Some of the Grashond settlers are still hanging around, and I wish they would go. I’m tired of seeing them. The only upside of them being here is that it reminds me how nice it is to wear color again.
Mira’s been behaving very strangely. Did she do that while you were here? The last couple of days in particular, she’s been off. Sometimes distracted, sometimes irritable. Since she’s always been the least moody out of all of us, you can imagine how weird that is.
I found out she’s only received one legitimate offer. Did you know that? I guess plenty of men like to dance with her and talk to her, but they leave it at that. The offer is from some ancient plantation owner. And I do mean ancient. He’s at least eighty. I suppose that would make me irritable too, but it’s a very respectable position. He’s well-situated, and she’d have a lot of control of the house, which I think she’d like. And since he is so old, I don’t think he’d ask much of her, if you know what I mean.
I wish I could write more, but that would take time away from doing my hair for tonight’s party. It’s at a shipping magnate’s home. He’s not as good a catch as Warren, but he’s a solid backup—just in case.
I don’t know how you could have given this up for digging in the dirt all day, but I hope you are happy and well.
All my love,
Tamsin
I smiled as I folded up the letter. I could practically hear every word of it coming from Tamsin’s mouth. “She’s always writing letters,” I told Cedric. “It’s nice to finally get one of my own.”
The day was already heating up when we reached the claim, but I hardly noticed anymore. I worked in rolled-up sleeves and a split skirt of light cotton that Mistress Marshall had helped me make, since the suede one was too warm these days. I’d done a lot of the sewing myself, and while my stitches still weren’t great, they were significantly improved.
Also improved was our efficiency once the sluices were set up. A sluice was a wide box that water could run through, filtering through a screen that trapped heavy minerals—ideally, gold. We decided on a few good spots in the river and placed them there, watching for several minutes as though we expected huge gold boulders to immediately get trapped.
“Not an instant gold strike,” I said. “But faster than panning.”
Cedric handed me my pan. “Which we still have to do.”
We’d been out panning in the river for a couple of hours when we heard a voice call, “Thorn, are you here?”
We looked up. Several riders were cutting across the claim and waved their hands in greeting. Cedric waved back and began wading through the water toward them.
I followed close behind. “Who are they?”
“Alanzans. I saw them in town the other day. They just finalized the paperwork on a claim on the far edge of Hadisen—far by design. I know a cousin of theirs. He was one of the Alanzans arrested at the Star Advent that later managed to escape. He’s waiting for them at that claim, and I told them to stop by when they made their trip out.”
Although I’d grown used to the idea of Cedric as an Alanzan, I’d yet to truly meet any others. This group looked perfectly ordinary, not much different from the Marshall clan. They wore rough, working-class clothes and hauled a wagon loaded with supplies. Cedric introduced them as the Galvestons, consisting of a middle-aged couple and their four children. Their oldest son was married and had his pregnant wife with them.
No sordid rituals or prayers followed. The Galvestons had been traveling that day and appreciated the break, especially from the younger children, who ran off to play. We sat with the adults and shared our water, mostly trading news. After a few weeks in Hadisen, Cedric and I felt like veterans and offered what expertise we had. The elder Mister Galveston, named Francis, proved to have more expertise as he surveyed the shanty.
“Why don’t you have anything to seal this roof?” he asked.
“There’s wood there. I nailed the boards in myself.” Cedric’s pride in that feat was obvious, and I couldn’t help smiling. I’d been there that day, and he’d hit his fingers with the hammer at least half a dozen times.
“And it’s going to let in a deluge as soon as this place gets one of its famous storms. You need to get some canvas to cover the gaps. We got the last of it from the supplier in town. You’ll have to wait until his new shipment comes in, or head back to Cape Triumph.”
“I don’t think we’ll be back there anytime soon,” Cedric said. “I’ll have to take my chances with the rain.”
Francis gestured for his older son and Cedric to follow. “We might be able to do some patches. Let’s take a look.”
That left me sitting with the women in the grass. Alice, the daughter-in-law, stretched and rested a hand on her swelling belly. “Are you uncomfortable?” I asked. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, thank you.” She shared a knowing smile with her mother-in-law, Henrietta. “When we read my destiny card at the beginning of the pregnancy, I drew the Keeper of Roses.”
When they saw my blank look, Henrietta asked, “Aren’t you familiar with the card?”
“I’m not familiar with any of the cards,” I admitted. I realized they were talking about the Deanzan cards, like the pack Ada had had. Ordinary people used them for games and fortune-telling. For the Alanzans, the cards had a more sacred meaning and were holy to Deanziel, the moon angel who governed inner wisdom.
Alice’s frown smoothed out, but her confusion remained. “When Cedric introduced you as his fiancée, I just assumed . . .”
“That I was Alanzan?” I finished.
Both looked embarrassed, and then Alice asked, “Are you going to convert after you’re married?”
“I hadn’t planned on it.”
“Then why go to the trouble of raising money for Westhaven now?” asked Henrietta. The Galvestons would’ve liked to go there as well but were waiting until the colony was more settled and required no charter fees. They hoped to earn money in gold in the meantime.
“For Cedric. I want him to be able to practice safely. And he’s very interested in taking up a leadership role there,” I explained. “Being a charter member would help with that.” Awkward silence fell, and I tried to fill it when it was clear they wouldn’t. “So. What does the Keeper of Roses mean?”
For a moment, I didn’t think they’d tell me. “It shows a man who works hard in his garden, protecting delicate flowers against harsh conditions. He’s ultimately rewarded with beautiful blooms,” said Henrietta.
I turned to Alice. “So for you, it’s symbolic of the pregnancy. You’re going through a lot of tough times now, facing a lot of hardships on this journey . . . but your baby will be born healthy and strong, ultimately flourishing as the roses do. I’d hope the card’s message could be extrapolated to your family’s all-around prosperity in Hadisen.”
Both women stared at me in astonishment.
“Was I close?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Henrietta at last. “Something like that.” Her eyes lifted beyond me. “Glen! Get down from there before you break your neck.”
The two young Galveston daughters were splashing in shallow water, but the younger son was trying to climb some of the rocky outcroppings that marked the beginning of the foothills and mountains. He wasn’t going to get very high free-handed, but I could understand her concern. He didn’t seem to hear.
“I’ll go get him,” I said. I rose, both wanting to be helpful and get away from the stares.
Glen had made impressive progress getting up, which only meant he was in more danger if he slipped and fell.
“Glen,” I said. “Your mother wants you. It’s too dangerous up there.”
He didn’t even look at me. “Just a minute. I’ve almost got another one.”
“Another what?”
He stretched his arm up to a small jutting of stone and whooped triumphantly. Then he sc
rabbled down like some kind of rock lizard. The front of his overalls had a huge pocket that was filled with rocks. He slipped his shiny new find in with the rest.
I beckoned him back toward his family. “Isn’t that heavy to carry around?”
“It’s for my collection. I’ve got dozens more. Did you know there are people—special smart people—back in Osfrid who study rocks all the time?”
“I do know that. They’re called geologists.”
“Geologists.” He said the word like he was tasting it.
“The king commissions them to travel and learn new things about rocks and minerals.”
“I’d like to do that. But once we’ve got enough gold for a farm, they say I’ll have to help work it.”
I patted his head. “Never assume you’ll have to follow the destiny someone else has planned out for you. And I’ll show you some other neat rocks.”
I walked him over to the shaded pond, where I’d previously noticed some small mottled pebbles. Glen was fascinated, and I left him to it, figuring he couldn’t get in much trouble. As I approached the others from the back of the shanty, I overheard Henrietta speaking to Cedric.
“—not my place, but are you sure that’s the best idea?”
“Of course it is,” said Cedric. “I love her.”
“That’s fine and well, but you’re letting yourself get charmed by a pretty face. Once you’re out of bed, you’ll see the real consequences. What are you going to do when you have children? I hope you’re at least going to make her convert.”
“No one makes her do anything. As for children . . .” Here, Cedric hesitated. “Well, we’ll get around to discussing it.”
“You’d better discuss it now,” said Francis. “It’s a serious matter. You’re an educated man with a business background—exactly the kind the Alanzans need to go forward and build respectability for the future. Founding Westhaven is the right way to do this. But how will it look if your own wife isn’t a member of the faith?”
“It’ll look like she has her own opinions and goes with them—just as we’ve been telling the orthodox we have the right to do. And the point of Westhaven is to welcome people of all beliefs. Alanzan or otherwise.”
The Galvestons weren’t convinced, and Alice finally concluded with, “Well, there’s a magistrate in White Rock who’s one of us. You should seek his counsel before you do something stupid. She’s a threat to your faith and a threat to our success.”
When I rejoined them, they all tried to act like nothing had happened, but didn’t do a very good job. It was time to wrap up their visit anyway, and we were all a little relieved.
“Oh, Glen,” exclaimed Henrietta when she saw his bulging pocket of stones. “What did I tell you about those rocks?”
“They’re for my collection,” he stated. “I’m going to be a royal geo-geologist.”
“A what? Never mind. We aren’t going to keep hauling rocks around. Leave those here.”
Glen obstinately stuck out his lower lip, and I quickly knelt down before him. “It is a lot to carry around. Why don’t you leave them here? I’ll keep them safe until you’re able to come back for them.”
He didn’t look as though he liked that idea, but he also didn’t like crossing his mother. So, the rocks were left in a small pile by the shanty, and we waved the Galvestons off.
“Don’t say it,” Cedric said, as soon as they were gone. “I know you overheard, and you just need to forget about it.”
“It’s kind of hard to forget being called a threat to you. Or hearing that our marriage would be ‘something stupid.’”
“No religion is truly enlightened. There are closed-minded people in all of them.”
I looked him in the eye. “What are we going to do when we have children?”
“Marvel at their perfection?”
“Cedric! Take things seriously for once.”
His smile faded. “I am. And as for kids, I don’t know. We’ll teach them my beliefs, and . . . whatever it is you believe . . . which I still don’t really know. And they can make their own decisions.”
“I don’t think your Alanzan friends will like that.” It was strange. There’d been so many complications in our relationship. The scandal of it even existing. Our money troubles. The danger surrounding him. But never had I imagined that I’d be the complication in his life. “I haven’t gone through all this—given up so much—just for you to get out of bed one morning and realize you made a mistake.”
“In that scenario, the only mistake would’ve been leaving your bed in the first place.” He took my hands and pulled me to him. “In all seriousness, this issue—our difference of belief—isn’t one that’s taken me by surprise. I knew from the instant I fell for you that we’d have this looming beside us. Beside us. Not between us. We will deal with it, and we will overcome it just like we have everything else.”
I closed my eyes briefly and then sighed. “I just wish . . . I just wish there wasn’t so much we had to keep overcoming. Probably when it’s all over, we’ll just be bored.”
“The two of us? Never.”
We kissed, and he pressed me up against the side of the shanty. Somehow, the argument had made me want him even more, and heat shot through me at the feel of his body on mine. One of his hands tangled in my hair, and the other played dangerously with the edge of my skirt, pushing it up my leg.
“Be careful,” I said, unable to resist. “I don’t think this shanty wall can withstand very much.”
He pulled back, his breathing rapid and eyes hungry as they looked me over. Not hungry. Ravenous. “Now who doesn’t take things seriously?”
“Hey, it’s a credit to your prowess that I’d even think—”
I lost track of what I was saying as a flash of sunlight caught my eye. I pushed Cedric aside, confusing him even more, and knelt down to where I’d seen the sparkle. It was in Glen’s rock pile. Sifting through them, I found one that glittered golden in the sunlight. I held up for Cedric to see.
“Is it real?” I asked.
We’d heard plenty of stories in White Rock about prospectors being deceived by look-alikes. Cedric got down beside me and held the rock up. It was only a pebble, but it was solid gold.
“It’s real,” he confirmed. “Where did this come from?”
“The future royal geologist found it over by the outcroppings, heading toward the foothills. I saw it shining but thought it was some kind of crystal.”
We walked to the far side of the claim, opposite the river. The sparse vegetation thinned out even more here as the rocky land took hold. I pointed to the base of the outcropping in question. It was no mountain, but the large formation was still high enough to make me uneasy when I thought of how high Glen had gotten. And that wasn’t even near the top.
Cedric stared up at it for a long moment. “You need to meet my neighbor. Sully. Nice old guy. He’s helped me figure a few things out. His claim has some rock formations like this, and he said he nearly ground them to dust looking for gold. Apparently, there was some early Hadisen explorer who found big deposits of gold in things like these—massive deposits. Larger than anything gleaned from the river.”
I followed his gaze, and let those words sink in. “How would you be able to find out? Just start chipping through?”
“Kind of. Look, there’s a crevasse at the top. Digging into it might show something. If I can get up there—”
“Get up there?” I stared at the tallest cliff. “That’s pretty high.”
“I’ll need some equipment to climb up and check. Come on, Adelaide,” he added, seeing my face. “It’s safe with the right gear. And if there is a deposit in there, we’re set.”
“Where are you going to get that equipment?”
He held up the pebble. “This’ll buy what I need for the initial inspection. If there is gold in there, that’s
going to be a much more serious excavation. One we’ll need to talk to Warren and Elias about. We might need to talk to them anyway. The sooner we can move on this, the better.”
The smile on his face was radiant as he looked back at me. The sunlight lit up his tanned features, turning his auburn hair molten. He looked like some sort of ardent young god. A dirty one. But despite all the doubts I had in the world, I believed in him.
“Adelaide,” he told me. “You might just be married in silk after all.”
Chapter 25
I stayed back with the Marshalls the next day while Cedric went to buy the climbing gear. It was hard to hide my excitement as I helped with the chores, but I couldn’t risk tipping my hand yet.
“Well, you’re in a good mood,” Mistress Marshall remarked. “Haven’t complained once about the lye.”
“Just have other things on my mind, that’s all.”
“Getting use out of the cinnamon thorn, eh? That’s the only thing that could give you a smile that big.”
“Haven’t even touched it,” I said. She obviously didn’t believe me.
When Cedric took me out on the claim the next day, I barely waited until we’d cleared the Marshall property. “Did you get the gear?”
“Yes and no. The supply store had only some of the things I needed. And then I ran into Elias Carter.”
“Wonderful. Is he smiling yet?”
“No. Especially when he found out what I was there for. He’s skeptical about a deposit in the cliffs and says I’m just stirring up trouble. If there really is a substantial amount there, we’d have to bring in more laborers, and there are a lot of men in town jumping at the chance for extra work.”
I could picture Elias delivering all of that in his condescending tone. “So, what? He’s not going to let you do it?”
“I can survey it, but he wants to see it himself—at least from a distance. He’s supposed to come out today and bring some climbing gear from another supplier in town that was closed yesterday. He made it clear, of course, that it was a terrible inconvenience for him.”
“Of course.” I sighed. “And here I thought this was going to be a nice day.”