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coal."
    Oldridge,
engaged in distributing choice bits of fowl to daughter and guest,
merely nodded.
    "Lord
Gordmor will then be able to bring the coal to more customers,"
Alistair went on, "and sell it at a lower price. However, he and
his customers aren't the only ones who'll profit. The canal will
provide you and your neighbors easier access to more goods. Fragile
items, traveling smoothly on water rather than bumping along rutted
roads, will reach their destinations in one piece. You will have an
economical means of conveying manure and agricultural produce to and
from the various markets. In short, all in the Longledge environs,
from landowner to laborer, will reap its benefits."
    "Lord
Hargate has not spent much time at his country place of late, even
when Parliament is not sitting," Mr. Oldridge said. "Politics
can be acutely demanding of the physical and mental faculties and
wearing to the spirit. I hope he is well."
    "My
father is quite well," Alistair said. "I should make clear,
however, that he is in no way involved in Lord Gordmor's project."
    "I
well remember the canal mania of the last century," Oldridge
said. "They built the Cromford Canal then, and commenced the
Peak Forest. Mr. Carsington, may I press you to try a morsel of
curry?"
    Alistair
was prepared to extol the benefits of Gordmor's canal at length.
Still, he was at dinner where, normally, one did not discuss
business. He'd introduced the topic only because Miss Oldridge had
suggested this would be his best opportunity to make his case.
    It
was not so hard to set aside business temporarily, however. Alistair
was glad of the reminder to savor the food, which was far superior,
in both variety and quality of preparation, to what one might
reasonably expect so far from civilization.
    The
cook, clearly, was a treasure. Even the butler and footmen would have
passed muster in any great London household, including Hargate House.
    What
a pity that a woman who otherwise staffed her house so well could not
find a lady's maid capable of preventing fashion atrocities.
    "How
did you come to be interested in canals?" Mr. Oldridge asked
him. "Admittedly the engineering feats are fascinating. Yet you
do not strike me as a Cambridge man."
    "Oxford,"
Alistair said.
    Of
the two ancient universities, Cambridge was deemed to offer somewhat
greater scope to those of a mathematical or scientific bent.
    "Smith
was self-taught, I believe," his host said rumi-natively. "What
do you know of fossils?"
    "Apart
from the Oxford dons?" Alistair said.
    He
heard a strangled giggle and looked across the table, but not quickly
enough.
    Miss
Oldridge wore a sober expression in keeping with her sober attire.
    Her
gaze shifted from her father to Alistair.
    "Papa
refers to Mr. William Smith's Strata Identified by Organized
Fossils," she said. "Are you familiar with the work?"
    "It
sounds far too deep for me," Alistair said, and watched her bite
back a smile. She was not immune to feeble puns, then. "I'm no
scholar."
    "But
it concerns mineral deposits," she said. "I should have
thought…" Her brow wrinkled, much more prettily than her
father's did. "It must have been Mr. Smith's geological map you
used, then." "For the canal route?" Alistair said. "To
determine whether it was worthwhile to drill for coal in an area that
is all but inaccessible." She tipped her head to one side and
studied Alistair as though he were a fossil in dire need of
organizing. "England has coal nearly everywhere, but in some
places it is difficult and prohibitively expensive either to get to
or to transport," she said. "You must have had good reason
to believe the coal measures on Lord Gordmor's property were worth so
much effort. Or did you simply begin drilling, without considering
the practicalities?"
    "The
Peak is known to be rich in mineral wealth," Alistair said.
"Lord Gordmor was bound to find something worth the
trouble—lead, limestone, marble, coal."
    "Lord
Gordmor? But did you not say you were a