“You started to say something about your mother’s death,” Rhys reminded him.
Gideon swallowed hard but answered, “When she died, he took over, rifled through her things, and paid a shipowner to take me to England and Woodglen.”
“Did he tell you why?” Rhys asked.
Gideon blinked. “I wasn’t a fool. I knew my father was at Woodglen. I assumed he was some sort of servant. I was hoping he was the stable master. I didn’t expect him to be the duke, and it’s good I had no expectations, because he was ferociously angry to see me.”
“But he accepted who you were immediately?” The line between Rhys’s eyes deepened in thought.
Gideon shook his head. “He called me a lying, little colonial bastard at first. When I gave him the letter Isaiah sent for him, he exploded and called my mother names I will not repeat in front of a lady.”
“What did the letter say?” Rhys’s question sent a shard of anxiety through Maddy. She glanced at Brynn, but his piercing eyes and hard, clamped jaw sent her eyes skittering away to stare at her lap.
“I have no idea.” At Gideon’s answer, Maddy let out the breath she had been holding. “Knowing Isaiah, the words were sharp and crude. Knowing Glenmoor, he probably deserved them. In any case they infuriated him. He told me to stay out of his sight if I knew what was good for me until he could decide what to do with me.”
“‘Decide what to do…’ You stayed, I gather.” Rhys’s interest appeared genuine.
“I had nowhere else to go. I learned to avoid him. I spent hours in the library, reading. I’d never had access to so many books before that. More hours in the stables.”
“I used to follow you there,” Phillip said, and the two men exchanged a fond glance as fleeting as it was touching.
“As I recall, you were punished for that,” Gideon said.
“Not as often as you were,” Phillip replied. “You found ways to spare me.”
“You protected me the night you were sent away.” The words burst out of Maddy.How can we have let this good man be banished from our lives?The parlor with its finely carved mantle, thick carpets, and elegant furniture argued he had been safe and comfortable. Perhaps Phillip and Madelyn were the ones who had lost.
Moments later, her “perhaps” became a certainty. Gideon had treasures she could only wish for. There was a scratch at the door, and a nursery maid appeared with three children, two dainty black-haired girls perhaps six and eight years in age, and a younger boy with a joyful face who reached for his papa as soon as he was permitted.
Joy at the sight filled Maddy’s long-standing hollow places, the ones her own children should have filled. She ached to hold the boy who couldn’t be any older than three. She rejoiced for Gideon’s sake.
Gideon smiled at his little ones. “Your Graces, may I make known to you my daughters, Helen and Jessica, and my son, Daniel.” The girls dipped into creditable curtseys, to the nursemaid’s beaming pride, without ever taking their wide eyes from Phillip.
Gideon hugged the boy, kissed his head, and turned him toward their guests. “Daniel, make your bows to Their Graces.”
Maddy held out her hand, and the little one took it. “I am overjoyed to meet you, Daniel.”
The boy peered at her curiously “‘Grace’?”
She tugged him a bit closer and leaned down. “That is a fancy word, isn’t it? Would you like Grandmama better?”
The dark eyes held hers momentarily until he shrugged and ran back to hide in his oldest sister’s skirts, leaving Maddy bereft until she noticed the wonder in the girl’s face.Grandchildren, however many steps removed. Would Gideon share his treasures with me?
Her awe lasted until she looked up to see Rhys’s avuncular smile, Gideon’s stunned stupefaction, and Brynn’s intense frown. Brynn all but shouted that she couldn’t claim the boy as her grandson and deny him the heritage that was rightfully his. Daniel Kendrick stood as heir to the Glenmoor title—the true line.
*
Honor be damnedand Kendrick with it.Brynn wanted only to shield Madelyn from pain. Brynn had no place here, no right to interrupt and even less to interfere.
And yet his sense of justice ran deep and his inconvenient honor demanded the truth be exposed no matter the cost. The duplicity of the late Duke of Glenmoor disgusted him. His respect for the upper aristocracy, shaky at best and shored up only recently by his acquaintance with Madelyn’s brother Clarion, dropped to new lows.
He peered around the tastefully appointed parlor and its owner, who gave no appearance of victimization, and picked at his conscience for an excuse to leave the truth buried. Gideon Kendrick had been served a filthy hand but had overcome it and thrived. As he was faced with Rhys’s barrage of questions, it became clear Kendrick had no idea what was in the letter that had accompanied him to Woodglen. Where was the harm in leaving him as they had found him?
On the other hand, Phillip Tavernash, who had proven to be a finer man than Brynn had expected and whom Madelyn cared for, would suffer immense harm if Brynn blurted out the truth. He was as much his father’s victim as his brother and stood to lose his title, his estate, and depending on the entail, untold riches. Worse, he might very well lose the young woman he gave every sign of loving deeply.
Besides. It wasn’t Brynn’s place to expose the truth. It was Madelyn’s, and she still hadn’t overcome her shock at finding Jessop—Kendrick—alive. Now she stared at Kendrick’s children with naked yearning. He doubted if she would be capable of rational thought about Jessop and the letter until she recovered.
She met Brynn’s eyes when the boy ran back to his nursemaid, and the well of grief in her expression tore his heart.
