Family Scandals by Denise Patrick Page A

explanation of his reasons might have puzzled her.
    He took a deep breath, then let it out and continued walking. There was nothing to be done about it now. He seemed to be pouring out all of his unhappy memories into her willing ears.
    But no longer. She might understand his unwillingness to marry again now that she knew about Amy, but he didn’t want her pity.
    Entering the side door, he was headed for the front of the house and the library on the first floor when he heard a commotion. Reaching the front foyer, he found his steward there with Brand.
    Boggs was filthy, mud caking his breeches and boots, his shirt plastered to his sweat-and-dirt-streaked skin. His hair, too, seemed to be oozing mud, a streak of it running down his face.
    They looked up as he entered.
    “Oh, my lord,” Boggs rushed toward him. “I came to find you, but found His Grace instead.”
    “Has something happened?” he asked, looking from the obviously agitated steward to his perpetually calm brother.
    “There’s been an accident at the tin mine,” Brand informed him.
    He needed something to take his mind off Corrie, but this wasn’t it. He was about to turn to Pulliam when Brand said, “I’ve already sent to the stables for a horse.”
    Marcus looked to Boggs. “Then what are we waiting for? You can fill me in on the way.”
    “Send word if you need anything,” Brand called, following the two out the door.
    Marcus swung into the saddle of the bay waiting at the foot of the steps. “Don’t hold dinner if I’m not back in time,” he told Brand, then turned away.
    He didn’t see Brand’s acknowledgment; he was already listening to Boggs’s recitation of what had happened that afternoon when one of the tunnels flooded unexpectedly.
    One of the new shafts that was being mined hit the water table before expected, causing the shaft to begin to fill with water. A pump engine had been quickly set to pumping, but it hadn’t been set up fast enough and five men had been caught unawares.
    The men on the surface quickly began to dig a rescue shaft, hoping to drain some of the water out and thereby help the pumping operation. The chances were good that the men below had survived because the shaft they were working had higher and lower levels. If they had made it to a higher level before the water filled in the lower levels, they could still be alive.
    Marcus spent the next day and a half going over maps of the mine, directing pumping operations, and making decisions he knew could mean life or death to the men trapped below.
    The first of the five men was found two hours after Marcus arrived. He had been working one of the upper levels, he told them, and heard the water begin to rush in. He called back to warn the men at the lower levels that he could hear water, but he wasn’t sure whether they heard him or not.
    Marcus’s unease grew as he studied the maps and asked questions of the foreman. Some of the walls were more dirt than rock and they were all worried that if the water got in and created mud, portions of the walls would collapse.
    The second and third men were rescued nearly twelve hours later, in the wee hours of the morning. The last two were found the next evening.
    There was general rejoicing all around with all five safe and sound. Marcus joined in hoisting a tankard with the families in celebration, then headed home. It was late, nearing ten, but Brand and Felicia were still up. Upon his arrival, Felicia took one look at him, ordered him a bath and a meal, then insisted he go straight to bed.
    He grinned at Brand as she shooed him upstairs to be taken in hand by his valet. “No casualties,” he announced triumphantly. “We found them all. Dirty, exhausted, and hungry, but alive.” Then he stumbled off to his room, where he bathed, ate, then slept nearly round the clock.
     
     
    Corinna sat on the narrow bed in her room off the nursery, a small wooden box in her lap. The bedside lamp glowed, throwing yellow light across