‘Is he bad?’

‘Miss Kellow thinks he has a broken ankle.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘She is sitting with him in the wagon waiting to leave. They are down by the kilns.’

‘And the other man they pulled out? How is he?’

‘Davey is fine, Captain. Not a scratch and calling for a tankard of ale.’

‘He drinks enough. He would be calling for ale whether he was caught in a landslide or not.’ Talek realised he wouldn’t have even known his name a few months ago, let alone his fondness for ale. Grace had a lot to answer for.

They arrived at the bottom of the hill. Some of the workers had gathered to see the injured man off. Talek searched the gathering and finally found Grace in a wagon, leaning over the injured man and tending to his leg.

‘The man who died lived in the last cottage on Rowe Road, Captain.’

Talek turned to his shift boss. ‘Thank you. Is there someone who knows his family well and is willing to accompany me? Someone who can stay with his wife after I leave?’

‘I’ll go with you. I live next door and my wife will stay with her.’

Talek nodded, his eyes searching for Grace again until he found her. ‘Good,’ he said, absently. As if sensing Talek was watching her, Grace looked up and their gazes locked. Despite being so near it felt as if a hundred miles divided them. Her father climbed aboard and took up the reins.

‘Take me to the cottage on Rowe Road,’ said Talek.

‘Would you like to change first, Captain?’

Talek shook his head. ‘I don’t care for my comfort. His widow and her needs come first. She must learn the news from me, not by village gossip. I want to reassure her that she’ll be well cared for. It’s hard enough to lose someone, without having to bear the monetary troubles that are connected to their loss.’

* * *

The journey to the village was tortuous for the injured miner. Grace supported his leg and foot to help ease the pain, but he felt every jolt and turn of the wheels. At times his discomfort was too much to watch, but Grace was determined not to show it and continued to reassure him throughout the arduous journey. They finally arrived at his home. Her father helped his family carry him inside as his wife ran ahead to make a comfortable place for him to lie down. The doctor arrived shortly afterwards, bustling through the open door with a bag in one hand and his hat in the other. After an experienced, cursory glance at the leg, he rummaged through his medical bag for a large dose of laudanum and administered it straight away to help ease the pain. As the drug took effect, he calmed the distraught wife by asking after the other members of her family. He knew them all by name and Grace suspected he was as well known to the villagers as they were to him. Gradually the fraught atmosphere within the cottage settled and he began to examine the man’s injuries in earnest. It was as they all feared, his ankle was injured, but the doctor remained pragmatic.

‘He has a dislocated ankle but it can be fixed. I’ll straighten and splint it today and return tomorrow. It will be painful, but the ankle will heal and be as strong as it was before.’ With the agreement of the miner, he set about manipulating the distorted ankle straighter and splinting it in place. At times the pain was so intense that the miner struggled to cope, yet at the same time he shouted and cursed through the pain to ‘get the job done’. Daniel aided the doctor by holding the upper part of the leg as the doctor pulled on the foot. The miner’s wife could not bear to watch and left the room, leaving Grace to soothe and reassure the injured miner that the pain would soon come to an end.

It was another hour before Grace and Daniel emerged from the tiny cottage again. They thankfully reclaimed their own horse and trap from a neighbour who had returned the clay wagon and retrieved their smaller trap in their absence. Her father climbed on board, but Grace did not. Standing on the opposite side of the road was Alfred. Her father saw him too.

‘If he is here to cause trouble I’ll—’

‘No. I want to talk to him. Wait here,’ she told him, before leaving the trap and walking briskly to the other side of the road. Alfred watched her approach. He opened his mouth but Grace didn’t give him a chance to speak. She had too much she wanted to say.

‘You can say what you like to whoever you want, Alfred, because I no longer care. And do you know why? Because your poison cannot hurt me any more. Those I care about know and accept me for who I am. They don’t care and nor do I. In fact, I’m proud that my family and I have come through it and perhaps I am the better for finally learning the truth.’ Alfred looked away, but she would not be ignored. Grace stepped in front of him so he was forced to see her. ‘What about you? If you continue this vendetta, people will soon come to know what you are really like. And that is sad, Alfred, because you will die a bitter old man.’ His expression did not change and Grace wondered if he had heard her at all. She tilted her head in bewilderment. ‘I did nothing to you, Alfred, except be unable to love you.’

Something stirred in his eyes. He was listening after all. She touched her heart.

‘Love comes from in here. It’s not spiteful or vengeful. It is beautiful, warm . . . and filled with joy. It can also hurt. I know because I have felt that pain too. But it doesn’t turn to hate. Hatred is more about the person who feels it than the one they once loved. A man cannot force a woman to love them. Nor a woman a man.’ Alfred suddenly bowed his head, unable to hold her gaze any more. ‘I wish you a happy life, Alfred, but it won’t be with me. They say a miner died today. Life is too short. Don’t allow yours to be filled with bitterness for someone you will never have.’

She had said all there was to say. She could not heal him. That was something he had to learn to do himself. Grace turned, marched briskly back to the waiting trap and climbed aboard. They watched Alfred walk away.

‘Did speaking to him make you feel better?’ asked her father.

‘Yes. It had to be said.’

‘Where do you want me to take you?’ They both knew the question meant more than that. Had she made it up with Talek and would return to Roseland to care for his sister, or were they as far apart as they were before her visit.

Tears pricked Grace’s eyes as she thought of Talek. Perhaps she had more in common with Alfred than she cared to admit. Both rejected by the one they loved.

‘You didn’t tell him that his sister swore you to secrecy, did you?’ Her father’s gentle voice was almost the undoing of her. Tears welled up in her eyes. She stared hard at a house across the road in order not to blink. To blink would make them fall and once one fell, others were sure to follow.

All throughout her care for the injured miner, Talek had not been far from her thoughts. She had been terrified for his safety and had never been more thankful than when she saw him walking down the hill, dirty and exhausted, but alive and well. She must not think of him. She wiped her eyes dry and shook her head.

‘No, I didn’t tell him.’

‘Why not?’

More tears threatened. Grace clenched her jaw to draw courage. She was determined not to break down. It must be the shock of the day making her feel so fragile.

‘Talek believes that Amelia is the only woman who has not betrayed him in recent years. I don’t want to hurt him further by telling him the truth. Besides, I have nothing to gain. He no longer cares for me so it is best for all concerned to keep silent on the matter.’

‘Did he say he didn’t care for you?’ asked her father as he took her hand in his. His warmth and protection reminded her of the times when she was a child and he had lifted her in his arms after a fall. It had the power to drain the tension from her body and soothe her wounds. It did so now as she relaxed against him. He lifted his arm and wrapped it about her. Her defences melted away along with the sob that rose up inside her. This time she did not stop it.

‘He did not need to say it,’ she sobbed.

‘Then you can’t know that for sure.’

Her father’s arms tightened about her. Her body, raw, tender and as weak as a kitten, allowed her father’s solid frame to shield her.

‘I do. I saw it in his eyes.’

Chapter Twenty

The evening sun hung heavy on the horizon, scorching the sky blood red as if it had been slashed with a sword. Talek returned to Roseland on foot. It suited him to walk and gave him some precious time to be alone before his sister’s persistent questions and the staffs’ inquisitive glances and gossip.

His thoughts were full of the new widow’s grief. She had cried like a wounded animal when he had informed her of her husband’s death. It was heart-wrenching to witness, but he had stayed until she had quietened and someone else had arrived to stay with her. He had given his reassurance that she would be financially well cared for in the immediate future, but he had known, as he had spoken the words, that his generosity would be inadequate for the pain she was suffering now. No amount of money could take that away.

The edges of the blood red sky began to take on a golden sheen as the sun rested on the horizon in the distance. The ball of fire was untouched by the grief of the village, a grief that Talek felt utterly responsible for, despite the young widow’s later reassurances he was not. The logical side of him agreed with her. Heavy downpours and storms were part of Cornwall’s changeable weather, just as the setting sun was now. It was not unusual to have the sun beating down in the morning and, by the end of the day, heavy rain causing rivers to rise dangerously high. If mining stopped every time it rained then it would cut the production of clay by half and leave men without the means to put food on the table. Yet — if only he had inspected the pit when he had first arrived at the site, he may have decided to close it. A seemingly inconsequential decision to walk one way rather than the other had resulted in a man’s death. It would be a decision he would regret for the rest of his life.

After his visit to the widow, he had sought the injured miner out. He found him in his little terraced house, resting on a makeshift bed by a fire and dozing like a drunkard. It seemed Doctor Borlase’s little brown bottle had already worked its magic to dull the miner’s pain.

‘Is it broken?’ Talek asked the miner’s wife as she frantically tidied the room around him.

‘Dislocated,’ she said, flustered and hiding a pair of muddy boots under a blanket, ‘but Doctor Borlase says it will mend well.’

Talek watched her pick up a plate and hurry from the room, returning almost immediately. Her eyes darted about the cottage for something else to clear. He realised his visit was unsettling her rather than providing comfort and he should cut it short. It was not every day the mine owner came into their home and it had set her on edge at a time she had more pressing worries.

‘I won’t stay,’ he said. Her relief was immediate. ‘I just wanted to let you know that you needn’t worry about your rent. I will provide for you financially until Michael is able to work again.’ How he would manage it if the business did not recover from Henry’s actions he did not know, but that problem would not be this family’s concern.

The miner’s wife was grateful and hurriedly showed him to the door, thanking him profusely as she did so.