Newgate Prison Copper Mines and the Irish Lass Colonial America Romance

Chapter Two

Christina focused all of her attention on creating small, even stitches. She was mending Seth's Sunday shirt by the light of the candle resting on the rough-hewn end table. It was midday, but the sitting room was swathed in shadows. The drapes and shutters were both pulled closed tight against the steadily falling snow.

He had been wearing this shirt when he'd fallen down the shaft. She'd washed it first, of course. Now she would fix it up as best she could.

He deserved to be buried in whole, clean clothes. He had almost been her husband, after all.

He had almost been a part of her life.

She wondered for the fiftieth time how Seth had managed to fall down the twenty-five-foot ladder which led into the mines. The man had the footing of a mountain goat. She'd seen him walk the top of the tumbling stone fence while examining the pastures. She'd seen him use a bare tree trunk to cross the swollen stream across the road in the meadows.

He'd worked those copper mines for three long years. For three years he'd been up and down that ladder many times every day. It was the only way in or out.

And now he'd fallen?

Slipped, Mr. Richardson had said. Slipped on the ice which formed between the chill of the late October surface and the relative warmth of the damp mines. Being that deep in the earth kept a glow to the caves which, according to Seth, had offered the gentler clime of mid-autumn air, whether the real world be frigid winter or broiling summertime.

Seth would not have slipped.

She wondered at herself, to be thinking so clinically about her fiancé's death. Should she instead be wracked with grief? So overcome that she could not get up out of bed?

But last night had passed as any other night. When morning had come, she had awoken with dawn's finger-stretches of crimson and gold. The chickens needed to be fed, as did sweet Esther. They knew nothing of grief or changes of fortune.

She'd then made a breakfast of gruel for herself and her father, not that either of them had eaten a bite. Other than that, the day had moved on like any other day.

She felt Seth's loss as she would the loss of a casual acquaintance. A person about town who was known but not much conversed with. For, after all, that is what they were to each other. Nearly strangers.

But on this stranger her father had pinned the hopes of his legacy.

And her father's grief was what hurt Christina the most.

The news had, indeed, struck her father deep. The loss had stolen his appetite and sapped his will. He had already been failing; now he appeared to be preparing for that final journey.

Her groaned and mumbled in his sleep.

She looked over to where he leaned in his chair by the fire. Once it was clear their gruel had gone cold, untouched, she had guided him to the more comfortable seat in the sitting room. He had not stirred since. The woven cap on his graying head was now askew; the quilted blanket on his lap was sliding loose.

She put down her mending and stepped over to settle the hat more firmly on his frail crown. Then she adjusted his lap-blanket to better cover his thin frame. She tucked it tenderly against his injured leg. He'd taken a musket-ball back during the French and Indian War, during the siege at Louisbourg, and it'd never quite healed right.

She settled back into her own chair. She went back to her mending.

This would be the last time she did mending for Seth.

This might be the last time she did mending for any other man, aside from her father.

It was still too much to take in. It didn't seem real. She expected Seth to come walking in at any moment. She'd hear that knock on the door –