Lord Spencer returned to us the next morning. And the morning after that, and the one after that; came at dawn, alone on his horse. He liked the village’s “prospect,” he said; was interested in the mining business. Each day, he spread more money about. Talked to the drunks, the urchins, the village roughs. Tuppence for anyone who had a tale to spare; a pint of bitter at the pub. In his purse, a more precious kind of coin for anyone who had any real information. He’d make sure to flash it wherever he went, let people hold it, to see how heavy it was. Everyone was very impressed. We had none of us handled gold before.

I doubt the young lord learned much that was of any use. He heard hints, no doubt, about the union. That’s what he’d come for, most villagers assumed. To check up on us. Though from the smile on his face, you’d think he’d come to woo the village beauties. And they came out for him, too, in their Sunday frocks, hitching their skirts up when they passed him in the street, flashing their plump calves. He doffed his hat at them, Lord Spencer did. They all talked about it for days on end.

But as to the three people we were hiding, down in the blackness of the mine, nobody said a word. Only the Union Men knew, and of them only the inner circle. I didn’t tell a soul myself; snuck down the mine, night after night, with Mr. Mosley’s help. It weighed on us though, our secret, all the more because we didn’t know what we’d got ourselves involved in. Nobody dared ask why they were hiding from the girl’s own mother. It wasn’t done to ask questions. Not down there. Against our rules and the union’s spirit. Besides, it was safer that way. The less we knew, the less we could be held to account.

All the same there were theories about our charges. There always are. An elopement, an estrangement, a fight amongst nobles. The one I heard most often (whispered, in the darkness, far from Lord Spencer’s ears) was this: that the three were running from the law. That they had committed a mighty crime, the worst crime of all. Treason Against the Crown. Now it was the noose for them. If they were found. The way these whispers made it sound, they were as good as dead already.

The thing is: sooner or later, everyone gets found. There’s not one miscreant in the village who ever gave the bailiff the slip. You can hide for a week, a month, a year. But the law don’t forget. Or so my mum always says. She would know. She has a brother in jail somewhere and an uncle that was hung.