Chapter 5 #2
“You are right, of course,” Mr. Yorke said. “Perhaps you would be good enough to alert one of the servants so that a cloth and a jug of water might be brought.”
Oswald’s brows snapped together, his mouth opening wordlessly.
Caroline suppressed a smile at Mr. Yorke’s tactics. If she had not been somewhat amused by them and had not wished for a private word with him, she would have nipped his attempt in the bud.
“Would you, Oswald?” she asked with a warm smile. “I do love treacle.”
“I know.” His gaze shifted to Mr. Yorke briefly, as though he was debating whether he should leave her with him. “I shall go directly.” After a final look at Mr. Yorke, he made his way toward the house.
Mr. Yorke watched him, then looked at Caroline. “What?” he asked defensively, though the way his mouth quirked up at the edge was evidence enough that he knew his crime and took delight in it.
Rather than acknowledge what both of them already knew, she laid the box on the ground, gathered her skirts, and slowly lowered herself to her knees to see to the snapdragons. She had finished with the larkspur, but she wished to occupy her hands and eyes while Mr. Yorke was present.
He came up beside her and went down to his knees as well. “What are we doing?”
“Ridding ourselves of the unwanted ones,” she said pointedly.
He grinned, as though the implicit reply delighted him. “Best not to speak of poor old Mr. Oswald that way.”
She let out an incredulous—and unfortunately amused—scoff. “I was not referring to Oswald, as you well know.” She watched him gently sort through the flowers until he found one needing to be disposed of.
“I was. I cannot seem to come by more than thirty seconds alone with you.”
She clipped a snapdragon that did not require it. “And why should you wish for such a thing?”
“It is the only thing I do wish for.”
She shot him a flat look. “Laying it on rather thick, are you not?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean.”
Their shoulders bumped as they reached into the forest of stems, leaves, and flowers. Caroline ignored it.
“I mean,” she said, “that you shan’t win the election by these methods.”
“And what methods might those be?”
She looked at him and found him doing the same—their noses mere inches apart.
The girlish modesty in her told her to look away.
She shoved it aside and held his gaze. “What I meant—and what I am certain you understand but are being stubbornly obtuse about—is that you shan’t win my support by flirtation or courting. ”
“That route has already been claimed by Mr. Oswald.”
She pressed her lips together and shot him an unamused look. “Oswald and I do not flirt, and we are not courting.”
“Perhaps you should tell him that.”
The man was impossible.
“Jealous, Mr. Yorke?”
He grinned. “You mistake my intentions, my lady. I am not hanging out for a wife.”
“Only a Parliament seat?”
He chuckled. “Precisely.”
Some twisted form of disappointment flickered in her chest. “And how does your teasing of Oswald help with such an aim?”
“Teasing?” he said with mock offense.
She cocked a brow at him.
“Can you blame me? He makes himself such an easy target that I find it difficult to resist. He treats you like a dog would a bone.”
“He is attempting to protect me from men who mean to use me.” She clipped a bloom with a satisfying slice of the shears.
“I am not attempting to use you, my lady.” He sat back on his heels and looked at her. “I am, however, intent to persuade you that I, not Oswald, am the better choice for Trelowen.”
She matched his posture, leaving the blooms for a moment. “How can you make such a claim when you are so unfamiliar with the struggles we face here?”
“Tell me of them,” he replied. “Tell me of Trelowen, of Trevenna. Tell me everything, and I shall listen as long as you will have me.”
There was silence as they regarded one another—him with challenge and earnestness, her with battling curiosity and caution.
“Oswald may know Trelowen,” Mr. Yorke continued, “but I know the Commons, my lady. I have spent years of my life observing how things are done in London. What good will Oswald’s knowledge of the borough do him if he does not know how to turn it into action—how to make enemies into allies and turn disinterest into interest? ”
“And what good will your knowledge of Parliament do us if you do not know a pilchard from a mackerel, or why the clothes of our people hang loose in the spring? You speak of your brother’s power, but I would stake a large wager that you would do so for your own benefit—not Trelowen’s.”
“I have no intention of using my brother’s title for anything, Lady Radcliffe.”
The sharpness of his tone surprised her. “You were the one who mentioned him as a tool for Trelowen—”
“And regretted it immediately.” He said nothing for a moment. “I admit I am not perfect, Lady Radcliffe. I have my deficiencies, but I am not so very deficient as you seem to think.”
Their gazes held for a moment. Long enough for her to wonder if there was more to Mr. Yorke than first met the eye.
“I understand Oswald means to reopen the mine,” he said.
Her brow knit at the change of topic. “What of it?”
“If your mine is like most, you will be digging deep, which requires more money than ever. Without the support of someone prominent, there is no chance at all of receiving what you will need, and when the situation becomes desperate, you will turn, as so many have, to Parliament. But there is little appetite there for subsidizing such endeavors.”
She gave a little caustic laugh. “There is little appetite in Parliament for doing anything but what puts more money in the pockets of those who already possess it. Gentlemen who have never labored a day in their lives sit on their polished wooden benches in their fine breeches to debate the fates of men who go barefoot, breaking their backs for a day’s pay.
Parliament may not like mining as well as they did when it was bringing them money, but for many in Cornwall, it is all we have. Oswald knows that.”
She did not know why she was defending the mine.
She was not a great supporter of its reopening.
It felt like a step backward in many ways, not to mention the danger it put people in—greater than ever since they would, as Mr. Yorke said, be digging deep—but she understood that Trelowen was desperate for more work.
That was something Mr. Yorke could not fathom.
He regarded her in that frank way he had. “Or perhaps Oswald is too close to see things clearly. Perhaps he is looking to a past that cannot be revisited when he should be looking to Trelowen’s future.”
As Oswald returned just then, Caroline was not offered the opportunity to reply. Nor would she have known what to say.
It was typical of a man like Mr. Yorke to think he knew what was best—to be confident in his ignorance.
And what would happen if he were elected?
When the opportunity arose for him to advocate for Trelowen or to turn a blind eye to the suffering here in favor of an opportunity for himself, which would he choose?
Brightmoor had made similar promises, had boasted similar experience, and little good that had done them.
The worst of it was that Caroline agreed with Mr. Yorke to an extent. Oswald knew Trelowen. But how would he fare in London?
But Richard had been clear that, in leaving Trelowen in her hands, he expected her to see Oswald elected—and not to use the borough as an experiment with any of her more heretical views.
“Here, my lady,” Oswald said, handing her a damp cloth.
“Thank you, Oswald.” She smiled at him and took it, then cleaned her hands of the dirt.