Duncan's Bride Read Free Page B

had married her mother when she was ten and he sixteen, which should have been too great an age difference for any real closeness, but Robert had unaccountably taken the time to make her feel welcome in her new home, to talk to her and listen in return. Together they had weathered first the death of his father, then, five years later, that of her mother; most stepsiblings probably would have drifted apart after that, but they hadn’t, because they truly liked each other as friends as well as brother and sister.
    Robert was a true enigma: elegant, handsome, almost frighteningly intelligent, but with a huge private core that no one was ever allowed to touch. Madelyn was unique in that she even knew that core existed. No one else had ever seen that much of him. In the years since he had inherited the Cannon Companies, he had reshaped the various enterprises and made them even larger and richer than before. An enormous amount of power rested in his lean hands, but not even the Cannon empire seemed to reach that private center of him. The inner man was a citadel, inviolate.
    It was as if he kept himself leashed, his fires banked. Women flocked around him, of course, but he was particular in his bed partners and preferred monogamy to musical beds. When he chose a particular woman friend, they were usually together for at least a year, and he was entirely faithful to her for as long as the affair lasted. One of his ex-amours had gotten drunk and cried on Madelyn’s shoulder at a party shortly after Robert had ended their affair, sobbing that she would never be able to love another man because how could anyone compare to Robert? The woman’s drunken confession had, so far, been pathetically accurate; she had drifted into a couple of affairs, but both of them had been short-lived, and since then she had stopped dating entirely.
    Now he was watching Madelyn with his amused eyes, and after a minute she answered her own question. “Your language would be an obscure one, dead, of course, and translated into a cipher of your own invention. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, you’re an enigma inside a puzzle wrapped in a riddle, or some such complicated drivel.”
    He almost smiled; his lips twitched, and he dipped his head to acknowledge the accuracy of her assessment. He tasted the Scotch, savoring the smoky bite of it. “What’s for dinner?”
    â€œConversation.”
    â€œA true case of eating our words.”
    â€œAnd spaghetti.”
    He gave the Scotch a pained look and set the glass down; he didn’t think it would go well with pasta. Madelyn gave him an angelic look that deepened the amused expression in his eyes. “So what are we conversing about?”
    â€œThe fact that I’ll be looking for a new job, at the very least,” she said as she went into the kitchen. He followed her, and without hesitation began helping her carry the food to the table.
    â€œSo it’s time, is it?” he asked shrewdly. “What made you decide?”
    She shrugged. “Several things. Basically, as you said, it’s time.”
    â€œYou said, ‘at the very least.’ And at the most?”
    Trust Robert to see the implication of every little word. She smiled as she poured wine into their glasses. “I’m flying to Montana this Saturday.”
    His eyes flickered just a little, signaling his intense interest. “What’s in Montana?”
    â€œNot what. Who.”
    â€œWho, then?”
    â€œA man named Reese Duncan. There’s a possibility of matrimony.”
    There were times when a look from Robert’s pale green eyes could slice like a razor, and now was one of those times. “That sounds like a weather report,” he said in an even tone. “Care to give me a percentage? Forty percent chance of matrimony? Fifty?”
    â€œI don’t know. I won’t know until I meet the man.”
    He had been forking the pasta onto his plate, but now