Bought: The Penniless Lady

by Deborah Hale

  Hadrian nodded. “He was all of that. Some of the miners spent more of their pay at the public house than their families could afford. Pa never darkened its door. He said he had better things to do with his time and brass. The money he might have spent on a pint, he put away for Julian’s schooling. The time he might have idled away there, he spent teaching us to read and write.”

  Hadrian flipped the coin into his palm and clenched his fingers over it in a protective fist. “Pa gave this to me on the day he first brought me to Vindicara. I’ve carried it with me ever since to remind me where I come from and what I have to do.”

  Another woman might not have understood that urgent sense of duty to secure his family’s legacy. Not only did Artemis understand, she admired it. “I am certain your father would be proud to know how well you’ve fulfilled his dream to make something of your family.”

  “I’ve a ways to go yet. But with your help I’m making progress.” Hadrian reached out and dropped the denarius into her palm. “Keep that safe for Lee, will you? Give it to him when you bring him here again and tell him the things I’ve told you.”

  “I will.” Artemis nodded toward their nephew, who had drifted off to sleep in his uncle’s arms. “I will also tell him all about this day and what a wonderful time he had with you. Though he may not remember, I’m certain that somewhere inside he will carry a special sense of you.”

  Hadrian glanced down at the child, then raised his eyes to her. As always, a potent physical awareness stirred between them.

  His firm, wide mouth arched in a devilish grin. “What would you say to coming here late some warm night and performing the sacred rites of Aphrodite?”

  “I should be scandalized, of course!” Artemis tried to look as shocked as she once would have at such a suggestion from him. Unable to support the pretense, she sputtered with wanton laughter. “Deliciously scandalized. Name the night and I shall be yours!”

  More and more, she yearned to be his—fully and forever. But since Hadrian’s tragic past had made that impossible, she must try to be content with as many days like this one as he could give her.

  When he heard the first of their guests had arrived, Hadrian sent Mrs. Matlock to fetch Artemis, while he took up his place on the steps of the front portico. He preferred that this first meeting with his estranged partner take place amid the bustle of their arrival. Hopefully it would ease any awkwardness between them.

  The first one to alight from the carriages was Susannah Penrose, holding a small boy by the hand. “Thank you for inviting us, Mr. Northmore. It is a pleasure to see you again. This is my nephew, Master Phillip Crawford. Phip, make a nice bow to our host, like I taught you.”

  The child abruptly doubled over at the waist, then straightened up and retreated behind his aunt’s skirts.

  Hadrian dropped to his haunches. “A pleasure to meet you, Master Phillip. My nephew Lee is near your age. He’ll be keen to play with you.”

  Lady Kingsfold appeared next, carrying her young daughter. “This has been a great adventure for Phillip and Eleanor—their first journey from home. Mr. Northmore, may I present my sister Belinda and her husband, Sidney Crawford?”

  “Welcome to Edenhall, Mr. and Mrs. Crawford. Thank you for accepting our invitation.”

  “Our pleasure.” Sidney Crawford returned Hadrian’s bow. “A fine-looking place you have here. Is the fishing good?”

  Hadrian nodded. “I am told the trout are running very well down in the beck.”

  Ford stepped past Mr. Crawford to offer Hadrian his hand. “My brother-in-law is a keen angler. The skill of your cook and the quality of your wine cellar matter far less to him than a plentiful supply of fish nearby. I’ll wager his enjoyment of your hospitality is assured.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Hadrian gave his partner’s hand a hearty shake. “Would the two of you care to walk down to the beck? If you’re anything like me, you’ll be anxious to stretch your legs after a long carriage ride.”

  Mr. Crawford greeted the suggestion with an eager nod.

  “In that case,” said Lady Kingsfold, “my sisters and I will take the children inside and get them settled.”

  “My wife is waiting to welcome you.” Hadrian gestured toward the large front door. “She will be pleased to see familiar faces from Sussex.”

  As the women and children headed inside, Sidney Crawford strode toward the beck, leaving Hadrian and Ford to follow at a more leisurely pace.

  For a few moments they walked side by side without speaking. Then Ford broke the silence. “I must say, this is not where I pictured you’d be after you stormed out of Hawkesbourne.”

  “Where did you picture me, then?”

  “The truth?” Ford gave a hoarse chuckle. “Swinging from a gallows for murdering Lady Artemis Dearing.”

  There was a time Ford’s prediction might not have sounded so far-fetched. Now the thought of harming one hair on her head made Hadrian’s blood run cold.

  “She was not to blame for what happened to my brother.” Hadrian glanced toward his partner. “Neither were you. I was a blinkered fool to say otherwise. I know you are not a man to easily pardon such a grave insult, but I regret what I said to you that day. Whether or not you are willing to accept my apology, I’m offering it.”

  Ford halted abruptly and turned to fix him with an incredulous look. “Who the hell are you? And what have you done with the real Hadrian Northmore?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “So you have.” Ford broke into a bewildered grin. “And I cannot believe my ears. Laura insisted you must have invited us here to make amends, but I had my doubts. I should know by now that she is usually right. Tell me, what made you willing to apologize? During three years in India and two in Singapore I never once heard you beg anybody’s pardon for anything. The most you ever did was dispatch Simon or me to smooth things over.”

  Hadrian knew what—or rather who—had brought about the change in him. But he could scarcely admit it to himself, let alone Ford. “Perhaps my brother’s death has made me realize there are worse things than losing face.”

  Ford’s dark brows rose. “Such as…?”

  “Losing a friend.”

  For an instant Ford looked overcome with a mixture of emotions. Then he gave Hadrian a hearty clout on the arm. “That sounds like the sort of good sense I would be prepared to drink a toast to.”

  “Then drink we shall.” Hadrian nodded toward the beck and the two men resumed their walk. “We never did get to hoist a glass of arrack in honor of Singapore being officially recognized.”

  He inhaled a deep draft of late-summer air, redolent with the scent of things ripening. “Something tells me you and I have a great deal of good fortune we should drink to.”

  “Your guests have arrived, ma’am.” Mrs. Matlock appeared at the drawing room door to inform Artemis. “The master sent me to tell you.”

  Artemis jumped from her chair, where she’d been trying to concentrate on a bit of needlework. The house party had been her idea and she hoped it would promote reconciliation between Hadrian and his partner. But she dreaded having to face the Kingsfolds again after the way she’d treated them.

  Though she had changed in many ways since leaving Bramberley, she was not a naturally sociable person and probably never would be. The prospect of formal entertaining, even a small group of people with whom she was fairly well acquainted, still alarmed her.

  Hadrian was relying on her, Artemis reminded herself, inhaling a deep breath and smoothing her skirts. “Thank you, Mrs. Matlock. I trust everything is ready to make our guests comfortable.”

  “Indeed it is, ma’am.” For all her brisk, capable manner, the housekeeper had not been able to hide her excitement over Edenhall playing host to a baron, a viscount and an earl. “Your guests will find nothing lacking in our hospitality.”

  With that reassurance to shore up her courage, Artemis contrived a smile of welcome and hurried to the entrance hall to greet her guests.
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br />   She found Lady Kingsfold holding her small daughter in her arms, while Mrs. Crawford carried a baby. Susannah Penrose brought up the rear, clutching the Crawfords’ elder son by the hand.

  In spite of her earlier misgivings, pleasure welled up inside Artemis at the sight of their familiar faces. “Welcome to Edenhall. It is a pleasure to see you all again. I hope you had a good journey.”

  “It was quite tolerable.” Lady Kingsfold exchanged looks with her sisters and they all began to laugh. “I believe that is the best one can hope when traveling with small children.”

  “I’m certain the trip will be well worth it.” Mrs. Crawford endeavored to soothe her baby, who had begun to fuss. “I have scarcely been a step from home since Phip was born and Laura is just as bad. It will do us good to have a change of scene.”

  “We can get the children settled in the nursery before I show you to your rooms.” Artemis led her guests toward the main staircase. “My nephew will be delighted to have some playmates of his own age.”

  She felt rather apprehensive about mentioning Lee. Would the ladies object to their respectable little darlings sharing a nursery room with an illegitimate child?

  If they did, Lady Kingsfold gave no sign of it. “Your nephew and my Eleanor are of an age, aren’t they? It will be good for her and Phillip to make a new friend.”

  When they reached the nursery, two capable-looking nursemaids were waiting to take their young charges in hand after the excitement of their journey.

  Artemis showed Mrs. Crawford and Miss Susannah to their rooms first, then seized the opportunity of a moment alone with Lady Kingsfold. “I cannot thank you enough for accepting our invitation. I would not have blamed you for refusing after the way I spoke to you and your husband when we last met. I understand now that you had everyone’s best interests at heart. I only wish I’d had the sense to heed your advice.”

  Lady Kingsfold reached for her hand and gave it a warm squeeze. “It was a difficult situation and I cannot blame you for taking exception to our interference. I might have done the same if you had tried to give me unwanted advice about my family. I was delighted to receive your invitation. It gave me hope that our husbands might mend their friendship.”

  A weight lifted from Artemis’s heart when she heard that. She and Lady Kingsfold were near in age and had been neighbors for almost ten years. Though their younger sisters had been great friends, there had always been a polite coolness between them.

  That was her fault, Artemis acknowledged. When Laura Penrose had come to Hawkesbourne as the young bride of a much older husband, Artemis had privately condemned her as a fortune hunter. Later, when the widowed lady had wed her late husband’s heir, it had seemed to confirm all Artemis’s worst suspicions. As with Hadrian, her uncharitable assumptions had been quite wrong.

  “Ford has been so out of spirits since he quarreled with Mr. Northmore,” Lady Kingsfold continued. “I urged him to make some overture, but he can be very stubborn when he believes he has been wronged.”

  Artemis nodded. “Hadrian has difficulty admitting he has done wrong. I knew he wanted to make amends, but he could not bring himself to make the first move.”

  “They are too much alike, that is their trouble.” With a chuckle of exasperated fondness, Lady Kingsfold linked arms with Artemis and they continued down the wide gallery of the east wing. “That is the price we pay for having married such dynamic, ambitious men.”

  “Perhaps so.” It gave Artemis a sense of bittersweet satisfaction to talk with Lady Kingsfold about their husbands, as if she and Hadrian had a true marriage, rather than a convenient arrangement for their nephew’s sake.

  “Clearly you have much more influence over your husband than I have with mine,” said Lady Kingsfold. “You were able to persuade him to invite us here. If it had been left to me, I fear their estrangement would have continued, growing more difficult to resolve as bitterness hardened between them.”

  Artemis detected a note of regret in the lady’s voice and wondered at its cause. “Here is your room. I hope you and Lord Kingsfold will find it comfortable and that you will enjoy your stay at Edenhall.”

  “I’m certain we shall.”

  As Artemis turned to leave, Lady Kingsfold called after her, “I hope you will not mind my saying so, but marriage seems to agree with you.”

  A few months ago, Artemis might have resented such a well-meant observation. Now she welcomed it. “Thank you. I believe it does.”

  Marriage to Hadrian Northmore, even a sham one, did agree with her. If only she had as much influence over him as Lady Kingsfold seemed to think she did, then perhaps she could persuade him to reconsider his plans for the future.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Earl and Countess of Launceton and their small son arrived at Edenhall not long after the Kingsfold party. Hadrian was pleased to find the young earl had changed very little from the affable Blade Maxwell he’d known in Singapore. He had rather mixed feelings to discover Blade’s wife was the former Miss Genia Vernon, a lady he’d known in India.

  That evening as they assembled for dinner, the countess confessed, “I wasn’t certain what to say when Blade told me he’d received an invitation from someone he’d known in Singapore. I was afraid I shouldn’t know anyone else in the party. But when he mentioned your name, I told him we must accept at once. It is so good to see you again, after all these years, Hadrian. I have often thought of you and wondered how you were getting on.”

  “As I have of you.” Hadrian hoped he delivered the polite falsehood with a convincing smile.

  It was not that he’d ever disliked Genia or wished her ill. She’d been Margaret’s dearest friend, a witness at their wedding in Madras. His memories of her had been locked away as deep and tight as those of his late wife and infant daughter. With help from Artemis, he’d begun to unearth those memories and to learn to live with them. But Genia was a vivid reminder of the carefree days before his life had shattered for the second time.

  Hadrian welcomed the distraction of Lord Ashbury’s arrival. The young viscount entered the drawing room with a rangy, loping stride. His sandy-brown hair was disheveled and his eyes held a look that might have been bristling irritation or abject terror. Artemis introduced her cousin to Hadrian and their other guests.

  The young man responded to their greetings with terse civility, his reply to Miss Penrose scarcely more than a grunt. Clearly Artemis had not exaggerated her cousin’s unease around young ladies. Susannah Penrose did not seem any more taken with the viscount than he was with her. Her tight little smile looked brittle enough to shatter.

  Hadrian feared his wife’s matchmaking plans were doomed to failure. Then again, Lord Ashbury and Miss Penrose were not off to any worse start than he and Artemis had been. And think how far they had come. A good deal further than he had ever intended or wanted. Yet where would he be without her? He would not trade the past months for anything.

  The Crawfords appeared just then, and they were all able to go in to dinner. Over the first course, Lady Kingsfold and her family kept up a flow of easy conversation. Their attempts to include Lord Ashbury met with scant success. Hadrian might have dismissed the young nobleman’s aloofness as haughty superiority, but his deepening understanding of Artemis had given him a more sympathetic perspective.

  When the viscount’s sullen silence threatened to dampen the evening, she cast Hadrian a look that he recognized as an appeal for his help. Though he doubted his ability to prevail where the others had failed, he could not disappoint her. What would draw him out, Hadrian asked himself, if he were ill at ease and not inclined to talk?

  “Lord Ashbury, my wife tells me you are a great admirer of Mr. Wilberforce. Do you reckon Parliament will pass a law to abolish slavery in his lifetime?”

  “I do indeed, sir.” The young man sat up with a jolt, as if Hadrian had jabbed him with a fork. “Though Mr. Wilberforce has been ill of late, his supporters are spurred to action by the hope that he may live to see
that longoverdue legislation passed.”

  The earnest fervor with which Lord Ashbury spoke quite transformed him. And Hadrian was not the only one to notice.

  “I am a great admirer of Mr. Wilberforce.” Miss Penrose looked at the viscount with sudden interest. “He appeared at a meeting in Horsham last year and spoke so movingly.”

  Lord Ashbury turned to stare at her as if he could not believe his ears. “You attended an abolition meeting?”

  “Is there something wrong with that?” The young lady’s eyes flashed with proud defiance. “Many women have made vital contributions to that great cause.”

  “Hannah More has had great influence, as have several others,” Lord Ashbury conceded, “though Mr. Wilberforce fears the ladies are inclined to go too far.”

  “You agree, I suppose.” Susannah Penrose stabbed her fork into a veal cutlet. “Men are eager enough to accept women’s help when you need it, but heaven forbid we should express an opinion.”

  “On the contrary, Miss Penrose. I have nothing but admiration for those ladies, Hannah More in particular. Have you read any of her writings?”

  Artemis turned to Ford. “Lord Kingsfold, I hear your daughter is quite the belle of our nursery. All the little boys are vying for her attention.”

  “I feared as much,” Ford replied. “Eleanor is a strong-willed little creature and a beauty to boot. I suspect these will not be her last conquests.”

  “Nor are they her first.” Lady Kingsfold chuckled. “Thanks to her adoring papa, our daughter is accustomed to having a powerful man wrapped around her pretty little finger. I shudder to think of the havoc she will wreak in the assembly rooms of London one day.”

  As the other married guests joined in this conversation about their children, Miss Penrose and Lord Ashbury continued talking together in hushed but emphatic tones.

  From the opposite end of the table, Artemis flashed Hadrian a smile of gratitude for rescuing their party from the doldrums. As he tossed off a quip in answer to one of Blade’s, he could not help feeling at ease in the company of happily married couples. Yet Genia’s presence was a faintly disturbing reminder of how swiftly his newfound happiness could vanish.