Perhaps to forestall any more awkward comments from the vicar, Lady Artemis began walking toward the church. “Have witnesses been arranged?”
The vicar nodded. “My sister and the parish clerk have agreed to witness the ceremony and sign the register.”
Hadrian trailed after them with his nephew in his arms. Just as Lady Artemis had predicted, the child gazed around him, taking everything in. Whenever his eyes met Hadrian’s, he flashed a wide, wet grin. If his aunt had tended him since his infancy, she’d done very well. The lad appeared healthy, happy and reasonably clever for his age.
They entered the church, which was softly lit by scattered candles and spring sunshine filtering through the stained glass of the altar window. It depicted a cloaked monk holding a traveler’s staff. The place reminded Hadrian of another old country church, far to the north.
As they followed the vicar down the aisle, Hadrian’s small nephew seemed to decide the church was too quiet.
“Ah-do-ma-ba!” He made a sudden grab for Hadrian’s ear, doing his best to yank it off. His other hand found Hadrian’s nose and gave it a sharp twist.
“Ow!” The pain shocked Hadrian back into the broad northern dialect of his youth. “Giveower and whisht, ye blasted wee bug—”
Artemis let out a horrified gasp that cut him off before he blurted out something very rude in church.
Taking advantage of his momentary confusion, she wrenched the child out of his arms. “I will thank you not to take such a rough tone with Lee. He is far too young to know what he is doing.”
Her icy rebuke stung Hadrian more than his hot outburst seemed to have bothered their nephew. The wee imp chortled as if he knew he’d done something naughty and managed to get away with it.
Hadrian rubbed his smarting nose. “He’s none too young to start learning to mind.”
He sensed she wanted to fling a pithy retort at him, but by now they had reached the chancel steps, where their witnesses were waiting. Instead she turned away from him to greet the vicar’s sister, who looked absurdly like her brother in a voluminous black dress and high white collar. While the two women fussed over his nephew, Hadrian shook hands with the parish clerk. The vicar took his place and spent a moment leafing through his prayer book.
Once he found the right page, he cleared his throat and launched into the service. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”
Those words took Hadrian back to the last time he’d heard them, in Fort St. George, Madras. He could scarcely imagine a wedding more different from that one than this. He and his first bride had been so eager to wed. The early struggle to make his fortune was behind him, while the tragedy of his past had begun to loosen its grip upon his heart. Margaret’s vivacity and contagious high spirits had helped him look to the future with boundless hope.
He’d dreamed of siring a family of fine sons to carry on the Northmore name—lads who would never experience the danger and deprivation he and his brothers had endured. He’d foreseen a lifetime of happiness ahead with a family he would adore. Instead, after only two sweet, fleeting years, he’d lost his wife and infant daughter. And he had learned what a perilous thing hope could be.
An expectant pause wrenched Hadrian back from his painful reverie. Too late, he realized the moment for confessing any impediment to his present marriage had passed. Did the fact that he knew almost nothing about his bride count? Or that he did not much like the lady, let alone love her?
The vicar could not have guessed any of that, or he would never have fixed Hadrian with such a benevolent smile and asked, “Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife?”
Wife. Until now, that word had made him think of someone quite unlike Artemis Dearing. It troubled Hadrian to find her so very alluring when she was so different from the wife he’d lost. He held her in a solemn gaze, determined to betray nothing of the wrenching memories this ceremony had revived. “I will.”
Next the vicar addressed Lady Artemis. “Wilt thou take this man to thy wedded husband?”
“I will.” She focused her attention on her small nephew, as if pledging her love and life to him instead of her bridegroom.
Stifling an unexpected pang, Hadrian reminded himself this marriage was entirely for the child’s benefit. And he would have it no other way.
Chapter Five
While Reverend Curtis read the words of the marriage ceremony, Artemis struggled to keep her attention fixed upon her nephew, so she would not be so intensely aware of Mr. Northmore’s potent presence. His relentless gray gaze seemed to measure her value as a wife and find her lacking in all respects.
The tone in which he spoke his vows made it clear he would just as soon have been marrying the vicar’s middle-aged sister as her. Then why had he pressed that unsettling kiss upon her after she’d accepted his proposal? Did he think her a pathetic, lonely spinster who needed an amorous incentive to go through with this wedding?
“Please join hands,” the vicar bid them.
“But…” Artemis shrank from the prospect of Hadrian Northmore’s touch, though a small, traitorous part of her hankered for it. “My nephew…”
“Our nephew,” he muttered.
Miss Curtis stepped forward. “I can take him. Surely he will be content to let me hold him for a few moments.”
Artemis had her doubts, but she did not want to make a scene by refusing the lady’s help. Surrendering Lee to Miss Curtis, she turned quickly back to her bridegroom. She hoped he would not mistake her impatience to get the ceremony over with for eagerness to become his wife.
She willed herself not to flinch when Mr. Northmore’s large, powerful hand enveloped her slender, waxen fingers. The heat of his touch surprised her. As he repeated his vows after the vicar, she stared down at their clasped hands, refusing to meet his forbidding gaze. She told herself she did not care if he compared her unfavorably with other women—she had no illusions about her meager charms. Daphne had been the beauty of the family. She was the sensible one, the dutiful one—content to remain in the background while her adored sister captured all hearts.
“Repeat after me,” the vicar prompted her, “I, Artemis Caroline, take thee, Hadrian Arthur, to my wedded husband.”
Lee had begun to fuss the moment Miss Curtis took him. Now he was wailing so loudly his cries echoed off the old stone walls of the sanctuary.
For once, Artemis welcomed his tearful uproar, which drowned out her insincere promises to love, cherish and obey Hadrian Northmore. She hoped God would understand why she could never love the man, any more than he could love her. The best she could truly promise, for their nephew’s sake, was that she would try not to hate him.
“Have you the ring?” the vicar asked Mr. Northmore, raising his voice to carry over Lee’s howling.
Artemis could scarcely conceal her amazement when her bridegroom fished in his pocket and pulled one out. Had he purchased it in London while waiting for the license to be issued? She hadn’t thought him the sort of man to remember such niceties. Then again, she was not well enough acquainted with Hadrian Northmore to know what sort of man he might be.
Once the ring was on her finger, Artemis turned toward the vicar’s sister with her arms outstretched. “Let me take Lee again before he deafens us all.”
Flushed and flustered, poor Miss Curtis looked relieved to hand over her small, noisy charge. “The child certainly has a healthy set of lungs.”