“Did you run again?”
“I was fifteen. I had few opportunities, and it seemed pointless. Mother told Father she’d warned him I was a hoyden. They hired a vicious woman as governess and set maids to watching me. If I rebelled, I was beaten for defiance. If my brother David tried to help, it got worse. A few years later, after a bit of a season, they sold me to Glenmoor, or as good as.” She bit her lip against tears.I really did drink too much today.
“How old were you? They can’t marry you off without your will.” His voice had become soft with sympathy.
“Rising seventeen. I agreed. I assumed even marriage as an old man’s ornament would be better.” She choked on the last.
He didn’t speak again until they drew up in front of the dower house. A single candle shone in the window. Her maid-of-all-work, Esther, would be waiting. He dropped the reins into his lap. “You were wrong, weren’t you? About Glenmoor.”
Maddy never discussed her marriage. Not with anyone. She gazed at her lap, lost in ugly memories.
Morgan climbed down and came around to help her down. She expected him to grasp her waist, but ever respectful, he took her hand instead. She stepped down in front of him, so close that the scents of sandalwood and pine, subtle and masculine, enveloped her. “Thank you, Morgan,” she whispered. She swayed toward him, unable to help herself.
He grasped her shoulders. She couldn’t quite make out his expression, but his eyes gleamed into hers. “Careful, Duchess,” he whispered. “A man without scruples might take advantage of a woman in her cups.”
Brynn Morgan is not such a man, more’s the pity. She took his arm when offered and let him walk her to the door.
Chapter Two
Brynn returned thepony trap shortly after noon the next day, taking it directly to the barn and unhitching the pony himself to avoid disturbing the newlyweds. The humble tasks of unhitching and caring for beasts had ever soothed Brynn’s troubled heart, but this day they failed to banish memories of the night before, of moonlight, and of momentary indulgence in hopeless attraction.
He whistled as he unhitched the little pony, led it across to its stall in the stable block, and added food to its manger. “You’re a loyal and hardworking one, my friend,” he said, smoothing a hand down its back.
“So are you, though I wouldn’t have expected to find you in my stable this fine afternoon.”
Brynn gaped at Robert Benson, who stood at the entrance to the stables. “And I wouldn’t have expected to see you among us mortals for a few more days. Neglecting your new wife already?”
“Even a bride needs to sleep eventually,” Benson said with wicked grin. His coat, Brynn noted, had been hastily fastened, and he wore no cravat.
Ducking his head against the urge to say any number of inappropriate things, Brynn exited the stall and snapped it shut. “Did I wake you?”
“I pulled the curtains to enjoy the sunshine and saw you coming up.” Benson watched Brynn slip the reins on his own mount in a nearby stall. “What were you doing with the pony trap?”
“I took the duchess home last night,” Brynn said, leading his horse out.
Benson’s eyes narrowed. “You drove Maddy home in a pony cart?”
Brynn wasn’t sure if his friend disapproved of his sister consorting with someone so far beneath her station or the means of transportation. Probably the former—or both. He didn’t need the reminder.
“She refused the earl’s offer to take her home so she might enjoy your hospitality a bit longer and then neglected to secure a ride home. I found her sitting on yon bench staring into the twilight. Alone.” The sight of her there had cut him like a knife. All of Ashmead had moved on while she had sat unseen in the shadows. Had she chosen it deliberately? He had caught occasional glimpses of the vivid woman she hid behind her serene façade. Life gleamed in her deep green eyes, emotions often shuttered as quickly as they arose. He wondered what might have driven such a fascinating creature to prefer her solitude.
Benson handed him the saddle and watched as he secured it, unspeaking, brows drawn together. “She’s alone too much,” he murmured at last. “I should—”
Brynn skewered his friend with a glance usually reserved for underlings. “The lady prefers it that way. She wrestles with her demons as we all do, I suspect. You best leave her to it.”
Auburn brows shot up. “Is that an order?” Benson’s resemblance to the duchess—the same changeable green eyes, the same deep auburn hair—struck Brynn as obvious. Lucy Benson called them Caulfield eyes and Caulfield hair. Brynn wondered how they had made it to fourteen without realizing the relationship.
“Simply advice,” Brynn replied, leading the horse out into the sunshine. “She has a right to decide how to live her life. Did you know she followed you?”
The baffled expression on Benson’s face spoke volumes. Obviously he did not. “You mean when I left Ashmead?”
“The same day or the one after, I gather. She got as far as Nottingham before they dragged her back.”
“But—”
“She’s your sister. I know. You had just found out and lost your first crush. Lady Madelyn, as she was, endured the same shock and then lost her only friend.” Brynn mounted and took the reins in his hand. “When will we see you in London?”
“You’ve accepted Rockford’s offer, then?” Viscount Rockford, Benson’s employer, ran vaguely defined security services within the foreign office. Benson led a force of men who both guarded and spied on foreign diplomats and aristocratic visitors. His new bride had called them her “palace guard.”
