What is common?“One is too many,” he said.
“You’ve seen explosions, haven’t you?”
He nodded, swallowing fiercely. He couldn’t make out her expression, muted as it was by shadows, but he could feel her trying to read his face, probing his soul as sharply as if she stabbed it with a stiletto.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
She waited while he tried to craft a story knitted out of cold facts.
“There was an explosion at Morgan One, my family’s first colliery. There are more now, but that was the first. I grew up around it. The work. The miners. Their families.”
“You worked with them all.”
Leave it, Madelyn. Don’t make me describe it.
When he didn’t go on, she did. “What happened?”
“Noxious gases can build up without detection,” he said at last and then stumbled on. “One spark and—”
She squeezed his hand, waiting for him to continue. He tried to tug it back, but she held firm, and the rest of it spilled out—flames of truth, not cold facts.
“They pulled out most of the pieces of Jem Carew—he must have been far enough away—they never found his two sons. Is that what you wanted to hear?” He shouted it, anger being his best defense against the demons. His voice hoarsened. “Mary knelt in the dirt and tried to put the pieces together. We had to drag her away.” He said a few more words so garbled even he didn’t know what he meant to say.
Her groan roused him. He had horrified her. He had buried Madelyn—his Madelyn—in his own ugly memories.
“You could do nothing. Just as I can do nothing to help. Nothing.” Pain vibrated in her words. He heard the tears in her voice and felt the ones on his face as she staggered on. “You couldn’t help Jem and Mary Carew. I can’t—that boy, so tiny—Brynn, he looked sick. I couldn’t help him or Gideon or even Phillip. I couldn’t help David in his struggles. I can’t help those children. Oh God! Brynn. I want to go home.” He had no defense for her weeping. He pulled her into his lap and lay his head on hers.
*
“Madelyn, this won’tdo.” Brynn’s voice sounded far away.
Maddy had no idea how long she clung to him, sobbing against his shoulder, hoping foolishly to banish her demons, hoping his would follow. She burrowed deeper.
“It grows late,” he went on, his breath warm against her ear. “And you have decisions to make.”
She peered up at him, his face faint in the moonlight, reluctant to leave the shelter of his arms.
“If Glenmoor discovers us like this, you may find yourself shackled to a half-pay colonel with no prospects,” he warned.
“None?” She sat up straighter. “Viscount Rockford—”
“Every penny I acquire belongs to Mary Carew.”
Every penny.He sent wages and prize money to the woman. It explained his pathetic set of rooms, his wardrobe… Maddy could think of no response to that.
“The important word wasshackled, Madelyn. You don’t want that.”
Don’t I?Perhaps she didn’t. Marriage would mean the marriage bed. And submitting to a man’s authority. Brynn’s tender touch didn’t frighten her, and his kisses didn’t revolt her, not as Randolph’s had. Could she marry Brynn? The novel notion percolated through her.
“You want Ashmead and your contented life. You told me so. Do you want to go in the morning? I’ll take you, and His Grace and my meddlesome brother be damned.”
She was upright now, still sitting on his lap, his hands steadying her, hers pressed against his chest. “Phillip wants to search for Gideon at Kendrick Colliery, and your brother wants him to tour a better operation. Phillip is engrossed in Rhys’s lectures. He may want to visit your—”
“They aren’t mine! None of this is mine,” he insisted.
“Rhys told me you refuse income but that you still own a share.”
Words rumbled through him, vibrating against her hands. He swallowed them, but she could make out his curses. The nicest words wereblood money.
