by Deborah Hale
“To my charming ladies, of course.” Ford beckoned the woman to join them. “Forgive me, my dear. My partner’s unexpected arrival drove all civility from my mind. Allow me to present Mr. Hadrian Northmore, senior partner of Vindicara Company. Hadrian, this is my wife, Laura, and our daughter, Eleanor.”
“I am delighted to meet you at last, Mr. Northmore.” Sincere pleasure beamed like sunshine from the cloudless blue of Lady Kingsfold’s eyes. “I have heard so much about you from my husband. No one could be more welcome at Hawkesbourne.”
The little cherub in her arms stared gravely at Hadrian. The moment he met her gaze, she turned bashful, hiding her face in her mother’s shoulder.
“The pleasure is mine, ma’am.” Hadrian bowed. “I would wish my partner joy, but I see he has already found it.”
“Indeed I have.” Ford’s doting gaze rested on his wife and daughter with such obvious adoration, Hadrian scarcely recognized the grim, guarded man he’d once known. “After we raise our glasses to Singapore, we must drink to my good fortune.”
“If you will excuse us, gentlemen,” said Lady Kingsfold, “we shall leave you to your toasts. Eleanor must have her nap or she will be too cross for anyone but her papa to tolerate. I shall have Mr. Pryce fetch you a bottle of arrack. You must stay the night with us, Mr. Northmore. I hope my husband can persuade you to visit longer.”
“I accept your gracious invitation for tonight, ma’am.” Hadrian looked forward to becoming better acquainted with the woman who had worked such a transformation on his partner. “But tomorrow I must press on for London to see my brother. He is my other reason for returning to England. I mean to do whatever it takes to win him a seat in Parliament.”
It had been his mission for more than fifteen years—to put his brother in a position of power, from which he could work to reform the worst abuses of the mining industry. Abuses Hadrian had experienced firsthand. Abuses that had nearly wiped out their family.
All the warmth drained from Lady Kingsfold’s smile. She and Ford exchanged a furtive glance, which revived Hadrian’s earlier instinct that something must be wrong. As she fled the room without another word, her young daughter began to cry.
“What is it?” Hadrian demanded. “Is my timing off for that as well? Has there been an election already?”
Ford shook his head. “Not for another year or two. It’s just…Have a seat, won’t you? Pryce should be along soon with the arrack.”
Hadrian had never seen his partner so shaken. It did not bode well. “Damn the arrack and damn the chair! Whatever you have to tell me, spit it out, man. Julian’s landed himself in trouble, hasn’t he? Has some little fortune hunter got her claws into him? I told you to warn him about women of that sort.”
“I did!” cried Ford. “It isn’t that. Damn it, Hadrian, I thought the news would have reached you. Your brother is…dead.”
“That can’t be!” Hadrian staggered back. “Julian is not yet five-and-twenty and he’s scarcely had a day’s illness in all that time.”
He and his brother came from hardy stock, bred in the harsh beauty of the Durham dales, tested in the dark depths of the northern coal mines. It took a lot to kill a Northmore.
“He didn’t die of an illness.” Ford inhaled a deep breath that seemed to suck all the air from the large room. “He was killed in a duel over a year ago. If it is any consolation, the end came quickly. His opponent was not so fortunate.”
“A duel! Who with? Over what?” Dueling was the folly of gentlemen who cherished their highborn honor. Hadrian had worked and planned to launch his brother into the highest tier of English society. But not for this.
Had the young fool forfeited his life over some stupid gambling debt or an insult spoken in the heat of drunken anger? Hadrian cursed himself for not taking the lad in hand sooner. But how could he? He’d been halfway around the world, making the fortune that would have put Julian in Parliament to be a voice for those who had none.
Now Hadrian’s fortune could have been dust for all it mattered. Because Julian was dead, his promising young life snuffed out like the rest of their family.
“His opponent was my neighbor, the Marquis of Bramber,” replied Ford. “He was wounded in the duel and died a few weeks later in great suffering. Their dispute was over a young lady.”
“I might have known. Was the little minx playing them off against one another?” He’d make her regret it if she had.
“Nothing like that!” Ford shook his head vigorously. “The lady was Lord Bramber’s sister. She is dead now, too, poor creature.”
“Poor creature?” Deprived of its rightful targets, Hadrian’s anger fixed on his partner instead. “You sound sorrier for your fine neighbors than you do for my brother!”
“I pity everyone involved,” Ford protested. “It was a terrible tragedy that never should have come to that.”
“Then why did you not stop it?” cried Hadrian. “If you could not talk sense into this neighbor of yours, you should have been able to warn Julian.”
“I tried to intervene when it began.” Ford sounded defensive. “But I was told to mind my own business. When it all came to a head, Laura and I were abroad. I’d meant to return to Singapore, but…my plans changed. I had a great deal going on in my own life just then.”
“Too much to care what happened to my brother?” Hadrian grabbed Ford by the arm. “Did you forget promising me you’d look out for him? Or would that have interfered too much with your grand new life as lord of the manor?”
“I hope you know me better than that.” Ford wrenched his arm free. “I tried to talk to your brother, but he did not want my advice any more than he wanted to stand for Parliament. He only wanted your money to pay off the debts he’d incurred from idle living.”
“That is a lie!” Hadrian stabbed his forefinger into his partner’s chest, hoping to provoke a fight.
Landing a few good blows might vent the dangerous head of rage building inside him. And if Ford struck him hard enough, it might knock out the nagging fear that he was somehow to blame for his brother’s death.
But Ford refused to be goaded, damn him! “It’s the truth. Julian was a rash young fellow used to getting his own way. He acted improperly, but he did not deserve to die for it. Looking back, of course I wish I’d done more. But I never thought it would go so far.”
“You let me down, after all I did for you.” Turning away from his partner, Hadrian headed for the door before he said or did something he would regret even more. “Perhaps folk like you never feel a sense of obligation to folk like me.”
As he strode away, the volatile brew of shock, desperation and fury within him threatened to collapse, leaving him as empty and dead inside as his brother. As dead as the Northmore family, of which he was now the last surviving member.
“Before you storm out of here,” Ford called after him, “don’t you want to know what became of the child?”
“Child?” That word stopped Hadrian in his tracks. It stirred the ashes in his heart like a breath of air, coaxing the dying embers to glow again. “What child?”
Chapter Two
“Dearest child!” Artemis lifted her nephew to her shoulder, inhaling his sweet baby scent as if it were the only air worth breathing. “I will do anything rather than give you up!”
They were heading back to Bramberley on a mild spring day, after visiting one of the tenant farms where Uncle Henry wanted her to place her nephew. After meeting the childless couple and judging their manner toward Lee, Artemis was determined not to let them have him.
“I could tell you didn’t like them,” she crooned. “The woman so coarse and her husband so gruff. It’s not a child they want, but a future servant. The impertinence of that woman, saying she’d soon cure you of being so spoilt. I shudder to think what her cure might be. It made me so angry, I wanted to give a most uncivil answer.”
She hadn’t, of course—probably couldn’t if she tried. All her life she’d been taught to avoid strong emo
tion in favor of well-bred decorum and reserve. Even with those she loved most dearly, she’d never been able to express her true feelings. It grieved her to think her brother and sister might have gone to their graves, never knowing how much she’d loved them.
Somehow it was easier with her nephew. Perhaps because he was so tiny and helpless, she’d been able to break through her deeply ingrained reserve and demonstrate her affection for him. Now her fear of losing him made Artemis clutch the child too tightly. He began to struggle against her embrace, demanding to be let down.
“Very well, you can walk for a while.” She blew a rude, wet kiss on each of Lee’s plump cheeks to make him laugh, then she set him on his sturdy little feet.
He crowed with delight at getting his own way. His lively gray eyes sparkled with quicksilver curiosity.
As he staggered forward over the high weald heath, Artemis clutched the leading strings of his frock to help keep him upright. “You’re happy to be away from Bramberley, aren’t you? Out here, you can explore and make as much noise as you like.”
A foretaste of homesickness gripped her when she contemplated leaving the crumbling Tudor mansion that had been her beloved home for more than a quarter of a century. Her only comfort was the thought that more modest quarters might be better suited to rearing a busy little boy. If only she could secure such a place and find the means to pay for it.
Preoccupied with her worries and watching that her nephew did not wander into a patch of nettles, Artemis failed to notice they were not alone, until a pair of dark boots and trousers appeared in view. With a spirited shriek, Lee pelted toward them, flinging his stout little arms around one lean leg.
“I beg your pardon, sir!” Artemis dived to extract the gentleman from her nephew’s grip. “I did not notice you standing there or I would have held him back.”
A vague sense of annoyance bristled within her. Why did this man not have the courtesy to announce himself, rather than silently observing them while she was unaware of his presence? Really, it was tantamount to spying! She would pick up her nephew and make as dignified an escape as possible under the circumstances.
Lee had other ideas. He clung to the stranger’s leg with stubborn determination, protesting his aunt’s efforts to dislodge him with loud howls. After several unsuccessful attempts, Artemis had no choice but to pry his small fingers from the gentleman’s trousers.
If there was a more humiliating position in which a lady might find herself with a strange man, Artemis did not want to imagine it! Her head was directly level with the lap of his trousers, which she discovered to her consternation, when she happened to glance that way. As she struggled to detach Lee’s stubborn grip, her fingertips frequently grazed the stranger’s firm, muscular thigh. By the time she managed to pull her wailing nephew away, her breath was racing and her face ablaze.
She looked up into the stranger’s face at last, expecting an expression of shock, embarrassment or, if she was very fortunate, amusement. Instead a pair of cold, granitegray eyes fixed upon Lee with dangerous intensity.
“He’s a strong-willed lad.” The stranger’s deep, masterful voice carried easily over the child’s howls of frustration.
Artemis could not tell whether his words were meant as praise or censure. But the northern cadence of his speech immediately put her on guard. In spite of his welltailored clothes and air of authority, this was no gentleman. The scoundrel who’d destroyed her family had spoken like that.
Bouncing Lee in her arms to quiet him, Artemis fixed the stranger with a haughty glare. “He is a good boy. Your sudden appearance must have dismayed him. May I ask what business leads you to trespass on Bramberley land?”
The stranger seemed in no hurry to enlighten her. “Surely if I’d frightened the child, Lady Artemis, he would have run away instead of sticking to my leg like a plaster. If you’d left him where he was, I reckon he’d be better pleased.”
Her antagonism toward the man intensified, even as her fingertips tingled from their recent contact with his leg. Sweeping a critical gaze over him, Artemis found little to approve. He was bigger than a gentleman ought to be—tall and broad-shouldered with a thrusting chest and an intimidating presence. His hawk nose and the sharp arch of his dark brows gave him a predatory air.
That must be what made it so difficult to catch her breath. That, and the veiled threat of him calling her by name.
“Do you presume an acquaintance with me, sir?” she demanded. “You must be mistaken. I have never seen you before in my life.”
She was perfectly certain of that. She would have remembered his devilish looks more clearly than those of a handsomer man. And yet, there was something vexingly familiar about this stranger.
“It is true we have never met before,” he replied. “But I have heard of you as you may have of me. My name is Hadrian Northmore and that boy is my nephew.”
The name hit Artemis like a bolt of lightning. Hadrian Northmore—brother of the man who had destroyed her family. No wonder she’d loathed him on sight!
“I have heard of you, Mr. Northmore.” She tilted her chin, so she could look down her nose at him. “Your vulgar fortune was much bandied about to excuse your late brother’s disreputable conduct.”
“You think my fortune vulgar, do you?” His fierce visage darkened like a thunderhead. “I suppose it is tainted by the sweat of my labor, unlike an elegant fortune gained without effort from tenant rents, investment or inheritance. Others may have sweat, bled or even died to earn that money in the beginning, but distance cleanses it, so as not to stain the delicate hands of ladies and gentlemen.”
The man exuded contempt for Artemis, her family and her entire class. Though she considered it beneath her dignity to respond to such ill-bred insolence, she could not let it pass unanswered.
“You are putting words in my mouth, sir, and I will not stand for that. A fortune like yours is not vulgar on account of how it was earned, but how it is spent. People like you think everything in life can be bought and sold. You do not understand there are things upon which one cannot put a price. Honor is not for sale. Love cannot be hired or auctioned to the highest bidder. True breeding cannot be purchased.”
His lip curled in a sneer of salty scorn. “You cannot have seen much of the world if you believe such nonsense. The law courts are full of men who would sell their honor at a bargain price. As for ladies and love, the marriage market did not get its name for nothing.”
Those words struck Artemis like a backhanded blow. She knew many people viewed marriage as a transaction to secure material comfort or social advancement. Bad enough when both parties entered into such a union with their eyes open to the cold calculation of it all, but when an inexperienced girl was flattered by false attention into an imprudent attachment…
That had almost happened to her. Thank heaven she’d heeded the call of duty in time to save herself from worse hurt. Her impulsive, wayward little sister had not been so fortunate.
The thought of Daphne roused Artemis from her fierce concentration upon Hadrian Northmore. She’d been so preoccupied with him, she had almost forgotten her sister’s child. The dear little fellow might have fallen from her arms for all the heed she’d paid him.
But when she forced her attention back to Lee, she realized his cries had subsided. He’d nestled against her shoulder and fallen asleep. She must not let Hadrian Northmore make her neglect her duty to the child a moment longer.
“I bow to your superior knowledge of all things mercenary, sir. Now you must excuse us. My nephew needs his rest.” With as much poise as she could muster while carrying a sleeping child who weighed well over a stone, Artemis strode away from Hadrian Northmore. She hoped never to set eyes on the man again.
But his voice pursued her. “Our nephew, don’t you mean, Lady Artemis?”
That shocking, threatening truth made her knees buckle. She stumbled over a tussock of hardy golden gorse.
As Artemis struggled to catch her balance without dr
opping her nephew, Mr. Northmore lunged toward her. His powerful arms encircled her and the child, gathering them to his broad chest. In a desperate effort to clear her head, she drew a deep breath, only to fill her nostrils with his scent—an unsettling fusion of smoke, spice and sheer masculine vitality. It did nothing to steady her. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“You should be more careful.” His gruff mutter sent a surge of warm breath ruffling her hair. “I do not want any harm coming to this young lad. Fancy, all our bickering and jostling hasn’t woken him. He must have the Northmore gift for being able to sleep through anything.”
Those words forced Artemis to rally the balance and composure Hadrian Northmore had shaken so badly. Planting her feet firmly beneath her, she shrank from him. “I will thank you to release me at once and refrain from presuming to tell me how to tend my nephew.”
Mr. Northmore started when she spoke, as if he had not realized how long and how tightly he’d been holding her.
“Would you rather I’d let you fall on your face?” he growled as he let her go and backed away.
All her life, Artemis had found it disagreeable when strangers came too close to her. She’d often wished she could erect a wall to keep a safe, private space around herself. As she grew older, she’d discovered that a cool gaze and an air of aloofness held most strangers at bay. Whenever someone did trespass, restoring her personal boundaries afterward always brought a rush of intense relief.
What made this time so different? Perhaps Hadrian Northmore’s overpowering presence was too potent to be easily dispelled. His dangerous yet intriguing scent clung to her. Every part of her where he had touched smoldered with a vexing heat.
Those bewildering sensations sharpened her tone. “I would rather you had never come here in the first place!”
It was the rudest thing Artemis had said to anyone in her whole life. Yet she could not deny the savage thrill of striking a verbal blow against the man whose brother had destroyed her family.
Before he could reply in kind, she added. “Since you neglected to answer my question, I must ask again, what brings you to Bramberley?”
