“Dismantle it? But why?” Willow followed Ruth through the thick double doors into a room that looked so far from what she expected, she stopped and blinked.
“It’s so bright,” Willow marveled.
Instead of dim sootiness, this room had been tiled, wall-to-wall, with pale yellow ceramic. The yellow was broken at intervals with orange and black tiles, creating a beautiful mosaic that began near the door and zigged and zagged to the far wall. The center of the room dropped into four walled pools, also tiled, with tiled benches lining the sides. It was a room-sized work of art.
“We had a room very similar to this in my parents’ estate, Leland Park, in Surrey,” Willow said. “It could not have been nearly as old, but it is in far worse repair. I’ve always wanted to redo it.”
“Well, this one is not in what I’d call good repair either, although the family still uses it,” said Ruth. “Felix and I promised the moon in the way of improvements to it after we excavated it—this is how we garnered Lady Cassin’s support.”
“Support for what?”
“Oh, this bathhouse is only about three hundred years old. But it was builton topof an eighteen-hundred-year-old Roman structure that was used for the same purpose. An original Roman bathhouse, if you can believe it. The hot spring that feeds the baths today is the very same that the conquering Romans used in 45 AD. We were going to dig down and study the original. We were going to try to recreate the facility as the Romans built it, if we could.”
“A hot spring,” Willow marveled. “Truly?” She picked at the mortar of a loose orange tile. “Our bathing room at Leland Park was in the cellar, and servants were forced to haul steaming water from the kitchens to fill the bath. The room did not interest my parents, and they would not permit me to remake it. Such a shame, but this is beautiful. I can see room for a few improvements, but by and large, it is a rare and beautiful thing. Truly. The mosaic is a work of art.” She turned back to Ruth. “And the water for the baths? Is it nice?”
“Oh yes, lovely,” said Ruth. “It’s why we put off excavating it for so long. No one was willing to be without the comfort and convenience of the baths. See—here?”
Ruth went to a rectangular spout and turned a lever. After a series of groans and pops, a rush of fizzy, acrid-smelling water poured from the spout into a basin below. “Go on; try it,” Ruth said.
Tentatively, Willow held out her hand. The water was hot—almost too hot to tolerate, but not quite—as it bubbled and gurgled against her hand.
“Your neighbors must be jealous,” Willow said idly, enjoying the hot water coursing through her fingers. “And the tenants? Are they ever permitted to use it?”
“Oh, hot springs such as this abound in this part of the country. The neighbors and the tenants all have of their own source for a spring. We are fortunate because this very convenient spring was made into a proper bathhouse, but people around Harrogate make due with a wash tub or a trough. Some use the original Roman ruins, if they remain intact.”
“I hadno idea,” Willow said, stepping back and wiping her hand on her skirts. “You should see the bathing rooms and pulley systems we are installing in the new mansions in London. The richest families will have hot water at their whim, and upstairs, too, in their bedchambers. If only they could see how it’s done in Yorkshire . . . ”
The words were scarcely out of Willow’s mouth before an idea struck her.
The idea hit her so powerfully and so fully formed that she fell silent and ceased hearing Ruth’s chatter. She blinked and held out a hand to the cool wall for steadiness. Good lord, but if Cassin and his family would consider it, her idea might save Caldera and its people for generations, just as coal mining was meant to have done.
“I must find Cassin,” Willow said suddenly, spinning on Ruth. “I must find him straightaway.”
***
Cassin’s mood upon returning from his meeting with the tenants was, if not encouraged, then at least not the white-knuckle panic of the day before.
It was clear these men preferred to put their faith in him, the known earl; and they could see his concerns about safety were intended for their own well-being, but they were reluctant to take money from him, even to hold their families over.
He promised a great windfall and explained the work in Barbadoes; he told them he would return with the resources that all of them would require to make a successful go at the noble profession of sheep farming.
The men listened with respect, but it was clear that the prospect of sheep sounded lazy and passive to their generations-old Yorkshire coal mining.
Ironically, Cassin could relate to their skepticism, and he bought a very little bit of legitimacy by explaining to them the mining he had done in the tropics.
Whatever happened, Cassin assured them that he would take their preferences under consideration and study the matter over time. The important thing now was that he was earning the money to invest in the land and the people. And they believed he was making choices in good faith, with their best interest at heart.
Most useful of all, at least in an immediate sense, he had secured the promise of tenant protection for his mother and sisters. He explained the threat of his uncle after he returned to Barbadoes, and he arranged to hire six men in rotation who would provide personal security for the castle while he was away.
Of all of his uncle’s threats, the most dangerous had been the prospect of five women living alone in the Yorkshire countryside with no man looking after them. Burly bodyguards could not protect the women from every threat, but Ruth was clever and could provide brains if the hired muscle was not enough.
Not surprisingly, the bodyguards had been Willow’s idea. After they’d made love the night before, she’d lain in his arms, listening to him recount his horrible day.
His original idea was to ask the tenants to be vigilant and watchful, reporting his uncle’s unwelcome presence to the constable in Harrogate. Willow had considered this and said, “Why not pay the tenants themselves to protect the castle? They could function like castle guards of old.”
The grown sons of tenants had fallen over themselves to bodyguard the women in the castle, even without pay. When Cassin had explained that the duty was an actual job with real wages, he saw a pride in their eyes he’d not seen since before he closed the mines.
With guards in place, and most of the tenants trying to be, at the very least, sympathetic to Cassin’s reinvention of Caldera, he felt prepared to confront his uncle, to demand that he leave and never return.
