“Take one,” he instructed her softly. “It’s not as bright as the sun,but it will show you enough.”
Georgina selected a lamp and tested its weight in her hand. The flame inside flickered, fragile yet defiant.
“Keep it close,” he added. “The tunnels can turn upon you if you’re careless.”
Her pulse quickened, but she gave a brisk nod. “I’ll stay close.”
They crossed the threshold together, stepping from the crisp morning air into the dim, damp world beneath the earth. The chill of the tunnels coiled around her shoulders, seeping through the borrowed coat as if to remind her where she stood.
She had told herself it was a matter of duty, as simple as that. Yet as she lifted the lamp higher, casting its flickering light into the shadows ahead, she repeated the promise within her heart.
I will not flinch.
And she would not. Her borrowed coat was welcome now. She pulled it tighter around her shoulders as her lamp flickered to life, casting a modest circle of light into the gloom.
Ahead, Weld’s lamp swayed steadily, sure and unhurried as he led the way. Shadows bent and stretched along the uneven walls, catching the glimmer of embedded coal seams like ink smudges in the rock.
“Mind your step,” he said quietly, though she had already picked her footing with care. The uneven ground was damp beneath her boots, patches of water glinting like oil in the lantern light.
Georgina’s heart pounded, not with fear, but with alertness. She absorbed every detail, the way the timbers groaned faintly overhead, the drift of dust in the air, and the scent of smoke from the miners’ lamps mingling with the sharp tang of stone.
They passed a crew working to shore up a weakened section, their faces blackened with soot and concentration. Tools clanged against stone in a steady rhythm, filling the stale air with uneasy music.
Weld paused beside them, eyeing the angle of the newly placed supports. His fingers brushed the timber, testing its give with practicedease. A frown tugged at his mouth, but he said nothing as they moved on.
“This way,” he directed, guiding her down a narrower passage. The air thickened around her shoulders, cool, dry, and still. It pressed like silence at a funeral, familiar, but no longer welcome. “We’ll inspect the main beam and vent line before returning to the upper galleries.”
Georgina followed without hesitation, her lamp held high. As they walked, she kept her gaze attentive, cataloguing the narrowing of the walls and the close press of earth above her head.
As they passed a side cut-off, a narrow passage branching from the main shaft, timbered but less heavily used, she slowed.
“Does the airflow run from this seam toward the main shaft?” she asked, lifting her lamp toward the opening, “or does it risk drawing firedamp back toward the working faces?”
Her voice was calm and steady, but it carried easily in the hush between hammer strikes.
Archer, who had been trailing them with dutiful silence, blinked as if she had spoken in a foreign language. He shifted, a flicker of discomfort crossing his soot-streaked face. “M’lady?”
Weld’s gaze sharpened immediately, a quiet command glinting in his eyes. “Answer her, Archer.”
The foreman cleared his throat, glancing toward the cut-off as though seeing it anew. “The flow runs toward the main shaft,” he replied at last. “As it ought. Though with the new collapse, there’s been… some disruption.”
“Enough to cause accumulation?” Georgina pressed, her tone free of accusation, only genuine concern.
Archer hesitated, his fingers curling around the brim of his cap. “We’ve vented it well enough,” he said, but his answer lacked conviction.
Weld’s gaze lingered on the foreman a heartbeat longer, calm andassessing, before he turned to Georgina. No smile curved his mouth, but there was a light in his eyes, steady, quiet, and filled with something that might have been pride.
“You’ve studied well,” he said, his voice low, meant only for her.
She could not look away. It wasn’t the compliment, but the way he said it, without irony, without surprise, as though he had expected nothing less.
“I mean to do more than study,” Georgina replied, lifting her lamp a fraction higher. “I mean to understand.”
Her boot slid against loose stone, and she caught herself with a sharp inhale. A hand, his, brushed her back, steadying. Just enough. Then gone.
They moved on, though the question lingered behind them like an echo in the shaft. Georgina kept her silence, but her mind did not let the matter go. Archer’s answer had wavered. His jaw shifted, just slightly, but Georgina saw it. He didn’t trust Archer. Or the mine. Perhaps not even himself. She would follow his lead, for now, but she carried the ember of that concern. She’d seen enough ashes. This time, she would not wait for fire to become ruin.
Chapter Five
