None of those. Dear God, not even close.Letting her speculate was easier than confession. Besides, the spark of jealousy in her avid expression gratified him as much as her question rattled him. He was Brynn again, at least in private—that warmed him as well.
“Her family worked for my father long ago. Mind the low branch ahead.”
She ducked gracefully, absorbed in the ride and his answer.
He hoped that would end the matter, but she unleashed another shrewd question. “Miners—her family?”
He pretended not to hear. He would not feed her curiosity with the fate of Jem Carew and his boys.
“You care about conditions in the mines.” It wasn’t a question that time.
“It is a grim and difficult business.”
“It’s your family’s business, and by all appearances, they have prospered,” she said.
They. She can see my penury. Next, she’ll ask—
“How long did you participate in it?”
He grimaced, groping for an answer before—
“Why did you leave?”
And there it was. He’d had enough. He pulled his mount to a stop, forcing her to do the same, and met her face to face. “How long were you married to Randolph Tavernash? Tell me about your marriage to him.”
Blood drained from her face. A shard of guilt had Brynn’s mouth open, but before he could apologize, she blinked her wide eyes, looked away, and rode forward. She spoke over her shoulder as she moved away. “I’m sorry I overstepped. It isn’t any of my business.”
“Quite right,” he muttered, following her. He breathed deeply of the mountain air, but the joy had evaporated. Madelyn’s delight in hills and forest had dissipated as well, and she didn’t even know what was coming.
They plodded on in silence, and Brynn tried to close the gap with the other two men, to put an end to their forced intimacy, until the path turned and they began the descent, single file, to the river valley where the first of the iron forges came into view, belching black clouds of smoke.
The duchess pulled up short. “Dear God!”
“You might ask the Almighty what He makes of it, this progress of mankind,” Brynn murmured.
“Iron?” she asked.
“Aye. Demand increases yearly for the mills up north,” Rhys replied.
“Rails?” she wondered.
“That, too. Iron overtook wood a decade ago, and with the new steam engines…” Rhys shrugged.
“Iron for industry, coal to fuel the forges and steam,” she muttered as they passed the factory.
They didn’t go many miles before they came on another ironworks. Madelyn gazed up at the sign over the gate,Morgan Ironworks, and glanced back at Brynn with the obvious question on her face.
“Yes,” he said. “Like many midsize owners, we began with iron. My grandfather sought out a source for coal to fuel it.”
She absorbed that idea. “And now the greater money is in the coal.”
“Probably. You’ll have to ask Rhys.” Brynn gestured ahead to where Glenmoor was locked in conversation with Rhys, gesticulating enthusiastically.The duke will learn some things on this trip. The questions are of what things and what he will do with them. Or will the succession conundrum overturn everything?
Madelyn followed the others, content to let Glenmoor ask the questions, but she listened gravely to Rhys’s answers. Only when they neared Merthyr Tydfil did she turn to Brynn with a troublesome inquiry.
“The villages we passed appeared universally poor. Clarion’s tenants’ houses fare better, and I saw no homes for gentry. Why hasn’t all this industry improved peoples’ lots?”
“That’s one more you’ll have to ask Rhys and the duke, though the standard answer is always ‘of course it has—they have work.’”
