“And you have no idea what he wants?”
“I thought of little else on the way here. It can have nothing to do with the Glenmoor estate. What would I know about that?”
“He called it a private family matter.”
Maddy stared into her tea, running her thoughts over portraits lining the great salon at Woodglen, Glenmoor’s main residence, and groping for snatches of conversation. “I can’t imagine what family he means. To my knowledge there is only Phillip and a rather distant cousin, an elderly squire without issue. He may have even died by now.” One memory flickered in and out, bringing a frisson of unease.Gideon.Surely not. He is gone and most likely dead.
“Rumor is that he’s looking about for a bride during the little season,” David told her.
“That sounds likely. He’s not yet thirty but approaching it. With no male relatives, his solicitors must be anxious for an heir.”
“Perhaps he has questions about Glenmoor family history. Marriage makes a man thoughtful about that sort of thing.” David stared at his coffee.
“I can’t imagine what he thinks I might know.”
“Morgan thinks—”
For a moment, the memory of the colonel’s kind face when he’d found her sitting alone at Rob’s wedding soothed Maddy, but anger swiftly drove the image away. “You spoke to Brynn Morgan about my private business? Not well done of you, David!”
She took a deep breath to calm her galloping heart. Brynn Morgan may be kind, but he had no place commenting on her affairs. Her marriage was no one’s concern but hers, not even her brothers’. She had held her secrets to her heart these nine years. She wouldn’t air them in public now.
“He has already been deep into our family’s affairs last year, Maddy. We can trust him. Besides, he came to dinner with Rob and Lucy. He merely suggested that more information about Glenmoor might not go amiss.”
She rose to her feet, outraged. “You spoke of this to all of them? I expected you to respect my privacy.” She tossed her serviette to her chair and took a step toward the door.
David rose with her and reached out to take her arm. “Calm yourself, Maddy. If I overstepped, I apologize. Rob and Lucy are family whether the world wishes it or not. They care for you.”
That, my dear brother, is exactly what worries me. Too much care—too many people interfering in my life, too… Now Brynn Morgan. She gave herself a mental shake.Care is not control, she reminded herself. She knew that. If only she could make her heart believe it.
“I’m sorry, David. I’m prickly as a hedgehog this morning. I will of course happily anticipate seeing them.”
Chapter Six
Maddy took tothe drawing room, where she pretended to do needlework after her brother sent round a message notifying the Bensons and the duke that she was at home. To Maddy’s relief, Glenmoor arrived first, appearing on the earl’s doorstop at the earliest respectable time to call. Her impatience and curiosity had grown with every passing hour until she had heard the door followed by Harris saying, “I will see if Her Grace is in.”
He stood in the doorway after Harris announced him, and for a moment, Maddy saw the boy she remembered. The brown eyes, the slight frame, and the ill at ease expression, familiar and dear, touched her heart.
“It’s good to see you, Madelyn.” The soft voice and use of her name hadn’t changed either. There familiarity stopped. Phillip Tavernash, Duke of Glenmoor, was a man full grown, rising thirty, a fashionable gentleman a shade overdressed for calling hours in his silk coat, elaborately embroidered waistcoat, and extravagantly knotted cravat. The brown hair that had once lain so straight that Glenmoor had insisted he crop it had been styled à la Brutus by a valet skilled in the use of pomade and curling tongs.
Phillip paused, striking a pose and probably mistaking her study for admiration.
She rose to meet him. “Welcome, Phillip. It has been too long.”
A smile teetered across his face, and for a moment, the boy returned. Manners may have been devilishly inconvenient at times, but they served perfectly in awkward situations. A glance at Harris was sufficient to order a tea tray, a gesture to lead her guest to a chair, a smile to put him at ease. She was grateful he didn’t object to the use of his name.
“You’ve grown into a man of…consequence,” she said.
It appeared to satisfy. “A duke does as he must.” He sat a bit straighter. “I have to say you look well, Madelyn. One worried about you. I never heard from you after that day with those horrid men of business.”
The reproach in his voice took her aback, and she dropped her gaze to her lap. She’d left him in the hands of able stewards and under the guardianship of the Marquess of Wellburn, a friend of his father. He had known by then she would not stay at Woodglen. Had he expected affectionate correspondence? In retrospect, she should have written to him, cut adrift as he’d been and thrust into his title, but when she had left, she hadn’t been able to bear to think about the name Glenmoor, the place, or anything that went with it. She had slunk back to Clarion Hall only to fend off her mother’s interference until they had agreed to her use of the dower house, where she had spent years healing and building her safe haven. She had never considered Phillip. She should have.
“I’m sorry for that, Phillip. I ought to have written.”
“I would have liked to know you were well. I know…” He bit his lower lip, examining her face as if to choose his words gently. “My father wasn’t kind.”
The arrival of a well-laden tea tray saved her from responding. She poured and served him in the well-ordered ritual of English custom.You don’t know the half of it, and it is well you don’t.
She sat back and smiled to drive away dark thoughts. “You must be cutting a swath through society by now, Phillip. Are you enjoying London?”
