Читать книгу Bought: The Penniless Lady - Deborah Hale - Страница 9

“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 emotion 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 dropping 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?”

Was it possible he’d come to beg her pardon for what his reckless young rogue of a brother had done? To make some token gesture of restitution in the only medium he understood—hard cash? Though no amount of money could heal her grief or soften her resentment, Artemis was prepared to accept it for Lee’s sake.

That tantalizing hope wrought a shift in her perception of Hadrian Northmore. His towering height no longer seemed so threatening. His dark, brooding features looked rather attractive.

But when he answered her question, his reply ripped the breath from her lungs and set every nerve in her body on fire. “I want the child.”

Hadrian had not realized how desperately he wanted custody of his nephew until the lad staggered toward him.

The child did not look much like a Northmore with his fair coloring, plump cheeks and dimpled chin. But there was an appealing sturdiness about him. His boldness, energy and determination all proclaimed their kinship.

Perhaps Julian’s son had sensed it, too—pelting toward his uncle with the instinct of a fledgling returning to its nest, latching on to his leg with amazing strength for such a small creature. And how he’d resisted when his aunt tried to pull him away—stubbornly clinging to what he wanted, hanging on against overwhelming opposition! Once the battle was lost, he’d protested the injustice at the top of his lungs. But when that did no good, he hadn’t wasted energy whimpering or sulking. Instead he’d put the setback behind him and promptly gone to sleep, gathering strength for his next challenge.

Hadrian was determined to put up an equally resolute fight to claim his nephew. And he would not lose, for he possessed the strength and means to overcome the chief obstacle keeping them apart—Lady Artemis Dearing.

For all her slender, alluring delicacy, Hadrian did not underestimate his opponent. There was a glint of regal valor in her striking blue-violet eyes and a ring of icy antagonism in her dulcet voice. Though her haughty disdain stung, he could not stifle a grudging flicker of admiration for anyone with enough spirit to stand up to him.

After an instant of dazed silence, Lady Artemis fixed him with a glacial glare. “You may want my nephew all you like, Mr. Northmore. But you will never get your hands on him, of that I can assure you. I suggest you spare us both any further unpleasantness by going back to wherever you came from and leaving me to raise him in peace.”

With a contemptuous arch of her dark brows, the lady turned and walked away. This time she took care not to tilt her chin so high and risk tripping over the uneven ground. No doubt she wished to avoid repeating the indignity of being caught in the arms of a man she’d defied and insulted.

Hadrian would not have minded swooping to her rescue again, if necessary. He’d been unprepared for the rush of satisfaction that had surged through him when he’d clutched her and the child tight against his chest, saving them from harm. But if Lady Artemis thought she could dismiss him like one of her servants, she was very much mistaken.

He strode after her. “I can assure you, I have no intention of being so easily discouraged. I am accustomed to getting what I want and it will take more than a little unpleasantness to deter me.”

The lady stiffened when she realized he was following her, but she did not stop or glance his way. “Perhaps this is the first time you have hankered after something your money cannot buy, sir. My nephew is not a commodity for purchase. I would not consider parting with him for any sum you could pay.”

“In my experience, people who claim they cannot be bought are only trying to drive up their price.” Hadrian kept a sharp watch for her reaction.

It was all part of the bargaining process—bid, refusal, counteroffer, bluff and call. Success often depended upon the ability to predict an opponent’s next move or gauge his weakness. But Lady Artemis proved difficult to decipher. Her blatant contempt for him was so intense it masked any subtler reactions. It did not help that Hadrian found himself distracted whenever his gaze lingered upon her.

Searching her eyes for a hint of fear, he was lured to plunge into their bewitching depths. When he studied her lips for a tremor of uncertainty, he caught himself wondering if they had ever been properly kissed.

The lady shook him out of such wayward thoughts with a derisive sniff. “Clearly we move in very different circles. Even if I were so shamefully degraded as to consider peddling my own flesh and blood, you would be the last person to whom I would sell him.”

“You forget,” Hadrian snapped, “the boy is my flesh and blood, too. If we were in the Orient, their system of justice might compel you to give him to me as compensation for the murder of my brother.”

His words made Lady Artemis walk faster. “I count myself fortunate to live in a civilized society where an innocent child would never be so barbarously consigned.”

Was a system of justice based on restitution more barbarous than one that would hang a starving child for stealing food?

Before Hadrian could voice that indignant question, Lady Artemis pressed on, her speech broken by frequent gasps for breath. “Even if such ‘eye for an eye’ sanctions were applied in England, you would surely be the one to owe me compensation. My brother may have caused the death of yours, but he put both my brother and sister in their graves, as well as dragging our family through the mud.”

“The duel was your brother’s idea,” Hadrian protested. “I am certain if it had been left up to Julian, no one need have come to harm.”

Though he knew antagonizing Lady Artemis would only make it harder to gain custody of his nephew, Hadrian could not help himself. She’d had more than a year to come to terms with this sordid tragedy and carry on with her life. As far as his heart was concerned, his brother’s death might have happened only yesterday. With one vital difference…

It was far too late to hold a funeral, don mourning garb or perform any of the usual rituals that helped the bereaved make some sense of death’s profound mystery. Only by confronting Lady Artemis Dearing, in place of her brother and sister, could he purge some of the poisonous feelings that possessed him.

“What choice did my brother have?” She shifted her grip on the sleeping child. “He had to defend my sister’s honor against the man who had callously seduced her and got her with child out of wedlock.”

As they crested a bit of rising ground, the great house appeared like a stately dowager with all its lofty spires and gables. Hadrian knew better than to suppose he could follow Lady Artemis through the imposing gatehouse. What he had left to say, he must say quickly.

“Was that precious honor worth the lives of two men in their prime? Where I come from, a girl’s father or brother would give the fellow a sound thrashing, then haul the pair of them in front of a parson. By the time the babe was born, nobody would remember or care when it was begot.”

Something caused a hitch in the lady’s regal stride. Was she growing tired? Or had his barb found its mark?

“No doubt things are a great deal simpler where you come from. If families like mine took such a lax attitude to this sort of disgrace, it would be an open invitation for unscrupulous rogues to seduce their way into our ranks. No unwed lady of quality would be safe from their odious attentions.”

This time it was Hadrian’s step that faltered. “Are you saying my brother bedded your sister against her will?”

“Not strictly against her will, perhaps, but certainly against her discretion and the wishes of her family.” Her outraged tone warned Hadrian she would never permit wanton passion to lure her from the narrow path of propriety.

“You said Julian put your sister in her grave. Did she die in childbed, then?” Hadrian’s throat tightened. “If you hold him responsible for that, many a loving husband must bear the blame for his wife’s death.”

“My sister survived the birth, though it was difficult and certainly weakened her.” Lady Artemis kept her eyes fixed upon the house, clearly eager to reach the sanctuary of its imposing walls. “She died eight months later, her spirit broken by the consciousness of how her innocent folly had brought shame upon our family and led to our brother’s death.”

Hadrian stifled a troublesome spark of sympathy for the dead girl. “So you admit it was her fault and not my brother’s.”

Lady Artemis cast him a sidelong glance of scathing contempt. “If you had any finer feelings, you might understand that people may bear an undeserved sense of responsibility, even when they are not to blame.”

The last thing Hadrian expected was for her offensive words to bring him an unaccountable rush of relief. No doubt it was the last thing she intended. “If my brother’s child is such a scandalous stain on your family’s reputation, I cannot understand why you refuse to give him up.”

Lady Artemis practically ran the last few steps to the gatehouse. Once beneath its stone archway, she turned to skewer Hadrian with a challenging glare. “He is all I have left, Mr. Northmore. I cannot expect you to understand how that feels. I will not give him to you to ruin his character with too much money and too little attention.”

Her accusation knocked the wind out of Hadrian. She was completely wrong about him not knowing the devastation of such a loss.

Perhaps sensing her advantage, Lady Artemis pressed on. “For his sake, go away and leave us in peace.”

Without waiting for an answer, she stalked off into the courtyard. The child stirred then and opened his eyes. Spotting Hadrian, he reached a small hand over his aunt’s shoulder toward his uncle.

“I am not going anywhere!” Hadrian bellowed after Lady Artemis. “I will do whatever it takes to get my nephew!”