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Eaton frowned. “Even a day or two of rest would be a great help to the healing, your grace.”

“And a day is exactly what I do not have. And now, if you will excuse me, I must go meet with my engineers.”

A footman showed Captain Eaton out of the dressing room.

“Well?” West turned to Tompkins. “I suppose that you are about to tell me that I ought to go to bed with a cold beefsteak on it?”

Tompkins folded his arms. “Your riding boots, your grace,” he said, reproachfully.

The horses picked their way along a stretch of road that had been washed out by spring runoff months ago. A team of men was repairing the roadbed using broken rocks from the mine’s spoil tip. Everyone bowed, and the foreman wished him a good day. But West was left with the heavy feeling that many of his tenants still regarded him with suspicion. Not that he blamed them.

They rode on. He thought again of the cold afternoon when his mother had brought him to the big house in St. James Square, only to be angrily turned away. The old duke’s life had cast a long and bleak shadow. It might take years before everything here at Castle March was as it ought to be. But yet, here he was—the unexpected heir, ordering up required repairs and making plans to improve wheat yields. As Townley had said, a ducal coronet could land on the oddest of heads.

He’d found it helpful to ride out with Bray and Griffiths whenever he could. Being in the open air and talking informally made Griffiths less stiff and wary and more inclined to offer his honest opinions. Not only that, but the three of them together could often save time by resolving problems on the spot.

West had hired a team of engineers from a firm in Wakefield, in Yorkshire, to make a survey and confer with Bray on a site for a new mine. He’d also ordered a Cornish engine for the one working mine left at Castle March—the Compass Hill pit. Today, they’d come to check the progress on the engine house that would contain the huge steam engine. Brick by brick, course by course, it was rising next to the old horse-powered whim gin that currently drove the mine’s lift system. The chimney for the coal furnace that would heat the water was already twice his height.

Bray dismounted and slapped the side of the building with satisfaction. “What a sight it will be, your grace! Reminds me of home—Cornwall, that is.”

In several months the steam boiler, shaft and gears of the winding engine would arrive—at considerable expense and difficulty—from the foundry where they were being cast. The machinery would be assembled here in this shell of a building. The great power of the modern steam engine would not only raise miners from the mine more quickly, but also pump water out and fresh air in. Safety wouldn’t be overlooked at Castle March as long as he was alive.

What would Pomona think, if she could see this building? He had mixed feelings himself. The steam engine’s virtues of speed and power were the most important considerations. But though Bray liked it, the engine house’s tall chimney would be an unlovely addition to the hillside. And Pomona disliked modern buildings anyway… He thought back to their visit to the Austrian garrison in Venice, and how disappointed she’d been by the tidy brick barracks, and how he’d wondered about her secret project and teased her about her interest in tunnels, instead of simply appreciating the fact that he was spending time with her.

It seemed that now they were to live like those aristocratic couples who managed never to be in the same place at the same time.

Suddenly, angry shouting erupted outside. He charged out of the building and saw two miners on the ground. One was hitting the other, while a third man tried to drag him off. West shoved his way through the mob, grabbed the man by the collar himself, and hauled him out of the fight. “Stop this at once! I will not have it!” The shouting stopped as some of the men began to recognize him.

The man he was holding struggled for a moment and then gave up. With a shock West realized that he wasn’t a man at all. He was barely more than a boy. A tangle of hair hid most of his face. “What is happening here? What is your name?”

The young man stared at the ground and didn’t answer.

“What is your name?”

The other man staggered to his feet and wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. “He… he just come at me like a wild thing!”

The foreman and Bray hurried up. “This is Ewan Pitman, your grace,” said the foreman.

“He is the older brother of John, who was lately killed at Clee Pit,” added Bray.

Ewan still refused to make eye contact with West. “How old are you?”

“He is twelve, your grace. And an orphan. His leg was injured in the collapse.”

“Well, Ewan. Let us put this incident behind us, eh?” Even to his own ears, West sounded like some sort of pompous schoolmaster.

No response. And frankly, his empty words hadn’t deserved one. “Perhaps you would like to come back to the village with us now.”

Ewan said nothing. After a moment Bray exchanged a look with West and shook his head slightly.

They mounted up. Ewan rode behind Bray. West’s bad knee throbbed. He’d strained it again when he’d dragged the boy out of the fight. He tried to ignore it, and focused instead on the small signs of progress that he could see as they rode down the hill into the village. A team of men was at work placing new slates on one of the cottages, and from the road he could see that they’d already finished repairing the roofs of five or six others.

As they rode into the village he saw a small crowd of villagers gathered in the square before the village church, St. Padarn’s. The moment they came to a halt, Ewan slid off Bray’s horse. “Ewan Pitman!” Bray’s voice was sharp. “Say good morning to his grace.”

Ewan muttered something and vanished into the crowd.

The villagers had fallen silent and were eyeing West. Griffiths had told him that the old duke hadn’t mingled with his tenants. Indeed, to most of them he might as well have been a mythical figure. So West could understand that they were still startled to have him appear amongst them.

There were curtseys and awkward bows. He nodded in acknowledgment and forced a smile that felt stiff on his face. “Good day.”