Read Chapter 9: The Valley of Ghosts

The marsh gave way to hard ground by noon, and by dusk the valley opened before them like a wound in the earth. Jack stood at the crest of a low ridge, Eleanor beside him, both of them breathing hard from the climb. Below, the Stoketon valley spread out in patchwork fields and stone walls, a river glinting through the middle like a silver thread. And there, huddled against the bend of that river, sat the village of Millford.

Smoke rose from maybe forty chimneys. A church spire punched up through the trees. Jack could see the whole shape of it—the mill that gave the place its name, the weir, the narrow bridge where the road crossed the water.

"A rail line would cut straight through that," he said quietly.

Eleanor nodded. "Straight through the churchyard, if the survey maps are right. They'd need to move the dead."

Jack felt the weight of the pocket watch against his chest, the one he'd taken back from Sturgis. His father's watch. His father's initials. He'd spent twelve years assuming the old man had been robbed, cheated, swindled out of his work. Now he had a receipt that said otherwise. The old man had sold. Willingly or not, Jack still couldn't say.

They descended into the valley as the light failed, following a sheep track that wound between drystone walls. The air smelled of woodsmoke and manure—honest smells, the smells of his childhood in the slums, before engines and coal dust had replaced them.

Millford's main street was empty when they reached it. Curtains twitched in windows as they passed. Two strangers didn't arrive in a place like this without notice, and Jack knew they'd be remembered. He kept his head down, his cap pulled low, and tried to look like a man with business here rather than a fugitive with a price on his head.

The church door was unlocked.

Father Brennan was a thin man in his sixties with a face like a worried sparrow and hands that trembled slightly as he set down his tea. He looked at Jack, then at Eleanor, and did not ask who they were or where they'd come from. Men of the cloth learned not to ask those questions.

"You've come about the railway," the priest said.

Jack blinked. "How did you know?"

Brennan smiled, a tired expression that didn't reach his eyes. "Because everyone who comes to Millford these days comes about the railway. The surveyors, the engineers, the men with fat ledgers and thin promises. You don't have their look, though. You've got working hands."

Jack spread his fingers, looked at the calluses, the scars, the grime that no amount of washing would ever fully remove. "I'm a mechanic," he said. "I fix engines."

The priest nodded slowly. "Then you might actually be able to help us, rather than bury us."

Brennan led them to the vestry, a cramped room with a coal fire struggling in the grate and walls papered with old maps and church records. He poured them tea from a pot that had been sitting on the hearth, and Jack drank it despite the bitter taste. It was warm. That was enough.

"The valley's been dying for twenty years," Brennan said, settling into a chair that creaked under his slight weight. "The mill closed when I was a young man. The wool trade moved north. What's left is subsistence—sheep, some barley, a few families too stubborn or too poor to leave."

Eleanor leaned forward. "But Lord Ashworth bought up most of the land. Why would he buy dying land?"

The priest's eyebrows rose. "You know about that."

"We know enough to be curious," Jack said carefully.

Brennan stared into his tea for a long moment. Then he set the cup down and reached for a drawer in the desk beside him. He pulled out a folded document, yellowed with age, and handed it to Jack.

It was a lease agreement, dated eleven years prior. Lord Ashworth's seal was at the bottom in red wax. The terms were simple: Ashworth would lease the valley's common grazing land for a nominal sum, with the promise of a compensation fund for displaced tenants and shepherds. The fund would be administered through a local solicitor named Hartley, to be distributed upon completion of a survey.

"Did they pay?" Jack asked.

The priest laughed, a hollow sound. "The survey was completed. The compensation fund was never established. Hartley's offices burned down the following spring—an accident, they said. Every record of the agreement was lost. When the tenants pressed their claim, Ashworth's solicitors produced a different lease, with no mention of compensation at all."

"Let me see that," Eleanor said. Jack handed her the document. She studied it, her eyes moving quickly over the cramped handwriting. "This was drawn up by a man named Colbeck?"

Brennan frowned. "Nathaniel Colbeck was the solicitor who represented several of the tenants in their claim. He lost the case. I believe he left the profession not long after."

Jack felt something click into place. Colbeck. The name Sturgis had thrown at him during the heist. The rival who employed men like Sturgis, who was circling Ashworth's schemes like a shark scenting blood.

"I know that name," Jack said. "Colbeck's in the railway business now."

"Is he?" Brennan seemed unsurprised. "Men like that always land on their feet. They learn early that the law is just another tool for moving money from one pocket to another. The trick is knowing which pocket."

Eleanor set the lease down. "What happened to the tenants?"

"Some left. Some died." Brennan's voice was flat. "The ones who stayed learned to keep their mouths shut and their heads down. They watch every stranger who comes through, wondering if he's the one who'll finally drive them off their land."

Jack thought of Oates's widow, the coins he'd left on her table. The man had died because Whitfield wanted to protect a profit margin. How many more had died in this valley for the same reason?

"The railway's not the same as the lease," he said, hearing the uncertainty in his own voice. "A rail line could bring trade back. Could give these people something."

Brennan looked at him with something like pity. "That's what they told us about the canal," he said. "Forty years ago, they promised the canal would make Millford prosper. They dug the channel three miles to the east instead, where the land was flatter and the powerful men owned the ground. Millford was left to rot while the boats passed us by. Then they promised the turnpike road would save us. That went north of the ridge. Now they promise the railway." He shook his head. "Young man, the only thing the railway will do is take what's left and leave us with nothing but the holes they dig."

Jack stood, feeling the weight of the room pressing down on him. "I came here to find out about the land. Who owns it now, who's buying, who's selling. Can you tell me that?"

Brennan rose as well, moving to the wall where a large map hung, faded and stained by years of damp. He traced a finger along the valley floor, tapping at a section marked with faded ink.

"The valley itself," he said, "the parcels that matter for the rail line, belong to a holding company registered in London. The company's name is Hargreave and Sons. But if you ask me—and I've been here long enough to know—the money behind it wears a coronet."

Eleanor turned to Jack, her eyes bright in the lamplight. "Ashworth."

"So it seems," Brennan agreed. He turned from the map, fixing Jack with a searching gaze. "You're not the first man to come asking about this valley, and you won't be the last. But you're the first one who looked at my village and saw people rather than obstacles. That's worth something. Just make sure it doesn't cost you everything you have."

As they left the church, the night had grown cold. Jack stood in the empty street, looking at the dark shapes of houses, the thin glow of candlelight through shuttered windows. Somewhere inside those walls, families were sleeping, unaware that their world was about to be sold from under them.

Or maybe they were aware. Maybe they'd been aware for years, watching the surveyors come and go, waiting for the knock that would end everything.

"This is what he does," Eleanor said quietly. "This is what men like Ashworth do. They buy the land, they promise the world, and then they take what they want and leave the bones for someone else to bury."

Jack turned to her. "You said you have a grudge against the valley's owner. It's time you told me what it is."

She met his gaze, and for a moment he saw something raw beneath her sharp surface. "My father was a tenant farmer in a valley like this one," she said. "He had a lease that promised him security for his lifetime. Ashworth's company bought it and found a loophole. They evicted him in the dead of winter. He caught pneumonia walking to town to find work. He died before spring."

The words hung in the cold air between them.

"I'm sorry," Jack said.

Eleanor shook her head. "I don't want your pity. I want Ashworth stopped. And now I know he's doing the same thing here—maybe worse. So whatever plan you're forming in that head of yours, I'm with you. But I need you to understand something." She stepped closer, her voice dropping. "When this is over, I don't intend to walk away. I intend to take everything he's built and tear it down around him."

Jack looked at her, at the fire burning in her eyes, and understood that he wasn't the only one who'd lost someone to the machinery of progress. He was just the only one who'd been lucky enough to find a partner in revenge.

"Then we'd better start building something of our own," he said. "Because we can't fight a lord with nothing but smoke and anger."