Eventually the vehicle stopped by a field bordered with a stream and a stand of beech. The rough fields and hillocks swarmed with activity; at least a dozen men were busy with surveying equipment, shovels, picks, barrows, and a steam-powered engine.
“What are they doing?” Devon asked, mystified. “Are those Severin’s men? They can’t be grading the land yet. The lease was signed only yesterday.”
“No, I hired them.” West pushed the carriage door open before the driver could reach it. He swung to the ground. “Come.”
“My lord,” Sutton protested as Devon made to follow. “You’re not attired for such crude terrain. All that rock and clay… your shoes, your trousers…” He regarded the pristine hems of Devon’s gray angora wool trousers with anguish.
“You can wait in the carriage,” Devon told the valet.
“Yes, my lord.”
A heavily misted breeze blew against Devon’s face as he and West walked to a freshly dug trench marked with flags. The fragrance of earth, wet sedge, and peat wrapped around them, a fresh and familiar Hampshire smell.
As they passed a man with a barrow, he stopped and removed his hat, bowing his head respectfully. “Your lordship.”
Devon responded with a brief smile and nod.
Reaching the edge of the trench, West bent to pick up a small rock and handed it to Devon.
The rock – more of a pebble – was unexpectedly heavy for its size. Devon used his thumb to scrape dirt from it, uncovering a ruddy surface banded with bright red. “Ore?” he guessed, examining the pebble closely.
“High-grade hematite ore.” West’s tone was filled with compressed excitement. “It makes the best steel. It commands the highest price on the market.”
Devon glanced at him with sharpening interest. “Go on.”
“While I was away in London,” West continued, “it seems that Severin’s surveyors did some test boring here. One of the tenants – Mr. Wooten – heard the machines and came to see what was afoot. The surveyors told him nothing, of course. But as soon as I learned of it, I hired a geologist and a mining surveyor to do our own testing. They’ve been here for three days with a rock-boring machine, pulling up sample after sample of that.” He nodded to the hematite in Devon’s hand.
Beginning to understand, Devon closed his fingers around the hard lump of ore. “How much of it is there?”
“They’re still assessing. But they both agree that a massive bed of banded hematite lies close to the surface, just beneath a layer of clay and limestone. From what they’ve observed so far, it’s eight feet thick in some places, twenty-two feet in others – and it extends for at least fifteen acres. All your land. The geologist says he’s never seen a deposit like this south of Cumberland.” His voice turned husky. “It’s easily worth a half million pounds, Devon.”
Devon had the sense of reeling backward, even though he was standing still. It was too much to take in. He gazed at the scene without really seeing it, his brain striving to comprehend what it meant.
The soul-crushing burden of debt that had weighed on him ever since he’d inherited the estate… gone. Everyone at Eversby Priory would be safe. Theo’s sisters would have dowries large enough to attract any suitors they chose. There would be work for the men of Eversby, and new business for the village.
“Well?” West asked expectantly as Devon’s silence stretched out.
“I can’t trust that it’s real,” he managed to say, “until I know more.”
“You can trust it. Believe me, a hundred thousand tons of stone is not going to vanish from beneath our feet.”
A slow grin worked over Devon’s face. “Now I understand why Severin tried so hard to obtain the mineral rights.”
“Thank God you’re so stubborn.”
Devon laughed. “That’s the first time you’ve ever said that to me.”
“And the last,” West assured him.
Turning a slow circle to view their surroundings, Devon sobered as he glanced at the woodlands to the south. “I can’t let the estate’s timber be razed for furnaces and forges.”
“No, there’s no need for us to mine or smelt. The hematite ore is so pure, we’ll only need to quarry. As soon as it’s taken from the ground, it can be transported.”
Completing the circle, Devon caught sight of a man and a small boy walking around the rock-boring machine, viewing it with great interest.
“First an earldom,” West was saying, “then the railway lease deal. Now this. I think you may be the luckiest sod in England.”
Devon’s attention held on the man and little boy. “Who is that?”
West followed his gaze. “Ah. That’s Wooten. He’s brought one of his sons to see the machine.”
Wooten bent with his torso parallel to the ground, and the little boy climbed onto his back. Hooking his arms beneath his son’s legs, the young farmer stood and carried him across the field. The boy clung to his father’s shoulders, laughing.
Devon watched the pair as they retreated into the distance.
The sight of the child summoned an image to the forefront of his mind… Kathleen’s blank face, limned in fire glow, as she’d told him there would be no baby.
All he had been aware of was a puzzling feeling of emptiness.
It was only now that Devon realized he had assumed she would be pregnant – which would have left him no choice to marry her. Having lived with that idea in the back of his mind for a fortnight, he had become accustomed to it.