chiming in. All four of the hewers she had worked with were here.
“Have you?” Wythe challenged. “The earl knows that someone tried to hire Jack McTavish to fire the manse. That is what made him turn his attention to Creswell and this colliery, and none of us has been able to breathe since. I wouldn’t have to fear being followed if one of you hadn’t talked. So it’s your own fault you’re no longer getting paid.”
“Easy for ye ter say,” Thornick grumbled.
“Yer cousin ’as more money than ’e knows what to do with,” Greenley said. “Surely ye can figure out a way to get us what we need.”
“You received a month’s worth of wages.”
“An’ it’s been over a month,” Thornick complained. “’Ow long did ye expect the money to last? We got families to feed. Bills to pay.”
“I guess you should have thought of that before you tried to rape Rachel McTavish.”
“Ye said we could ’ave whatever fun with ’er we wanted,” Thornick said, obviously appalled by Wythe’s comment.
“That’s true,” Henderson concurred. “Ye even said to make it rough. That there would be a bonus in it if we would.”
“Or ’ave ye forgotten?” Greenley asked.
“That didn’t include rape,” Wythe replied.
“It didn’t exclude it, either.” Collingood again. “Just ’ave Cutberth pay a friend of ours for a little more than he actually hews, an’ ’e’ll slip us the difference. Problem solved.”
“Except that Tyndale keeps too close a watch on the mine’s productivity. Cutberth would never do it anyway. He’s scrupulous about that sort of thing. You know him and his bloody ideals. He will risk his job to start a union, but he won’t steal a halfpenny, even from a man who’s rich as a king.”
“Cutberth’s a man of integrity,” Henderson said.
“Don’t act like he’s some kind of hero,” Wythe snapped. “If he knew you were the ones who approached Jack, he would turn you in so fast your heads would spin.”
Henderson didn’t let that deter him. He jumped in to defend Cutberth again. “Because he’s an ’onest man. We all know that, an’ we respect ’im for it.”
“Honest or not, he had better watch himself,” Wythe said. “When I am earl, I won’t tolerate any secret meetings. And there will be no profit-sharing, either.”
“Profit-sharing?”
The rocks were beginning to cut into Rachel’s back, she was pressing into them so hard. The earl wasn’t here. She should go. But she was learning so much, so much she could take back to him, providing Cutberth hadn’t killed him. They thought Cutberth admirable; she was no longer so sure.
“Forget it, for now,” Wythe said.
“Sounds as if ye’re plannin’ to take over soon,” Greenley said.
“It won’t be long.” The earl’s cousin sounded supremely confident.
“It will if ye don’t start payin’ up,” Thornick said. “Ye ’ave three days. Then we go to Druridge.”
From what Rachel could tell, Wythe didn’t seem the least bit frightened. “It won’t do you any good. By now those paintings have been destroyed. I sent someone over to do it hours ago. He won’t have the proof necessary to save his own neck, regardless of what you say.”
“Our testimony will count for somethin’!” Greenley said.
“It will show you are out to get me—the man who sacked you. Nothing more.”
Rachel had heard enough. She needed to get out before they decided to leave and discovered her listening in.
She had just started for the lift, however, when the arguing got worse. Wythe shouted that he refused to let anyone threaten him. Then she heard two gunshots, fired in rapid succession followed by an exclamation of surprise and some groaning, cursing and scuffling.
Covering her mouth to keep from screaming, she started to run. But once she reached the lift, she was so shaken she couldn’t climb into it. She fell on her first attempt. She managed to get in on the second, but she feared she was making entirely too much noise. Surely Wythe had heard the crash of her lantern when she fell.
