Bought: The Penniless Lady (9 page)

“Good morning, ma’am.” The woman made an impeccable curtsy, but her dark eyes flicked over Artemis and Lee with cool disapproval. “We met for a moment last night when you arrived. I am the housekeeper, Mrs. Matlock. I trust your quarters met with your satisfaction?”

“Indeed they did,” replied Artemis, acutely conscious that the housekeeper was better dressed than she. “Is Mr. Northmore up yet?”

“For hours.” It was clear from her tone that the housekeeper approved of early risers. “He wanted to make certain the house was in good order for you and the child.”

Something about the way Mrs. Matlock said “the child” affronted Artemis. Did the woman disapprove of Lee’s illegitimate birth? It was not something the poor little creature could help.

Hoisting him into her arms, she answered in a tone of icy courtesy. “Everything I’ve seen so far has been quite satisfactory. Now, if you will excuse us we are in rather urgent need of some breakfast.”

“I will not detain you any longer, ma’am.” The housekeeper beckoned a young maidservant. “Mr. Northmore instructed me to engage a nursery staff for the child. In the meantime, Cassie can take charge of him. She is the eldest of a large family and has a great deal of experience minding young children.”

“But—”

Before Artemis could protest, the girl gathered Lee from her arms. “Isn’t he a handsome wee lad? How old is he, then?”

Artemis could not resist sincere words of praise for her darling boy. “He turned a year not long ago.”

“He’s a fine size for his age. Our Isaac is three months older and not near so big. Can he walk yet?”

“Cassie—” Mrs. Matlock interrupted before Artemis could reply “—the mistress wants her breakfast. She hasn’t time to listen to tattle about your family. Fetch the child to the nursery and feed him.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The girl whisked Lee away, cooing over him, while he did not make a speck of fuss at being separated from his aunt.

Mrs. Matlock turned to address Artemis. “After you’ve eaten, the local seamstress will be coming to measure you for some new clothes.”

“I have a perfectly adequate wardrobe, thank you.” Artemis strove to maintain her dignity.

Was this how she would be treated while she lived
under Hadrian’s roof, as a mere cipher in her nephew’s life? That was not the bargain she’d intended to make.

“Master’s orders,” replied the housekeeper as if that were the final word on the subject.

Artemis was determined it would not be. “Where can I find
my husband
, pray? There are some matters I wish to discuss with him.”

His decree that she must have new clothes, to begin with. And the notion of Lee being brought up by a nursery staff. If he no longer believed she was a fortune hunter, as he’d claimed, why did he insist on treating her like one?

“The master has gone out.” Mrs. Matlock no longer sounded quite so certain of herself.

“Did he say where?”

“He did not, but I saw him walking down the lane. He may have wanted a bit of fresh air after your long journey.”

“I could do with a breath of air myself.” And a little privacy. If she was going to raise her objections to their domestic arrangements, Artemis preferred not to have the servants overhear. “Kindly have someone fetch my wrap and bonnet.”

“But your breakfast, ma’am?”

Though the savory aroma of fried bacon made her mouth water, Artemis reminded herself there were more important things than food. “I will eat when I return. A bit of exercise will whet my appetite.”

A short while later, as she headed down the winding, tree-lined lane, Artemis struggled to reconcile her present mood with the promise she had made Hadrian last night.
Was she putting the past behind them and endeavoring to make a fresh start?

This had nothing to do with Julian, Daphne and Leander, she told herself. The problem was Hadrian’s forceful, managing manner, which he’d demonstrated so often since they’d met—arranging everything to suit himself without a thought for anyone else. His ambition and industry made a welcome change from her indolent uncles, but could he not have consulted her before making plans that affected her and Lee?

Coming to the end of the lane, where it opened onto a narrow road, Artemis scanned the vicinity for a glimpse of Hadrian. All she saw was a boot print in the damp earth heading southward. Her growling stomach urged her to return to the house but she could not bear to face Hadrian’s housekeeper without having spoken to him.

A brisk ten-minute walk brought her to a squat stone church that looked even older than the one back in Sussex where she and Hadrian had been married. Having seen no further sign of Hadrian, she was about to turn back when she heard the deep rumble of his voice from behind an old yew tree in a churchyard.

Was he talking to the local vicar, perhaps about having Lee christened with a new name that he would find less objectionable? It was just the sort of high-handed behavior Artemis had come to expect from him.

As she drew nearer, preparing to confront Hadrian, she was able to make out his words.

“What were you thinking,” he asked, “landing yourself in that kind of trouble? Did I not tell you often enough we
owed a duty to the others? Everything else should have come second to that. I worked my heart out to keep up my end, but you threw it all away.”

Artemis could see him now, standing among the gravestones with his back to her. But she could not see the person he was talking to. Baffled, she stumbled to a stop.

Hadrian must not have heard her approach, for he kept talking. “Was that my fault? Did I ruin your character with too much money and too little attention, like Artemis said?”

It brought her the most ridiculous jolt of pleasure to hear Hadrian speak her name. Then she realized he must be speaking to his dead brother.

“Perhaps I should have brought you out to India where I could have kept an eye on you. But I’d made a fresh start and I didn’t want you there to remind me of the past.”

His voice sounded so different. Not stern and masterful, but laden with anguished regret. It was the voice of a man who might need a woman’s comfort and support. It called forth something fundamental to her nature.

Yet Artemis knew she should not be there. She was trespassing on Hadrian’s most intimate thoughts. She could not have borne it if he’d overheard some of the words she’d spoken over Leander and Daphne’s graves. Things she had never been able to say to her brother and sister while they were alive.

As she took one quiet step backward then another, Artemis tried to block out what Hadrian was saying.

“Pa, I hope you can forgive me for failing Julian and you and the lads. I have one more chance to make it right and I won’t fail you again, I swear it.”

In her haste to steal away, Artemis brought her foot down on a fallen twig. It snapped with a report that rang out like a pistol shot.

Hadrian spun about to confront whoever had dared intrude upon this deeply private moment. His eyes blazed when they fell upon her. “What are you doing here? Did you come to spy on me? Did you think you might hear something to your advantage?”

“No!” Caution urged her not to get too close to Hadrian, but something stronger drew her toward him. “Please, I didn’t mean to…”

As she moved toward him, her gaze fell upon the inscription carved on the gravestone before which he stood.

Killed in the Fellbank Colliery Explosion

24th May 1808

William Northmore ae 39 yrs

Augustus Northmore ae 14 yrs

Marcus Northmore ae 11 yrs

Titus Northmore ae 9 yrs

Quentin Northmore ae 8 yrs

“Is this—” the question was wrenched out of her, though she had no doubt of the answer “—
was
this your family?”

F
or a moment Hadrian was too stunned by his wife’s sudden appearance to answer her question.

The crack of that twig under her foot might have been the sound of a pistol cocking for the spasm of panic it sent through him. But when he spun around to confront the person listening in on his most guarded thoughts, the sight of Artemis had unnerved him in a different way altogether.

The robust Durham wind had blown her bonnet back, exposing her hair to its impatient caress. It whipped dark tendrils about her face and teased a rosy glow into her cheeks. It pushed her skirts tight against her slender legs, plucking up the hem to taunt him with a glimpse of her dainty ankles. Hadrian did not trust himself to watch the wind have its lusty way with her, as he could not.

The anxious, furtive set of her features drove out those bedeviling thoughts, reminding him of what she must have overheard. He felt naked. Exposed. Vulnerable.

Then she asked the question he could scarcely bear
to answer. “Of course they’re my family. Why else would I be here?”

“And they all…died…in a colliery explosion?” The horror and pity in her voice threatened to break through a barrier he had erected around that part of his life.

He had no choice but to respond to that threat. “All except me and Julian. He was too young to work when it happened. He’s with them now, though. Your brother saw to that.”

Artemis swayed, as if she was being buffeted by something stronger than the upland wind. But she managed to stay on her feet. “Why did you not tell me what happened to your father and brothers?”

“Why
should
I have told you? Someone like you could not begin to understand!”

The moment those words were out of his mouth, Hadrian knew he should not have spoken them. After all, he’d been the one who wanted to put the past behind them. Now he wondered if there were some parts of his past that he could never escape—things that would haunt him until his dying day, no matter how far he ran or how deep he tried to bury them.

But what else
could
he say? Admit that it troubled him to tell her what he’d never been able to tell his partners or even his beloved first wife? That was something he truly could not expect her to understand, for he could not quite fathom it himself.

Artemis flinched from his bitter outburst, but her reply surprised him. “Perhaps you were right. I do not understand how your father came to be in a coal mine with four of your brothers, all so young. But I want to know, if you will tell me.”

He’d expected her to storm away or hurl an angry retort that would give him an excuse to break off this disturbing encounter. He was not prepared for her concern.

It slipped past his defenses. “My father wasn’t always a miner. He had a farm once, not far from here, land Northmores had worked for as long as anyone could remember. If only he could have held on to it until me and my brothers grew big enough to help him. But he got hit with a string of bad harvests and had to borrow money he couldn’t repay. There was nothing for it but to go to Fellbank and take work in the colliery.”

“But your brothers?” Artemis’s dark brows knit together in a baffled frown. “The youngest was only eight.
That
is what I cannot understand.”

“I knew you wouldn’t,” he muttered, vexed that she would not leave it alone. “You and your
genteel poverty.
One miner’s wages would not keep a family of four, let alone eight. Around here, all the lads go to work by the age of eight if they can get a place. Lasses, too, when there’s work enough for them.”

“That is monstrous!” Her striking eyes flashed with passionate indignation. “It is one thing for children to help out on farms, gathering eggs or herding sheep. But underground in a mine? Such practices should not be permitted in a civilized country!”

“No, they should not.” Hadrian heaved a deep, frustrated sigh. “What do you reckon I’ve worked for all these years? To raise up my family so they never again have to fear being wiped off the earth. But more than that—to keep lads and lasses out of the mines so they have a chance to
go to school and learn enough to do something else with their lives, if they choose to.”

Was Artemis beginning to understand now?

In case not, he continued. “Nobody with the power to change things is going to listen to a bunch of sooty, ignorant miners who talk too broad for them to understand. That was why I sent Julian down south to the best schools. That is why I wanted him to stand for Parliament. So he could speak for lads like our brothers in a way the high and mighty
could
understand.”

If his fierce indignation had been a bludgeon and every word struck a blow, Artemis could not have looked more stricken. Though Hadrian knew none of this was her fault, too many painful memories had been roused—too much impotent anger and gnawing guilt let loose. He could not rein it in.

“Now do you understand?” he demanded. “Do you see what your family has done?”

Intense, contradictory feelings overwhelmed Hadrian at that moment—a tidal wave of liberating release and a paralyzing undercurrent of shame. He wished Artemis would strike back, as she had when they’d first met, with regal disdain and bitter hostility.

Instead she gave a jerky nod, as if she were a puppet in the hands of an unskilled master. Her icy facade seemed dangerously brittle.

“Now I understand—” her whispered words tore into Hadrian like tiny shards of glass “—why you hate me.”

Hate her? He wanted to deny it, but his throat was too constricted with guilt to speak.

Artemis would not have heard him anyway, for she had turned and fled from him as if in terror for her life.

Artemis ran from the churchyard, desperate to escape the memory of that headstone with its heartbreaking list of Hadrian’s dead brothers. Her imagination conjured up images of those boys, all looking like Lee might when he turned eight…nine…eleven years old. How would she feel if she’d lost her precious boy five times over, along with the father she’d bashfully revered, all in one calamitous day?

Would she have had the strength to go on as Hadrian had? Somehow he’d found the courage to venture halfway around the world and make his fortune from nothing so he could provide for his one remaining brother. But he had not stopped there. He’d striven to protect other children from suffering the same fate as his brothers. Her heart swelled with pity and admiration.

“Artemis!” His voice pursued her, hoarse with urgency. “Wait…please!”

Part of her wanted to run faster so she would not have to face him. Another part insisted she owed him a hearing…and so much more that she could never hope to redress. Gasping for breath, she staggered to a halt and waited for Hadrian. However harshly he denounced her, it could not be worse than the tribunal of her own conscience. She stared at the ground, unable to look him in the face.

“Artemis.” His footsteps slowed as he approached her. His voice sounded a little winded, too. “I’m sorry for what I said just now. For a long time, I’ve refused to let myself think about what happened to my father and brothers. All of a sudden it overpowered me, but that was no excuse for
lashing out at you the way I did. I don’t blame
you
for what happened to Julian, I swear. And I most certainly do not hate you.”

Those were the last words she’d expected to hear from him. They should have eased her guilt, but they did not.

“You…should blame me.” She pressed a hand to her chest to keep her heavy heart from battering its way out. “I blame myself. I tried so hard to shift the responsibility for what happened on to Julian and Lord Kingsfold and you so I could absolve Leander and Daphne…and me. Now I can no longer deny what I’ve done.”

Having acknowledged her guilt gave Artemis the nerve to look Hadrian in the face. But the condemnation she’d expected to find was absent from his gaze. She could not make out whatever was there in its place.

“What is it you reckon you’ve done?” he asked in a husky murmur.

Must she confess aloud the things she’d been reluctant to examine too closely, even in the privacy of her own thoughts? That was the very least she owed Hadrian and his family, surely.

“Is it not obvious? I was the one who brought up Leander and Daphne after our parents died. They were both so different than me—so sociable and high-spirited. Because I envied them those qualities, I encouraged their gregarious ways. Because I wanted to make up for the loss of our parents, I indulged them and made excuses for their behavior.”

Hadrian began walking slowly in the direction of his house. He beckoned Artemis to join him. “None of that sounds so terrible to me.”

“Don’t you see?” She fell in step beside him. “I raised
my brother and sister to be amiable and outgoing. But, as you told me, vices are the tail side of virtues. Leander and Daphne could also be impulsive, willful and reckless.”

Not long ago, she would have cut to the quick anyone who dared say such a thing about her adored brother and sister. To say it herself made Artemis feel treacherously disloyal to their memories. But it was true, and Hadrian deserved to hear the truth.

His dark, dynamic features creased in a pensive frown as he pondered her words. Then he shook his head. “You are not responsible for your brother and sister’s actions. I’m certain, if you’d had your way, Daphne would never have lain with my brother and Leander would never have called him out.”

“Perhaps.” She could not excuse herself so easily. “But what I did was just as bad. How could I have expected Daphne to stay away from your brother when I’d spent eighteen years doing my best to give her whatever she fancied? How could I expect Leander to put reason and caution before pride, when I’d filled his head with notions of family honor and tales of our illustrious ancestors?”

Hadrian’s frown deepened. Perhaps he had begun to grasp how deeply she was at fault.

In case he did not, Artemis summed it up. “Because of me, you lost the last remnant of your family. And countless children, little older than Lee, lost the man who might have been their champion.”

It was all she could do to contain the sob that ached in her throat and hold back the tears that might cool her stinging eyes. She did not want Hadrian’s false reassurances of pardon because he felt sorry for her. She did not deserve his pity.

As they walked on in silence, Artemis shored up her composure in preparation for whatever recriminations Hadrian might heap upon her. If only she had not let herself begin to think well of him, she would be so much better able to bear his disdain.

As they rounded a bend in the tree-shaded lane, his house appeared in view. Its golden-brown stones glowed faintly in the spring sunshine, while stray sunbeams glinted off its many windows.

“I’m afraid it will not do,” said Hadrian, “you trying to take all the blame on yourself. I reckon there are many people to divide it amongst. So many that no one can claim the lion’s share and none is in any position to cast stones at another. Least of all me at you. How old were you when you had to take over the upbringing of your brother and sister?”

She was so astonished by his forbearance and the unexpected question that she answered without stopping to think if it was something she wanted to reveal. “Ten years old when my mother died. Daphne was not much older than Lee is now and Leander had just turned four. Three years later, we lost our father.”

“So you were no more than a child yourself.” A sigh escaped Hadrian’s lips. “Did you have no one to help you raise your brother and sister?”

“There were servants, of course, for their day-to-day care—a few at least. And my father’s uncles were our guardians, but they knew nothing about raising small children…and cared even less.”

Those last words slipped out in spite of her. Dearings did not criticize members of the family to outsiders. At
the moment, though, Hadrian did not feel like an outsider. Though his loss and his struggles had been so much worse than hers, they forged a bond with her that Artemis could not deny.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” As they walked, Hadrian edged closer to her until they were almost touching. “It’s not an easy job to raise a child. Even in the best of circumstances and with the best of intentions, people make mistakes. I cannot see that you have anything to reproach yourself for. If I once claimed otherwise, it was only because
I
did not understand.”

Was this how Papists felt when they made their confession and were shriven of their sins? Though Artemis could not surrender her whole burden of guilt, she did feel lighter somehow—less tightly bound. But there was one further step in the search for absolution.

Penance.

“Do the Durham mines still employ children as young as your brothers were?”

“I’m sure they do,” replied Hadrian. “Not only here, but throughout the country. Why would the owners quit a practice that saves them money? Now that I am in business, I can see their side of it, though I still believe it is wrong. Nothing less than an Act of Parliament will stop collieries from employing young lads and lasses in the pits.”

Artemis tugged on Hadrian’s sleeve to make him stop for a moment. “You thought I would not understand or care what happened to your family and you were half right. I cannot imagine how such things are permitted in a country that claims to be civilized. But now that I know about them, I care a great deal. What can I do to help?”

Hadrian studied her face, perhaps searching for proof of her sincerity. “Without Julian to lead the campaign for reform, we will have to wait for his son to come of age. The best way you can help is to make a better job of raising our nephew than I did of raising his father.”

“I beg your pardon?” Could Hadrian mean what she thought he meant?

He gave a rueful shrug. “You said yourself, I ruined Julian’s character with too much money and too little attention. For years, I sent back every penny I could spare so he’d have the best of everything. I told myself that rubbing shoulders with young gentlemen of consequence would help him become a better advocate for children working in the mines. Now I wonder if I was only trying to keep him from harm and make up for what he’d lost. Showering him with money was the wrong way to go about it. I reckon you will strike a better balance with Lee.”