She couldn’t recall anyone ever asking about her motivation for redesigning a room before, not even Sabine or Tessa.
He looked around the circle of windows, examining the half-completed room. The paint on the walls had dried to a sweet, warm blush color, almost indiscernible from white. She’d left the black-and-white floor tiles untouched, and the contrast was eye-blinkingly cheerful. Footmen had delivered the two pieces of furniture that Mr. Simms recovered in the Portuguese velvet. They were draped in sheets, and she yanked them off.
“Your mother gives you leave to . . . change everything ’round as you see fit?”
“My mother does not care what I do, as long as I do not trouble her. We’ve been all over this; in fact, we’ve been over everything. I don’t understand why you continue asking. But perhaps I am to blame. I answer without thinking.”
She lodged her shoulder against the chaise longue and began to scoot it across the floor. He came beside her to help, and together they slid the heavy piece toward the center of the room.
“My earldom is in Yorkshire,” he said suddenly.
She stopped pushing and looked at him.
He stared down at the chaise. “My father has been dead for five years, and I am responsible for a mother and three sisters, a brother and his wife, and more than fifty tenant families. There is also a castle, Caldera. Sixteenth century.”
“Oh,” she said.
He shrugged. “You asked how I came to be so desperate.” He nodded to the chaise, and she pointed to its designated spot in the center of the room.
When he pushed again, she asked, “If your home is in Yorkshire, then why are you in Surrey? Besidesnotto marry me?”
He chuckled. “To seek my fortune; what else?”
“Because, you . . . lost it?”
Another chuckle. “Close, unfortunately. My family and the estate are quite out of resources—because of me. And by resources, of course I mean money. I left home to earn it back—and then some, I hope.”
“Out of money because you . . . spent it?”
He shook his head. “No, I closed the coal mines that formerly supported the estate.”
“Oh,” she said. Why had he told her this? Even worse, what did it matter? She was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to ask him why.
After a moment, he volunteered, “The Caldera coal mines have served as a steady source of income for the estate and tenants for generations. They also kept my family in the castle, crumbling though it may be. But a series of accidents in recent years caused me to reconsider the value of the mines, compared to the safety of the miners. I found the mines sorely lacking; more tenants were dying every year. And so I ordered them sealed. I could see no other solution.”
“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” she said.
“We have all been sorry, but what choice did I have? Ten miners died in the collapse of one mine last year, and twenty-five miners and eight little boys drowned in another, flooded by the tide. The shafts were not stable; the ocean not predictable. I could not, in good conscience, continue to operate an endeavor that left so many families without fathers and sons.” He looked up. “If I’m being honest, even without the accidents, I had always been leery of the dark, dangerous business of mining.”
“Good for you,” Willow said, “if you felt it was as unsafe as all that.” She was captivated by the story, in spite of herself. She had fought so very hard to control her own future; she could not imagine managing the future of an estate full of tenants. And he seemed so thoughtful about it, so agonized. She felt a small prick in the area of her heart.
“Yes, well, good for me, bad for Caldera. Without the coal, we find ourselves largely without a reliable way to sustain the estate. The tenants have tried their hands at farming. I have drained the family coffers to help them, but Yorkshire is not like Surrey.” He gestured to the verdant green outside the window. “It is cold and rocky and wet. Our sheep have been blighted with a virus that we cannot find our way around. Farming is not impossible, but at the moment it is not enough. I left home ten months ago to seek out my partners, who are old friends from school. I knew their shipping venture in London was earning some measure of success. They’ve asked me for years to join their partnership. I thought if we could work together, we might advance their moderate earnings into a legitimate windfall and that I might make enough money to sustain Caldera until we got the farming sorted out.”
He glanced at her and shrugged. “And then we won the island and learned the potential of the bat sh—of the guano. I wrote to my family and implored them not to lose heart, that I’d discovered some means to sustain us. It would only take another year or two—”
“And they opposed you,” guessed Willow.
He laughed. “You’re of a negative point of view.”
She shrugged. “My family has not, as a rule, been a great source of encouragement for my professional fulfillment.”
More laughter. “For better or worse, my mother and sisters, my brother—they all consider me to be learned and wise and many other things that I am not. They expect me to know what is best. In reality”—he blew out a frustrated puff of air—“I am riddled with uncertainty. Their faith in me is unwavering.” Another breath. “And misplaced.”
Willow wanted to reassure him; the words were on the tip of her tongue, but she reminded herself that his feelings were not her responsibility. She cleared her throat and went to the newly covered chair and began to bump it across the tiles. “I cannot relate, I’m afraid. My family relies on me for nothing. But my friends? Now, they are a different story.”
“My family believes in me,” he said. “But our tenants are frustrated and impatient and critical. Mining is all they have ever known. They are dubious of farming. I understand, really I do, but I cannot make them see that mining, although profitable, is simply not safe. Meanwhile, I’ve a successful uncle—my father’s brother—who sweeps in on occasion to suggest to the tenants that I am not of sound mind, that no sane landlord would seal perfectly productive mines. He would steal Caldera out from under me, given half the chance; reopen all the mines; take up as earl. If I cannot ease the general feeling of desperation soon, he may convince them, and I’ll have mutiny on my hands.”
“But you are earl,” she insisted.
