He made no move to enter the house but paced over to the stone bench beside a shadowed yew, put one foot on it, and leaned his elbow on his knee, his chin on his hand. The day had troubled him even more than it had Maddy. His forlorn posture reflected her emotions perfectly.
Brynn.
Yearning overwhelmed her. Brynn would understand. Her solitude all but crushed her until she couldn’t bear it. She needed him—the security of his strength, the assurance of his support—she neededhim. With little thought other than to pull her wrapper over her plain night-rail and pick up her candle, she ran from her room, fleeing through the silent house, past a sleeping night porter who didn’t stir, and out into the courtyard, without pausing.
She skidded to a stop, staring until he rose. Unable to make out his face, she saw only the outline of his body, solid, familiar, and dear. It was all she needed. She threw herself against him, but he caught her and held her away, his hands on her arms gentle but firm. “What is it, Madelyn? What do you want?”
You. I want you.She swallowed, stunned by the thought. Ugly memories flooded in. She forced them aside and focused on the man holding her with tender concern.
“I want to go home. I wish I had never left Ashmead.”
His arms came around her, pulling her close.
This. I want this.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Madelyn’s warm bodynestled in Brynn’s arms, balm to his soul after a day of hell. The sensation left him comforted and aroused, giving him peace, driving him mad. With her soft and supple curves against his chest, he couldn’t resist a taste. The kiss began as a gentle gesture, a reassurance, but when she opened to him of her own accord, he could only take what she offered. The caress of her mouth and tongue, awkward yet determined, hot and needy, sent his blood boiling and his more primitive instincts galloping.
Lost in sensation, he nibbled the corner of her lip, nuzzled her ear, traced her neck with his lips before moving back to explore the treasures of her mouth, hot, wet, and open to him. He almost missed her trembling.
By the time she pulled back, gasping for breath and shaking, her hands had come under his jacket, heating his back through his shirt, and his had wandered around the thin protection of her nightclothes to places far too intimate for his brother’s garden.
He forced coherent thought to the surface. One word echoed in his head.Ashmead. Her place of safety. What Madelyn longed for after Glynrhos wasn’t his heated fantasies. She wished for shelter, and he offered something far different. No wonder she was shaken.Danger, Madelyn.I can offer naught but risk.
He forced his unruly hands to her waist and then her arms, pulling them from his back, sliding down to grasp her hands, grateful he couldn’t see her face. If he saw in her eyes what she’d said with her kiss, his good intentions would evaporate.
“Easy, Duchess. Shall we sit, and you can tell me what I’ve done to deserve this delightful gift?” He raised a hand to cup her cheek, shocked and humbled by how hot it felt.
He led her by the hand to sit with him, leaving space between them but never letting go of her hand.
“Can you tell me what has sent you running to me?” He swallowed deeply, bracing himself for an answer that would force him to talk about the mines.
She surprised him. “We aren’t going to find him, are we?”
“Gideon Jessop? Probably not.” He had been preoccupied with building protection around his own reactions to Glynrhos—a particularly nasty example of the lowest sort of operation—and all the while her focus had been on her own obsession. The realization disappointed as much as it relieved.
“I’ve dragged you back to a place you obviously hate for no good reason. I’m sorry, Brynn.”
Hell yes, it’s a wild goose chase.He clamped his mouth shut lest he lash out at her.
“I couldn’t protect him when Randolph banished him. If they sent him to that colliery, they sent him to his death. I thought—” She choked, swallowed, and went on. “I tried to protect both of them and failed. I believed if there was any chance that he lives, I could help him find some sort of justice. But if Randolph sent him to a place like Glynrhos, how could he have survived it? If he had, what condition would we find him in? And if we dragged him out of there, what then?”
“Don’t speculate about what might have happened. We can only manage what did, what does,” he said, ignoring his own scars, his own obsession with the past.
“You knew about the children, didn’t you?”
The sudden shift in topic left him unguarded. “Yes.” Thick and harsh, the word was all he could dredge up from his soul, darkened with such knowledge and worse memories.
“Your brother told Phillip some collieries employ children as young as five as trappers.”
“It is the easiest task they can—”
“They live down there all day without light because candles are dangerous!” Her righteous anger gave him heart. Her next question cast him to the lowest rung of the inferno. “Are explosions common?”
She launched into Rhys’s explanation about firedamp and open flames, while Brynn struggled to banish images of mangled bodies, grieving families, and collapsed shafts.
“Brynn?” Her graceful fingers touched his cheek. “Come back to me. I asked if they were common.”
