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would, but as it is . . .” She trailed off, giving her head a little shake, as if thinking,
Why am I telling him this?
    She stood. “Five pounds per fathom, that’s my wage, and if I hire you, you’ll have to subscribe to a list of mine regulations. Once you sign, there’s a twenty-shilling penalty for nonfulfillment of your contract. I don’t know what the practice is at Carn Barra, but here—”
    “Carn Barra has contracts,” he said pacifically, getting up, too. “With penalty clauses. Only it’s thirty shillings for nonfulfillment, not twenty.” Jack had coached him well.
    Slightly mollified, she went to a bookcase beside the window and took a sheet of paper out of a box on one of the shelves. Using the window ledge for a table, she bent over the paper and began to scribble on it with a fountain pen. Connor went closer, watching dusty sun shafts light up the copper strands in her blond hair. Her fragrance was roses again, subtle as a whisper, barely there. He liked her flounced skirt; it had a bustle in back, a silly little bulge, charmingly useless. Her green blouse had long, loose sleeves, and she kept pushing the right one up so she wouldn’t get ink on it. He noticed the tiny hairs on her forearm were golden, like the hair on her head. He wanted to see if his hands could fit around her trim little waist.
    She straightened, turned—and started; she hadn’t known he was so near. She held the piece of paper up to her bosom, like a shield. “I’ve decided to employ you,” she said briskly, “on a conditional basis. If you agree to the terms of the labor contract, you can start immediately.”
    “Conditional? Based on what?”
    “Based on what your last employer has to say about your work.” She tapped the form against her chest with one fingernail, but when he followed the gesture with his eyes, she dropped her hand to her side. “You’ve no objection to my writing to the mine captain at Carn Barra, have you?”
    “Why? Don’t you believe me?” Neither of his last two short-term employers had bothered to check his—Jack’s—references.
    “It’s not a question of believing you.”
    “Isn’t it?” She was singling him out, he was sure of it. She’d hire any man who looked able-bodied, who would sign her labor contract and take five pounds for every backbreaking fathom he dug for her. He went a step closer, and although she didn’t give ground, everything about her seemed to shrink from him. Two days ago she’d twinkled her eyes at him, smiled up into his face like an angel. Today she acted as if his miner’s garb had a bad smell. “Isn’t it?” he repeated, moving even closer, closer than was allowed, not only by courtesy but by everything she believed ought to keep them apart, the wide, gaping social void she was sure separated them. “Are ee sartin it isn’t only that ee wants t’ put me in my place, Miss Sophie?” he asked softly, nastily.
    During the endless minute they glared at each other, he had time to notice that the top of her head came up to the bridge of his nose, and that the clear blue of her irises turned smoke gray when she was angry. And that he could make her blush by looking at her mouth.
    “It’s customary,” she said, enunciating carefully, never taking her eyes from his.
    He could imagine them standing by the sunny window all morning, each waiting for the other to back down. He lifted his hand toward her. She didn’t move, but her face froze—until he pinched between his thumb and forefinger the paper she was still holding to her breast. He took it from her, then held out his other hand. Another second crawled by. She laid the fountain pen on his flat palm, taking pains not to touch him.
    She’d made notations on the form, filling in his name and the date, the wage she was offering, the term of their agreement—two months. He used the windowsill, as she had; without reading the fine print, he signed the contract at the bottom: John Lawrence