“…and so after the bridge incident, a senior officer had me transferred from the infantry to the Royal Military Artificers, Sappers, and Miners.” His engineering skill had saved lives by allowing him to identify fractures in a bridge over a mountain gorge and shore it up.
“Artificers?”
“They dropped that part soon after. As it turned out, the army wanted to train ‘scientific soldiers’ themselves, but they discovered they needed officers who understood regimental duties, had battle experience, and also had engineering training. My contacts—people like Rob Benson—helped as well.”
“Impressive!” The respect in her eyes left him breathless. He shrugged, and she went on, “It sounds that way at least. What did it mean to your career?”
He took a deep breath, glancing over her shoulder to the mediocre print of a carriage and four on the wall behind her. “I got a promotion, if that’s what you mean. It kept me out of the worst of the fighting and out of army discipline.” He couldn’t control his sour expression over memories of floggings and worse. “My officers oversaw the work of civilian artificers. Discipline was real but less brutal.”
“But did you like it?” The question drew his gaze to her clear blue eyes. Her whispered words struck him as remarkably perceptive.
“To be in uniform and out of the front line is awkward. We received no battle honors, and there were fewer opportunities for prize money.” The prize agents being slow, money still trickled in from his time in the infantry, but it didn’t matter. What he earned, they sent directly to Mary Carew and her children, for better or worse. No power on earth could force him to discuss that part of his past.
She held his eyes, and the sympathetic interest shining in hers led him to go on.
“Did I like it? On the whole, yes. It is what I was trained to do.”
“Trained. In Wales. You were a mining engineer.” She didn’t phrase it as a question.
“Long ago. In a different life. The person I was died when I left Brynhafan.” Her intense study, boring into his soul, stripped him naked of his defenses. He stood abruptly to put a stop to the conversation before she cut any deeper. “I assume you wish to depart before first light. We best get some sleep.”
She stood with him. When she came round the table, she took his hand before he could back away. “I’m grateful for your skills, Colonel Morgan, and your compassion. I carried my fears about Phillip and Gideon alone. Sharing that burden with you means a great deal to me.”
She stood so close the scent of lavender enveloped him, and he couldn’t have pulled his gaze from her face—the intelligent eyes, the soft ivory skin, the luscious mouth—even if he’d wanted to. He took in every detail and stored it in his heart. “Call me Brynn. I’m your ‘brother’ after all, am I not? Your traveling companion.”
“Brynn… Am I to be free of ‘Your Grace,’ then, at last? My name is Madelyn.” The quiet words touched him, her wide eyes held his, and she swayed slightly as if in invitation.
One kiss? Would it hurt?He shook his head to banish the thought. It might not hurt in the moment, but one kiss would never be enough, and once he started…Remember what she asked of you. Remember to stay angry.
“You know no matter what you find, Phillip Tavernash’s position is illegitimate. When his son attempts to inherit, they’ll examine it again. Sooner or later the entire mess will come out.”
Conflict banished desire. Or did it?
He didn’t wait for a reply.
*
When his sonattempts to inherit, they’ll examine it again…The wretch. His words kept her awake all night.
She had thought he was about to kiss her, and she knew she would have let him.What if he had, Maddy? Who would be hurt by it?She very much feared she would be eventually, if she gave in to her attraction to Brynn Morgan, even if she bolted at first touch. He had used Phillip’s precarious position to push her away, and that rejection hurt more than his inconvenient sense of honor.
Brynn was correct, of course. If she found Gideon alive, he had a right to know about his birth. So did Phillip. But even if the truth didn’t strip Phillip of his title, it would aggravate the Crown, and it might ruin Phillip’s chances of marrying his beloved. If Gideon was dead, she would have to bury the information and do it carefully to avoid problems for Phillip’s sons.
But what if Gideon has sons?She rolled over again and punched her pillow into a more comfortable place. Morgan was right again—she had failed to consider what would happen to the Glenmoor estate and honors after Phillip. The Committee for Privileges would resent the scandal. They might not want to remove the title from Phillip, but they would remember. They most certainly would remember when his son came to inherit.
She should have destroyed the letter when Randolph had died. She should have left things alone. Staring at the ceiling, she knew it didn’t matter. No matter what they found in Wales and no matter what she did with the letter, Jessop could still cause trouble, now or later.
She found no opportunity to question Brynn Morgan about it further the following day. She also longed to know more about his mining experience, his family—his very being—but he rode outside all day. Even when they stopped for lunch, concern for horses kept him busy—or so he said—leaving no time for conversation.
She didn’t complain when they stopped sooner than she wanted that evening, dark coming early. She hoped to confront him over dinner, but the second inn had no room available for Her Grace’s “brother,” and Morgan sought his bed among the ostlers and coachman with every sign of relief. When the maid who fetched Maddy’s dinner told her the gentleman took his meal in the taproom, Maddy knew for certain he avoided her deliberately.
Is it Wales or the army he does not wish to discuss?she wondered.Or the Glenmoor duchy? Or me?She feared it was intimacy with her of any kind that put him off. Her boldness had driven him away. Perhaps it was for the best.
She slept fitfully that night and throughout the third day of travel. Determined to get the miserable journey over as soon as possible, she drove them on late into the evening, arriving at a rather better inn near Hereford and wondering how she could convince Morgan to join her for dinner.
That idea fled as soon as they entered the inn. The annoying man had been right about one more thing. The Earl of Clarion, persistent brother that he was, had sent someone to intercept them.
Chapter Seventeen
