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thought it might turn consumptive, and told me not to work underground for half a year.”
    Compassion softened the corners of her mouth; just for a moment he saw again the sweet-faced girl on the village green. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.
    “No need to be. As you can see, I’m fine now. Fit and able-bodied, Miss Deene, and ready to work.”
    He was, but Jack wasn’t. Jack’s lung fever was indeed tubercular, and the last doctor had said he’d kill himself if he went down in a mine again. Even with that, his chances of reaching middle age were barely even. It was a cruel and bitter sentence, but Jack had come to terms with it. It was Connor who couldn’t.
    “As is happens,” Sophie said carefully, “there’s to be a setting next week for pitwork in a new excavation. I’m aware that one of the gangs could use an extra man. That is, if tribute work interests you, Mr. Pendarvis.”
    A setting was an auction, when miners bid for the pitches they wanted to work, and instead of a wage they earned a percentage of the value of the ore they dug. It was a subterranean lottery, riskier than tutwork—which was merely driving shafts and sinking levels, clearing the way for the tributers—but sometimes it could be much more lucrative. A man could strike a lucky pitch and do pretty well for himself. Or he could lose his shirt. Usually he just eked out a living, and a hard one at that.
    But it was nice of her to offer. Connor hadn’t expected it. But ore extraction was a complicated skill requiring years of experience—experience like Jack’s—and Connor’s entire underground experience consisted of four months of tutwork in all of two Cornish copper mines. If he tried to bluff, he’d likely be found out for the novice he was in about two days.
    “I appreciate it,” he said truthfully. “But I haven’t the money to lay out for my share of the grinding and dressing.”
    “The mine could lend it to you in advance of your earnings.”
    He smiled thinly. He was familiar with that ruse. “At what percent, Miss Deene?”
    She narrowed her eyes at him. “At zero percent, Mr. Pendarvis. It’s a free loan with a three-month term, payable in full.”
    Unusual. Most owners were only too glad to advance capital to miners in need, at prodigious rates that kept them beholden to the company indefinitely.
    “Thanks,” he said, “but I’ll stick with tutwork. It’s what I do best.” Slow, plodding, molelike labor; it took some skill, a lot of sweat, and no imagination. He loathed it. As she watched him speculatively, he found himself almost wishing she didn’t believe him—that she was thinking he
didn’t
look like a man who would cheerfully spend his whole life burrowing holes in the ground so people like her could grow rich on his sweat and blood.
    “Very well,” she said slowly. “Tutwork, then. What tools do you have?”
    “Pick, shovel, wedges.”
    “Blasting tools?”
    “Sledge, borer, claying box. Cartridges and fuses.”
    “Can you buy your candles?”
    “I’d need a subsist,” he lied. “Two pounds would see me through until payday.” Candles were a miner’s biggest expense, running to roughly a tenth of his earnings.
    She nodded. “One of my tutmen lost his partner and has been working alone for the past two weeks. I should think you could team up with him. I pay five pounds for a fathom, and I pay my men every—”
    “
Five?
I’ve never worked for that. I earned six guineas at Carn Barra.”
    Then you should’ve stayed there
, she wanted to say, he could tell by her eyes; it was fascinating to watch her trying to hold on to her temper. She sat back in the squeaky chair, deliberately relaxing her stiff fingers over the leather-covered arms. “Carn Barra is four times the size of Guelder, Mr. Pendarvis. It’s owned by a consortium. Until a year and a half ago, it brought up ore that sold at the coinage for three, sometimes four times the price of my copper. If I could pay my men more, I