Read Chapter 17: The Emigration Idea

The rain had stopped by morning, leaving the estate glistening and raw, as if the earth itself had been scoured clean. Maeve stood at the window of the study, the deed to the American land pressed flat against her palm like a promise she had not yet learned to keep. Behind her, Ashworth sat at the desk, his pen scratching against paper, though she suspected he was not truly writing anything at all.

“You’ve been holding that paper for ten minutes,” he said without looking up. “It will not grow roots.”

“It might as well,” she said, turning. “It is the only thing I hold that has not yet withered.”

Ashworth set down his pen and regarded her with that careful, unreadable expression he wore when he was measuring his words against his loyalties. She had grown used to it, almost fond of it, which disturbed her more than she liked to admit.

“I have been thinking,” she said, “about the tenants. About what my father’s letter meant when he wrote that the choice must be made with a full heart.”

“And what does your heart tell you?”

“That I cannot keep them here to starve while I cling to land that is slowly bleeding me dry.” She crossed the room and laid the deed flat on the desk between them. “This claim—it is worth something. I do not know how much, but it is land, and land is what every man in this country is desperate to hold. If I sell it, I could clear the debt to the moneylender. And what remains could fund passage for any tenant who wishes to leave.”

Ashworth’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He did not look at the deed. He looked at her.

“You would empty your estate of the very hands that till it.”

“The hands that till it are starving,” she said, her voice sharper than she intended. “I watched Mary Connolly’s youngest—a boy of six—put a stone in his mouth last week because his belly was cramping with hunger. He thought if he chewed it, it would feel like food. That is what my land has given them.”

Ashworth was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was low, measured. “I understand the weight of what you are carrying. But if the tenants leave, who will plant the spring crops? Who will tend the livestock that remain? You will have land, Maeve, but no one to work it. And land without labor is simply dirt.”

“And labor without land is simply death,” she said. “I am not proposing that I force anyone out. I am proposing that I give them a choice. Those who wish to stay may stay. Those who wish to go may go—not as paupers fleeing a famine, but as people with a future. Is that not worth more than a harvest I cannot even guarantee?”

He leaned back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his jaw. There was something almost pained in his eyes, a flicker of conflict that she had not expected. She had seen him argue for the estate’s interests before, cold and calculated. This was different. This was personal.

“You think the estate can survive without them,” he said.

“I think the estate will not survive with them. Not as it is. The soil is exhausted, the seed grain is nearly gone, and Sir Godfrey is circling like a carrion bird waiting for me to collapse.” She tapped the deed. “This is not charity, Ashworth. It is arithmetic. The debt is the weight around my neck. If I can cut it free, I have time. Time to find another way, to plant something new, even if it is smaller.”

He was silent again, and she watched the war play out across his face—the land agent’s practicality wrestling with something deeper, something she could not quite name. She had seen him risk his position for her before, but this was different. This was asking him to help her tear apart the very system he had been sent to protect.

“You asked me once,” she said softly, “why I stayed. Why I did not simply take what I could and leave this ruin behind.”

“I remember.”

“This is why. Not because I love the land—though I do. Not because I am afraid of what Sir Godfrey would do with it—though I am. Because these people trusted my husband, and my husband trusted them. And I will not be the widow who sold them out from under their feet.”

Ashworth’s eyes met hers, and for a moment, the mask slipped. She saw a weariness there, a grief that seemed older than his years. He had secrets, she knew. He had debts of his own that he had never fully explained. But in that moment, he looked at her as though she were something he had not expected to find—a stubborn, foolish, magnificent thing.

“You are asking me to find a buyer for a claim I have never seen,” he said slowly. “In a country I have never visited, for land I cannot verify.”

“I am asking you to try.”

He let out a breath, almost a laugh. “You are the most maddening woman I have ever met.”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

“It was not entirely meant as one.” But there was a reluctant smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He picked up the deed, turning it over in his hands as if weighing not just its paper, but its consequences. “This is a valid claim, or a forgery. If we sell it and it proves false, the estate will be ruined beyond even Sir Godfrey’s ambitions.”

“It is not false. My father signed it before witnesses. The old stable hand was there—he remembers the day.”

“Then we have a witness, but we do not yet have a buyer.” He set the deed down. “I will make inquiries. There are brokers in Dublin who deal in American claims, men who buy and sell land sight unseen. It is a gamble, but so is everything else we have done.”

“You will help me, then.”

“I will help you try.” His eyes held hers. “But I want you to understand what you are choosing. If we sell this claim, the money will clear the debt, yes. But the estate will still be small and poor. You will have traded a future for a present. There may be no second chance.”

“There may not be a first if I do nothing,” she said. “I am tired of waiting for someone else to decide my fate. My husband hid gold that was not there. Sir Godfrey would take my land for a song. The priest would have me pray for a miracle while my tenants starve. I am done waiting. I will make the choice myself, with a full heart, as my father asked.”

Ashworth’s smile faded into something graver. He looked at her for a long moment, and then he nodded slowly, as though coming to a decision he had been avoiding.

“I know a broker,” he said. “In Melbourne. His name is Aldous Crane. He has handled claims before, and he is not above looking past the occasional wrinkle in paperwork. If anyone will buy this deed without seeing it, it is him.”

“Melbourne,” she repeated. “That is far.”

“It is. But the post is faster than it once was. I will write to him today. If he is interested, we will hear back within a month—perhaps six weeks, if the winds are kind.”

“A month.” She had hoped for sooner, but she knew better than to expect the world to move at her pace. “And if he refuses?”

“Then we will find another. There are always men willing to buy a future, Maeve. The question is whether the future is worth their price.”

She took the deed from his hands, folding it carefully and pressing it to her chest. “I will make it worth their price. I have to.”

Ashworth watched her, something unreadable in his gaze. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. After a moment, he said, “There is one thing you should know. I received word this morning from Sir Godfrey’s solicitor.”

Maeve’s blood chilled. “What does he want now?”

“He has filed a formal inquiry with the land commission. He is contesting the validity of the estate’s title—claiming that your husband’s original grant was improperly executed, and that the land may legally revert to the crown.”

“He cannot do that. My husband’s title was clean. It was registered and witnessed.”

“It was,” Ashworth said quietly. “But the registrar’s office in Dublin suffered a fire last year. Many documents were lost. If the original title cannot be found, his claim may hold weight.”

Maeve stared at him, the deed crumpling slightly in her grip. Sir Godfrey had not been content to wait for her to fail. He was building the scaffold himself.

“Then we find the title,” she said, her voice hard. “Or we find something better. We find a way to make him regret ever setting his eyes on my land.”

Ashworth said nothing, but there was a glint in his eye that looked almost like admiration.