Thief of Broken Hearts (The Sons of Eliza Bryant Book 1)

by Louisa Cornell

  “It is my fault they are gone,” Endymion finally said, his voice rough and raw.

  “If that is how you remember it, your memory is wrong. There is a great deal of blame to go around, but none of it is yours.” No one knew that better than she. And wrong as it was, she hoped he never remembered everyone who’d played a part in the dreadful night that took the last of Endymion’s family from him.

  “Who?” He gestured at the painting.

  “Vaughn. He saved it after your father died and the duke ordered it burned. I had it moved here when your grandfather died.”

  He released her hand, picked up the lamp and with a sweeping gesture, invited her to return to the front of the gallery with him. The mastiff, his nails clicking on the floor, paced at Endymion’s side.

  “Thank you, by the way, for trying to distract Voil at dinner.”

  “Distract?” It came to her. “The Mermaid’s Tale?”

  “He doesn’t know…about my mother or that part of my life.” The strain of his voice, and that tinge of confusion and loss wiggled under her determination and threatened to awaken the silly young girl who’d been so infatuated with him she’d done all in her power to keep him safe. And all she’d done had cost them both.

  “Lord Voil is your closest friend.”

  “He is.”

  “And yet you have not told him—”

  “Madam, do you often wander about the house in your bare feet in the middle of the night?” Endymion plucked the candlestick from her hand and blew out the candle. He placed the lamp on the nearest hall table and turned it down low.

  “What!” Before she could protest, he bent and scooped her into his arms. “Dymi, put me down. I am not a child.”

  He shifted her slightly against his chest. “A fact of which I am more aware every moment.” He carried her out of the gallery and continued, in near darkness, down the corridors of the east wing.

  She followed his gaze to her night rail agape enough to reveal her thin nightgown stretched taut across her breasts. “Is this an example of your wooing, Your Grace?”

  “Do you want to be wooed?”

  “Most decidedly not. Nor do I wish to be carried about in the dark. If you fall or run into a wall you will crush me, you great looby.” Rhiannon squirmed against his hold. A mistake. His body was hard and warm, like a brick resting before the hearth for hours on end. She fought the desire to curl into him against the chill of the night air, against the chill of years of loneliness, responsibility, and the maintenance of a fiery dignity she sometimes had no desire to maintain.

  Foolish woman, this is exactly the sort of self-pitying weakness a man like him looks for in a woman from whom he wants complete surrender.

  “I spent the first ten years of my childhood in this house. I know these corridors as well as I know—Ouch! Dammit, what was that?”

  “A Chippendale commode and a wall,” Rhiannon offered and tried not to smile. He’d shielded her with his body, but she dared say he’d have a bruised arm in the morning. They passed the duke’s footman in his place at the far end of the second-floor corridor. The man did not blink, gave no indication at all that the sight of the duke carrying the duchess through the house in the middle of the night was anything but a perfectly normal event.

  Once they reached the door to her chamber, he allowed her body to slide slowly down his until her feet touched the floor.

  “How is your arm?” she asked, her hands braced on his forearms.

  “Apparently, His Grace’s trophies are not the only things you have rearranged.” He cupped her elbows and pulled her closer. “You needn’t have wondered, Rhee. I have always liked you.” His changeable green eyes ensnared her, fierce and gentle all at once.

  “Dymi, please…”

  “So much I was not allowed to speak of, so much I could not speak of because I could not trust my memory.” He swallowed hard. “It made it easier, not talking about it. Not thinking of it. That’s why I didn’t tell Voil. About my mother or the rest of it. But I never forgot how much I like you.”

  “Lord Voil is your friend. I think he might understand.” She resisted the urge to push his hair away from his face. She dared not touch him. He was a stranger and that was all he’d ever be if he had his way. He’d always liked her, but he’d left her here all alone to take care of the land and the people that should have been under his care.

  “The past serves no purpose. Today is where life is lived. You know all of it, more, probably, than I do. Do you understand it, Rhee? Does any of it make a difference to you, at all?” He bent his head and brushed his lips across hers. He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes.

  “No,” she lied, and pushed up on her toes to answer his kiss with one of her own. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her body against his. His lips were soft and cool, then hard and warm. Stars spattered behind her eyelids. She forgot to breathe.

  What the hell was she doing? Rhiannon pushed against him. He released her at once. She took a deep breath and pushed her chamber door open. “Good night, Your Grace.”

  He tilted his head and studied her for a moment.

  “Did you think one kiss was all the wooing I required?” she asked.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I had hoped…” He was wise enough not to finish that sentiment.

  “Your kissing skills have not improved that much, Dymi. Good night.” She stepped into her bedchamber but leaned around the doorframe to watch him walk to his open chamber doors. The mastiff disappeared into the ducal bedchamber. Endymion stopped at the door and looked back at her.

  “Neither have yours, Rhiannon, but I look forward to improving them whilst I am here.” He raised his free hand and waved several keys dangling from his fingertips, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

  Rhiannon patted the pocket of her night rail.

  Damn!

  Chapter Six

  Endymion squinted into the sun and tried to ignore Voil’s diatribe against riding out “before the break of day because His Grace cannot keep up with his duchess.” He tried to remember why he’d allowed the marquess to accompany him to Cornwall. Not a single logical reason came to mind. Frankly, logic and reason had been in short supply this past week. He had not set eyes on Rhiannon in nearly six days.

  The house his grandfather had simply called Pendeen was a large and sprawling configuration of wings, orangeries, and gothic towers assembled over the centuries of deWaryn family occupation. Endymion had been prepared to present his case for the conception of an heir to his wife. He had not been prepared to have to search the entire house on a daily basis in the hope of coming across said wife.

  She’d been playing least-in-sight since that first night. Since he’d fought the urge to kiss her and lost. Since he’d filched the keys to the doors between their chambers and spent the night wondering what she’d do should he make use of those keys.

  “What did you say to make a woman like your duchess cry craven and avoid you like some pox-ridden old roué panting after her virtue?” Voil asked as they turned their horses up the wide road leading to the mineworks.

  “A woman like my duchess?” Endymion tightened his hands on the reins enough to cause Dunsdon to toss his head in protest. He patted the big bay’s neck and relaxed his grip.

  “A hoyden of the first order.”

  “Her Grace is not a hoyden.” Endymion tightened his jaw to quell a grin.

  “She greeted us upon our arrival with one of Manton’s finest fowling pieces on her arm,” Voil reminded him. “Or is that something she reserves for wayward husbands?”

  “Do you have a point, Voil, or is it your intention to simply annoy me to death?”

  “Of course not. Being your friend has never been as much fun as it has been these past few weeks. And if you ever find yourself in the same room as your duchess, I daresay it will be vastly entertaining.”

  Entertaining. Not the word Endymion chose to describe a week of formal dinners with only Voil for compa
ny whilst Her Grace took a tray in her rooms or in her study. A study to which Endymion had not been allowed entrance since that first day. Nor was it entertaining to traipse about the house making inquiries of servants as to the duchess’s location only to be told by the next servant “You just missed her, Your Grace.”

  His life had become a scavenger hunt in a house replete with half-remembered memories, none of them good. The only good memories he held of Cornwall featured a dark-haired girl who seemed determined to avoid him at all costs. He’d been taught long ago not to give anyone the power to dictate his feelings. Rhiannon Harvey de Waryn had done a damned fine job of establishing herself as dictator of his every mood these past few days. He might deny her ability to tie him in knots to the world, but he was not so foolish as to deny that damnable truth to himself. She didn’t want to see him. The very idea bruised his…something.

  “Good God, man, where have you brought me?”

  The din and dust of the works settled across the road ahead, a wall of smoke, steam, voices, and toil. They rode up a hill into the noisome fog until it surrounded them. Voil covered his mouth and nose with his handkerchief. They skirted a deep drop-off edged with a railed fence until they came to a series of buildings. Several grizzled old men, mine workers, if their clothes were any indication, sat on stools surrounded by large baskets of rocks outside the closest structure. Endymion and Voil dismounted and walked toward them. The men slowly rose and removed their caps.

  “Morning, Yer Grace,” they mumbled as one and then bowed. They nodded at Voil. “My lord.”

  Endymion and Voil exchanged a look. Voil shrugged.

  “His Grace has the look of the late duke,” one bent, white-haired man said in answer to their unasked question. “‘Cept for his eyes and his hair. Those you have from your lady mother, Your Grace, if you don’t mind me sayin’.”

  “You knew my mother?” Endymion’s chest tightened. He forced himself to breathe—in, out, in, out.

  “Jim Digby, Yer Grace. Prettiest girl in three counties. Eliza Bryant, as was. She was a great lady.” A few of the other men nodded in agreement.

  Endymion cleared his throat. “Thank you, Digby.” He briefly studied the other structures. “Her Grace was to have a meeting with the mines manager this morning. Might you know where I will find her?”

  “Oh, aye,” Digby said. “She’s down t’mine with Mr. Thomas.”

  “Down?” Endymion walked to the fence and looked into the deep chasm excavated out of the hillside. Several mine openings were framed into the hill. “The duchess has gone into the mine?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

  With Voil shouting his name, Endymion ran along the fence to the gate at the top of the crudely cut stairs down to the mines. He vaulted over the gate and stumbled, slid, and slipped his way toward the bottom of the pit. His Hessians were not meant for such a descent. Poor Meeks would be in tears when he saw them.

  Dammit!

  His heart thundered against his ribs. His lungs squeezed against the invasion of the thickening air the closer to the bottom he descended. Once he reached the bottom step, he pushed his way into the cauldron of people, shaggy mine ponies, and bins of ore. The light at this level greyed as if in preparation for a storm. Voices—human and equine—fought to be heard above the chinks and clangs of the miners at work. His height afforded him an advantage, but to no avail. He twisted and turned, buffeted by the hive of activity. Still no sign of his wife.

  What was she thinking? Mines were not fit places for the men who worked them, let alone a lady. She was the Duchess of Pendeen. She really had no business putting herself in such danger. She was his wife. She was Rhiannon. She was his to protect and the enormity of that task scared him to death. He’d succeeded at every endeavor he’d taken on since the day his grandfather had whisked him off to London and the life and duties of the heir to a duke. He’d succeed at keeping her safe, as well. As soon as he found the irritating, unpredictable—

  A deep rumble drew his attention to one of the far mine entrances. A cloud of dust and debris belched out of the darkness. It suddenly came to him. His maternal grandfather had died in a mining accident. The ferment of people around him did not even look up.

  He’d had enough. He had to find her. Endymion grabbed the nearest man by the elbow. “Where is Her Grace?” he demanded.

  “Whot?” The man cupped his ear.

  “The Duchess of Pendeen. Where is she?”

  “Aye. Herself is down Number Three with Mr. Thomas. Testing those new lamps of hers.” He pointed to the entrance from which the noise and smoke had issued.

  Endymion shoved his way past workers—men and women—and around ponies and crates of ore. They may not have noticed the din and cloud from the mine, but they noticed him. They stopped in their tracks, some doffing their caps, a mixture of deference and curiosity on their faces. Their faces all blurred together as if in a macabre dream. He threaded his way through them, his heart in his throat. The mining detritus on their clothes clung to the black superfine of his coat in ghostly sprays and puffs. He reached the mine in question and ducked beneath the timber-framed entrance. He swept his arm back and forth to dispel the lingering smoke. A woman of middling years, with a kerchief tied over her nose and mouth, led a sturdy red pony toward him.

  In a slow sort of dance, the woman pointed down a tunnel to the left and executed a clumsy curtsy all while leading the pony toward the mine entrance. He ran past her. The clang and thud of hammers and pickaxes melded into a melodic drumbeat. He barely heard it over the beat of his heart. A group of grimy young men scrambled out of his way, muttering a chorus of “Yer Grace’s.”

  Endymion, having shed all curiosity as to how these people knew who he was, raced in the direction the woman had pointed until he came upon a wide chamber, shored up by thick timbers at regular intervals. He came to a precipitous stop. In the middle of the chamber, dressed in a dull brown kerseymere dress and pelisse, stood his wife, covered in dust and perfectly at ease.

  I’m going to kill her…right after I turn her over my knee.

  A bandy-legged miner, hat in hand, argued with the duchess whilst an older man with a greying beard and dressed like a gentleman farmer looked on, some sort of lamp in his hand. “I don’t like it, Yer Grace. It ain’t natural. Not a thing wrong with the lamp I had,” the man said, eyeing the lamp in the older man’s hands as if it were a snake poised to bite.

  “I’ll tell you what isn’t natural, George Watts.” Rhiannon pushed a strand of hair off her face. “Blowing yourself and half your mates to kingdom come because you are too stubborn to try something new.” She snatched the lamp from the bearded man and shoved it into the miner’s chest. “Either you use the Davy’s lamp or you can join your wife and mother-in-law at the calciners.”

  Torn between admiration and anger, Endymion stepped to his wife’s side and, before she noticed his presence, dragged her arm through his. “Do as she says, George. You’ll keep your wits longer. If this is settled, I’d like a word with you, madam.”

  Her eyes wide and her color high, Rhiannon tried to free her arm. “What are you doing here? I don’t have time to entertain you, Your Grace. I have work to do.”

  Endymion caught the attention of the older, bearded man. He’d seen him in the foyer the day he’d arrived and again in the duchess’s study. “Mister…?”

  “Thomas, Your Grace. Josiah Thomas. I am Her Grace’s mines manager.”

  “Her Grace’s?” Endymion turned his gaze on Rhiannon, who met him with a fulminating glare of her own. “Then I am certain you can take care of this matter whilst I discuss a few things with Her Grace.”

  “Of course, Your Grace,” Mr. Thomas replied and inclined his head. He appeared almost amused as he turned back to the recalcitrant miner.

  Endymion started toward the mine entrance. Rhiannon continued to try and wrest her arm free with as much subtle dignity as possible while he practically dragged her across the chamber and into the tunnel.

&nb
sp; “I am not going anywhere with you,” she said through gritted teeth.

  Endymion bent his head close enough for his lips to brush her ear. “If you do not come with me this instant, I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you out of here by force.”

  “You would not dare.”

  He shrugged. “As you like.” Endymion ducked down, pressed his shoulder into her belly and hoisted her over his shoulder.

  “Dymi!” she shrieked. “Put me down. This is beneath my dignity and yours.”

  “So is digging one’s duchess out from under a pile of rocks.” He carried her out into the milling crowd of people gathered at the mine entrance.

  “I’ll show you a pile of rocks, you great bully. Stop this.” She squirmed in an effort to dislodge his arm across the backs of her knees. Which gave him an enticing view of her lovely fundament. “Put me down and I will go with you.”

  “I don’t trust you, Duchess. I think I’ll keep you up here until we reach the horses, at least.”

  “Horses? I don’t need a horse.”

  “It is a dashed long walk back to Gorffwys Ddraig.”

  “Not if I am slung across the shoulder of a pompous wretch like a sack of corn. People are staring, Dymi. Put me down, please.”

  He did not want to put her down. Here she was safe. So long as he touched her he could breathe. A sort of helplessness had consumed him as he wove in and out of the throngs of workers in search of Rhiannon. He’d known that helplessness before and every bit of his hatred of Cornwall and the weak young man he’d been was tied to it.

  Endymion stopped and lowered Rhiannon gently to the ground. He studied her face, committed to memory the furious line of her mouth, the bright light of her eyes, the smudge of dirt on her cheek. And admitted, even if only to himself, something had broken loose in him, a shaft of light in the darkness he’d long given over to Cornwall and the past. The man in whose skin he’d lived every day, disturbed by nothing and no one, just as he’d been taught, had no idea how to live in a Cornwall no longer shrouded in darkness.