“I’m afraid not, Your Grace.” For a moment, Maddy wondered if he lied.Has Isaiah Jessop preceded us to Wales?Shuttleworth most likely simply feared too much scrutiny.
“We can ride out to your Glynrhos Colliery tomorrow and make inquiries,” Rhys Morgan said. He glanced at Shuttleworth. “Unless you prefer to review the ledgers.”
The mine manager appeared torn, like Odysseus between Scylla and Charybdis. Maddy never could remember if they were monsters or whirlpools, but whatever they were, she recognized the feeling. Shuttleworth’s obvious misery tempted Maddy to suggest that the duke examine the ledgers first. He had added nothing constructive about Gideon.
“I prefer to go to Glynrhos first, Morgan.” Phillip glanced at Brynn. “It will give me an opportunity to see the operation for myself, and we can ask about Gideon at the colliery.”
“Gideon? Is that the man’s name?” Shuttleworth asked.
“Yes. Gideon Jessop. Does that jog a memory?”
Shuttleworth gripped his chin between thumb and finger, his eyes narrowed in thought. “I thought—but no. I’ve not encountered that name. I don’t think our people at Glynrhos will be any help either. If I could…”
The men rose to their feet. Rhys Morgan spoke. “Whether they help with your quest or not, Your Grace, you may find your visit enlightening.”
If Maddy had to guess, “enlightenment” was what Shuttleworth sought to avoid. “May I have a private word, Your Grace?” the little man called before they could leave.
Maddy filed out with Brynn and his brother, leaving the door open, and watched Shuttleworth come around the desk to speak in hushed but urgent tones. Phillip said something she couldn’t make out. Shuttleworth frowned and scurried back to his desk, scribbled out some words on foolscap, and handed it to the duke. Moments later Phillip followed them out to the street.
Maddy raised the question she knew both Morgan brothers burned to ask. “What did he want?”
Phillip grinned. “He told me to take anything Morgan told me about mining operations with extreme caution.”
Rhys Morgan grunted. “I don’t doubt it. The man and I don’t see eye to eye.”
The grin widened. “He tells me you have no idea how to maximize profits.”
This time a growl replaced the grunt, and Brynn frowned as well.
“If I’m not intruding, what is on the paper?” Maddy asked.
“It is his answer to a question I asked.” Phillip’s grin took on a smug air. “Transactions. Mines bought, sold, or closed since my father’s time.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Madelyn’s horror whenthey rode up to Glynrhos Colliery the following day grieved Brynn further. He could almost hear her unspoken cri de coeur:Glenmoor sent his own son to this place?
Brynn knew what they would find. Half-starved children. Boys chained to coal corves, the massive baskets for hauling coal, too heavy for most men to pick up. Grim-faced women. Ill repair. Filthy offices. An air of despair—at least the despair in Brynn’s own heart when reality loomed before him.
Rhys must have caught her expression as well. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Your Grace. It doesn’t.”
She nodded blankly, and Brynn’s brother went on, “We’ll talk later.”
The duke stared around the yard, wide-eyed at the source of some of his wealth. “Yes, Morgan. I’ll want your opinions and advice.”
They climbed up rickety stairs to the ramshackle wooden structure that passed for an office. The colliery manager, stunned to have an actual duke—his employer at that—standing in his presence, sputtered and spat but had little to offer. No Gideon Jessop worked in this operation. Brynn put a hand to Madelyn’s back, fearful she would collapse, so obvious was her relief not to find Gideon in this hellish operation.
The wiry, little man in a cheap suit had clean hands, but he couldn’t get the coal dust out of his fingernails. The man—he called himself Fergal—had come up from the mines. He would likely know if they ever had a Jessop at Glynrhos. Still, he called in his payroll clerk, a weedy gray man so thin of body and hair he might have been anywhere between twenty and sixty, a man as weary and run-down as the entire operation. No. There had never to his knowledge been anyone on payroll named Jessop.
A devil in Brynn spoke up. “Do you keep a roll of the invalided and the dead?”
Both Madelyn and His Grace paled at that. Glenmoor’s distress gratified Brynn.He makes his wealth here. He needs to know.
The gray clerk blinked, and Fergal chuckled. “Bless me, no. No one has ever asked for it. What’s the point?”
Glenmoor, obviously pondering that audacious statement, peered at Rhys as if to plead for an explanation. “This is mine,” he said at last. “And yet—I need to see it all. Can you explain how it works, start to finish? At least a general overview?”
Brynn had underestimated the dandy in London. Madelyn, beaming at him, obviously knew his character better.Bravo, Your Grace! But what will you do with the knowledge once you have it?
