Thunder and Roses (44 page)

“What would you have me do?” Nicholas
signaled
his horse forward in an easy walk. “I could make a good guess about where that shot came from, but whoever fired it is long gone by now. If I went to a magistrate and accused Michael of attempted murder, I’d be thrown out because I haven’t a shred of evidence. Even if that bullet was intended for me, I’m not going to spend the rest of my life cowering indoors and avoiding windows for fear of being shot—I’d rather be dead.”

He slanted a glance at her. “I’m not saying this to keep you from worrying, Clare—I honestly believe that was an accidental shot by a poacher. If Michael comes after me, it will be face to face, not like this.”

“How long are you going to make excuses for him?” she said helplessly. “Though I admire your loyalty, I don’t understand how you can be so sure about what Michael will or will not do. You haven’t seen him for years, and he has changed greatly in that time.”

Nicholas rode silently for a time. Finally he said, “No human is entirely predictable, but it’s possible to know a person well enough to understand the range and limits of what they might do. Michael is one of the handful of people I know that well. It doesn’t surprise me that he is angry, bitter, and destructive—the seeds of that have always been in him. Yet at the same time, honor is as much a part of him as his blood and bone. Yes, he is dangerous. But I will never believe that he is vicious.”

“Yesterday you visited the hut on the Kenyon estate and found evidence that silver has been processed there,” she said. “Tomorrow you and Owen are going down pit to look for proof of illegal mining. If and when you find it, do you think Lord Michael will stand idly by while you destroy his company?”

He regarded her coolly. “I don’t particularly want to destroy his business. All he has to do is improve the safety and he can keep it. But if he chooses to be difficult …” Nicholas shrugged. “So be it.”

Recognizing her own words on his lips, she said dourly, “I’m not asking you to spend the rest of your life cowering indoors, but could you at least keep a watchful eye?”

“Don’t worry—while in London, I revised my will. If something happens to me, you’ll become administrator of a trust fund with enough money to do what is necessary to keep Penreith prosperous. A nice stipend for you is included, to compensate for your time and effort.” He gave her an ironic smile. “You really ought to be praying that Michael does kill me, because you and the village will both benefit by my death.”

This time she did hit him, or at least tried, swinging at his face with a wild, open-palmed slap.

He caught her hand easily and held it immobile in the air as he reined in his horse. As her pony obediently halted, he asked, “What was that for?”

“How dare you tell me to pray for your death.” Tears were sliding down her cheeks. “Some things shouldn’t be joked about.”

“Life is a joke, Clarissima.” He touched his lips to her fingertips, then released her hand. “And laughter is the only way to survive it. Don’t waste your time worrying about me.”

“I have no choice,” she whispered. “And you know it.”

His face tightened and he turned away, setting the chestnut into motion again.

As they rode silently down the track, she knew that he understood what he saw in her eyes. But he was no more capable of acknowledging it than she was.

24

 
Nicholas awoke to a world shrouded in fog. He smiled with satisfaction; perfect weather for a clandestine visit to the pit.

After dressing in worn miner’s clothing, he went downstairs for a quick breakfast. Clare was already up, and she regarded him gravely as she rose to pour coffee. “Be careful, please.”

“I will be.” He gulped down the scalding coffee, then covered a slab of bread with marmalade. “By this evening, success will be in our hands.” Munching on the bread, he left the house and made his way to the stables.

The swirling mists made the journey to Penreith hauntingly beautiful. Nicholas was almost humming with excitement as he picked his way down the familiar road. Odd to think how he had at first resisted Clare’s efforts to draw him into the affairs of the village; he felt more alive than he had in years. Now, if only he could draw Clare into an affair, too ….

The thought deflated him a little. This damned brother and sister business was increasingly difficult to maintain. There was something irresistibly erotic about Clare’s blend of primness and passion, and images of her haunted him day and night. He’d never be able to look at a billiard table calmly again.

His levity faded quickly. The present situation was almost intolerable; the future was worse, for she had every intention of leaving when the three months were up. No doubt there was a solution to his dilemma, but damned if he knew what it was.

It was a relief to arrive at their rendezvous, a clump of trees not far from the mine. Owen was already waiting, along with an older man with a wooden leg. After Nicholas dismounted, Owen performed the introductions. “This is Jamie Harkin. He’ll operate the rope and bucket.”

Silently they set out for their destination, Nicholas leading his horse. The usual
clamor
of the nearby mine was distorted by the mist. They were in the bottom of the valley here and the fog lay thickly, forcing them to go slowly or risk losing their bearings. Nicholas didn’t mind. The Bychan shaft was close enough to the main pit that someone might have noticed suspicious activity, but today the fog covered their activities.

When they reached the shaft, Nicholas hitched his horse to the wheel that operated the bucket. He’d picked a strong, tranquil bay gelding for the occasion. Owen checked the pulley and rope, then nodded. “I’ll go first. Jamie, we’ll signal you by pulling this line, which rings a small bell.”

After demonstrating the signal, he lit a candle and stepped into the bucket. Harkin set the gelding into motion and Owen dropped out of sight down the narrow shaft, accompanied by the sound of the creaking wheel. When the bell rang, Jamie reversed the direction of the wheel, raising the bucket to the surface.

Then it was Nicholas’s turn. His candle was already lit, so he stepped in and nodded for Jamie to begin. As he descended, he decided that traveling in a bucket was somewhat better than perching on a loop of rope, as he had done on his first trip down pit. However, the Bychan shaft was so narrow that he felt he was falling down a rabbit hole. Air
swooshed
noisily past and the bucket swayed and banged against the sides of the shaft. Just before he reached bottom, his candle blew out. Luckily Owen was waiting with his own candle glowing.

Nicholas climbed out of the bucket and relit his candle from the other man’s. “Which way?”

“Along here.” Owen set off to the right. “It’s not far, but I’m taking a roundabout route so we’re less likely to be seen.” It was one of the oldest sections of the mine, and support timbers were few and far between. As he followed the other man, Nicholas remembered his first trip down pit, and the delightful complications of being trapped in the flood with Clare. She had made major advances in kissing that day ….

Rigorously he controlled his thoughts. He had already learned that a mine was no place for wandering attention.

They passed one of the
adits
that drained water from the mine, then concealed themselves in an abandoned passage while half a dozen boys pushed empty corves along the main tunnel. After the rattle of wheels had faded, they continued.

When they passed a tunnel where the metallic banging of picks could be heard, Owen said with a frown, “That’s where the lads were taking the corves. Some fellows have decided to work a new face along there. I don’t like it—there’s too much gas in this part of the mine, which is why it hasn’t been worked in years. But there’s a good vein down that tunnel, so there are some willing to take the risk. Particularly since Madoc lowered the payment rates recently, and a man has to cut more coal in order to make the same money as before.”

A few minutes later, they reached the passage that had the timber nailed across it. Owen dropped down and crawled under, Nicholas following. He observed with interest that the dust on the tunnel floor had been disturbed recently, and often.

He kept one eye on the walls and saw the stone change color as they reached the end of the shaft. Owen began skimming the walls with his palms. “If we can find what I suspect is here …”

Doing the same, Nicholas asked, “What are we looking for?”

“Now and then we come across air pockets in the stone. They’re called
voogs
, and can be any size from a walnut to a large room. It’s the sort of place where wire silver might be found. Wilkins was one of the hewers when this vein was being worked. My guess is that he broke through into a sizable voog hole and kept his mouth shut when he realized what he had found. Since the vein had played out and work stopped, nobody noticed.”

Nicholas’s patting hand abruptly disappeared into a gap around knee level. He knelt for a closer examination and found a shaft about two feet high. “This might be it.”

As Owen joined him, Nicholas dropped onto his belly and wriggled into the hole. “Let’s see where this goes.”

The cavity curved to the left, then opened into a larger space. He raised the candle, then gasped in surprise as the light reflected from a thousand glittering surfaces. The voog was an irregular oblong chamber roughly eight feet square and six feet high. What made it extraordinary were the masses of sparkling crystals that jutted from the walls. Moving cautiously so as not to brain himself on a clump of quartz, he got to his feet and called, “Come on in. This place is incredible.”

A moment later Owen joined him. After getting to his feet, he studied his surroundings with awe. “A crystal cave. The ancient ones believed such places were magic, and maybe they were right. I’ve seen small crystal caves, but never one so large.”

Nicholas pointed to a cluster of smashed quartz. “Is this what we’re looking for?”

Owen brushed aside shards of broken crystal and brought his candle closer. As he did, light flashed from a brilliant silver splinter. He pointed to a tiny thread of metal at the heart of the shattered area. “This is it,” he said triumphantly. “That’s a thread that broke off when a clump of wire silver was chiseled out. Let’s see how many other broken areas there are.”

They began a systematic survey and found almost forty places that had been chiseled. Several showed traces of wire silver that had been left behind. They also found another low passage. Owen said, “After Wilkins had taken all the silver here, he probably tapped around, hoping to find a voog next to this one.”

Owen led the way through the gap into a smaller voog that also contained quartz formations, though not as many. It must have been newly discovered, for there were few chiseled areas.

As Nicholas raised his candle and studied the ceiling, a shimmer of light caught his eyes. He looked more closely and saw a knot of silver threads wrapped irregularly around a spur of quartz. “Eureka,” he said softly. “An intact formation.”

Owen came and looked over his shoulder. “Almost too pretty to break, isn’t it?”

“Almost, but we should take it back as a sample. When we go to the law, this will help us make our case to a magistrate who has never seen any wire silver.”

Owen had brought several small tools, and he began chiseling at the quartz. “Takes time to cut them out,” he said conversationally. “Plus most of the formations are probably buried among the crystals and not so easy to find as this one. My guess is that Wilkins has been working here for months, a few hours at a time so nobody would notice what he was up to.”

He freed the whole formation, quartz and all, then handed it to Nicholas. “This belongs to you.”

The sparkling specimen was about the size of an apple, only much heavier. To protect the delicate crystal and silver spikes, Nicholas wrapped a handkerchief around the sample, then dropped it into one of the deep pockets of his jacket. “When we get out of here, I want to take you into Swansea so we can both swear affidavits before a magistrate. My solicitor is ready to ask for an injunction. By tomorrow, the mine should be closed.”

Owen’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t help you so miners would be put out to starve.”