Loving The Lost Duke (Dangerous Deceptions #1)(72)
‘And what will I tell her I want it for?’
‘An experiment in land drainage,’ Cal offered, already bent over the maps again.
Sophie returned with the information that for once the admirable Mrs Fairfax was having trouble concealing her irritation with the queer starts of the Quality and was, even as she spoke, scribbling a frantic order for new supplies before laundry day arrived. She found the men had drawn lines over the older map that showed the hills beyond the old castle and Flynn had a sheet of paper and was making copies of two sections of the land nearest the crest, drawing in waterways in blue ink.
‘We need more than one colour as a marker,’ Cal muttered.
‘The yellow ochre they are using to paint the farm buildings?’ Hunt suggested. ‘I noticed yesterday they have just started and there are a lot of buildings. The stuff is pretty concentrated.’
‘We know it takes two days from source to the spring because of the delay when the old spring died and the new one began.’ Cal sat back and studied the sketch plans. ‘I will take blue, you take yellow and we’ll each dose all the possible swallow-holes in our section, then put a watch on the spring. Once we’ve got the area narrowed down we can repeat it until there is only one source possible.’ He turned to look at Sophie. ‘Do you want to come with me?’
‘Of course.’
‘I will just go and talk to Isobel for a few minutes. She’ll sense something is wrong, however careful everyone is around her.’
‘I will ask the ladies to include her in their activities today, shall I?’ Sophie suggested. ‘That will give them something to think about other than Jonathan and they are all sensible enough not to start gossiping in front of her. I won’t be long.’
Sophie changed into her riding habit and begged the female guests help with Isobel, explaining that Cal was very much occupied and that she felt she must support him. If they were left with the impression that he was making arrangements for the funeral and contacting Jonathan’s family, then so much the better. Prescott was, he told her, already working on the arrangements.
They rode out, heading in the direction of the old castle, then split a mile from it, Flynn and Hunt cantering northwards, she and Cal taking a winding lane that led from the park boundary up into the hills, following the contour until they had worked their way around to the north-facing slopes.
Almost immediately she noticed the difference. ‘I can smell coal smoke.’
Cal nodded, gesturing to the track they were now following, mired in mud and churned by wagon wheels. ‘Small scattered industries all over the area.’
They dipped down into little dry valleys that Cal marked on his map, occasionally dismounting to check the size of trees growing at their bottom, or to look for water-weathering on the stones. Gradually the sound of industry, of hammer on metal, grew louder and the smells worsened and they climbed another valley that, by Sophie’s calculation rose on one side to the crest of the hill above the castle.
Plumes of black smoke hung above the trees and they passed deep scores in the rocks, some raw and new, others overgrown. ‘Rakes,’ Cal said. ‘They are where seams of minerals come to the surface – silver, although there’s not much of that, zinc, lead, some iron. They mine coal over to the east.’ As he spoke an empty wagon appeared, coal dust coating its side and base. The driver stared at them but did not stop.
‘I hear water,’ Sophie said and the sound became louder as they rode on.
‘Look.’ Cal urged his horse up the bank beside them. ‘This is a dam, diverting the flow that way – see, that is where the stream used to go.’ He pointed down to where a dry ditch went under the road and vanished. ‘That must have run into a swallow-hole over there and would have come out somewhere near the castle.’ He dismounted, knelt and dipped his hand in the water, took a cautious sip and spat. ‘This tastes as the old spring’s water used to, of some mineral or other. But it is pure, there is no smell and it is quite clear.’
He remounted and they rode on, the diverted stream bubbling and chuckling beside them now, and were suddenly in a village. Sophie gasped at the shock of emerging from the greenery of the woodland into mud, dirt and industry. The low cottages huddled around mired lanes and smoke and noise filled the air from the workshops all around.
Children ran out as they approached, most of them, Sophie saw with distress, dressed in rags and barefoot. All of them appeared to have been distracted from some kind of labour, judging by the shouts from the workshops that sent them scurrying back inside.
Cal reined in at the edge of a rough plank bridge. It had been made across the stream where it crossed the largest lane in a sea of mud before emptying into a circular basin, half choked with rocks. More were being dumped in as they watched and some men were agitating them with long poles and brushes.
‘That’s a buddle,’ Cal shouted to her above the din. ‘For cleaning ore before it is smelted.’
Men started to come out of the workshops, sweaty, filthy and, to Sophie’s eyes, hostile.
‘Stay behind me.’ Cal nudged his horse into a walk and crossed the bridge. For once Sophie did not feel inclined to dispute his orders. The last thing they needed at the moment was a fight breaking out because Cal took exception to the way the men looked at her.
‘You wanting someone?’ the biggest man asked.