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!”
Chapter Three
“Hush, dearest!” Half an hour after her confrontation with Mr. Northmore, Artemis had still not succeeded in quieting her nephew.
She’d tried feeding him, changing his linen, bouncing him in her aching arms until she feared they would be wrenched out of their sockets. Nothing had worked. After a year of caring for Lee day and night, Artemis recognized the difference between a hungry cry, a weary cry or an injured cry. This was one she had not heard often—a wail of bloody-minded vexation.
“Hush!” she begged him again, practically driven to tears herself. “This won’t endear you to Uncle Henry. He may toss us both out tonight and have done with it.”
She would give anything for an hour’s peace to review her limited options and decide what to do next. The sudden appearance of Hadrian Northmore had made an already desperate situation far worse. Despite her brave boast about never letting him have Lee, Artemis feared she might soon have no choice.
Even if she’d been willing to entrust Lee to one of Bramberley’s tenants, Mr. Northmore could easily bribe such people to give him the child. If she defied Uncle Henry’s orders and got them expelled from Bramberley, she had no money to provide for her nephew. Even if she could find work as a governess or companion to some ailing dowager, she would never be permitted to keep a child with her. Which would place her right back where she’d started.
Heaving a dispirited sigh, Artemis sank onto the nearest chair and took her nephew’s weight onto her knees. For a moment his cries quieted. Then he inhaled several deep, wet breaths and began to howl again.
“You must get your temper from the Northmores.” Artemis struggled to wipe his dribbling nose with her handkerchief. “Your eyes, too. They are the very same shade of gray as his.”
That should have not come as a surprise, but somehow it did—this intimate connection between the child she loved and the man she loathed. Was it possible Lee sensed it, too?
“You