by Deborah Hale
Then she turned her attention back to Hadrian. A fierce amethyst spark flashed in the depths of her eyes. “You need not pretend to care how I feel. I know the true reason you went to Newcastle. A letter arrived while you were away, from another applicant for the position you posted in the newspapers.”
The position he’d posted? She must have found out he was trying to hire a mistress and assumed the woman was for his own amusement. “Artemis, you mustn’t fret on that account. I can explain, pet.”
“I am not your pet!” she bristled, wrapping her arms around her slender torso. “And I don’t want your…explanations. Perhaps I have no right to complain, since I told you on our wedding night to get yourself a mistress. But I will not stand to be treated like a fool!”
“A fool? But I never—”
Artemis was clearly in no mood to listen. “If you never wanted a real marriage with me, you should have said so. Instead you made me feel sorry for you by pretending to believe you were under some sort of curse. Claiming you must stay away from Lee and me for our protection, when all the time you were methodically going about hiring a mistress under my very nose. You did not even try to hide it from the servants!”
He wanted to explain, if she’d let him get a word in. But stubborn pride froze his tongue. How could Artemis think so ill of him after the closeness they’d shared and everything he had confided in her? Why should he grovel to a woman who thought of him as an unfeeling upstart, unworthy of her trust?
His fears made one last desperate appeal. If he still wanted to return to Singapore, it would be a great deal easier to face living without Artemis if he could convince himself she despised him.
But how could he believe it after he’d come to know her so well? Beneath her proud antagonism, he glimpsed the true source of her anguish and uncertainty. It was not his integrity she doubted, but her capacity to inspire and keep his love. Could he blame her after the way she’d been treated in the past and his recent intention to desert her?
He managed to untie his tongue and was about to speak when Artemis suddenly looked around, her splendid eyes widening in alarm. “Lee! Good God, where is he?”
Hadrian swept a glance around the grassy nook, bounded by hedges and shrubs. Only an instant ago, Lee had been happily pulling his toy boat in circles around his aunt and uncle, paying no heed to their sharp exchanges. Now there was no sign of him.
A stunning blow seemed to catch Hadrian from out of nowhere. Like the sudden rumble and shaking of his family’s cottage, and Margaret’s first mention that the baby seemed unwell—was it going to happen again? Was the life Artemis had coaxed him to rebuild about to crash down around him?
Artemis struggled to breathe.
“He was just here.” She dashed to the nearest hedge and looked behind it while Hadrian ran to check behind a pair of rhododendrons. “I only took my eyes off him for a second. I should never have made you set him down. If any harm comes to him…”
She knew this was what Hadrian had feared—what he’d been trying to spare her and himself. Whatever his plans to take a mistress, he had not deceived her about his true reason for wanting to keep his distance from her and Lee.
“No harm will come to him.” Hadrian strode to her side and clutched her hand in a grip as fierce as his resolve. “We will find him and all will be well. I’ll head down toward the beck—that’s the greatest danger and he may have taken a notion to sail that boat of his.”
His urgent but positive tone restored her shaken composure. “I’ll call the servants out to look for him and tell the groom to bring his dog.”
Raising her hand to his lips, Hadrian pressed a swift, ardent kiss upon it that Artemis took as a promise. Whatever happened, he would not let it destroy the bond between them.
The next instant he strode away, calling, “Lee, where are you? Lee, come to Papapa!”
As she lifted the hem of her gown and raced toward the stables, she heard Hadrian in the distance, trumpeting like an elephant and gibbering like a monkey. Had he gone mad?
Then she heard another sound that ripped a sob from her throat and brought tears to her eyes—Lee’s sweet, bubbling laughter.
Spinning about in midstep, she raced in the direction of the sound, wading through herbaceous borders, dodging around shrubs, catching her gown on rose brambles. Then suddenly, she rounded a hedge and there he was, without a scratch on him, still clutching the string of his boat and laughing at his uncle’s comical animal noises.
“Thank God!” She swooped down on Lee, gathering him into her arms, laughing and sobbing with relief.
Hadrian appeared an instant later and wrapped his arms around both of them. “Still laughing are you, naughty little monkey? You think this is a fine game, making your poor auntie and uncle frantic.”
As he gave the child a cheerful scolding, his voice sounded husky. And when Artemis grazed his cheek with her lips, she tasted tears that were not hers.
“Dearest!” she crooned. “Angel!” She meant those endearments for both of them.
For it was not only Lee who’d been delivered from harm, but all of them, including the tiny flicker of new life within her. During those brief, terrifying moments, when their future had seemed under threat, she’d realized nothing meant more to her. And there was nothing she would let stand in the way of their happiness. Not her doubts, nor Hadrian’s fears, nor their pride.
Drained by their alarm and outburst of intense emotion, she and Hadrian sank onto the grass, their arms still entwined around each other.
“Dry your eyes, pet.” Hadrian pulled out a handkerchief and offered it to Artemis. “You’ll have no more reason to weep today, I promise you. About this mistress nonsense—”
“You needn’t explain.” Artemis wiped her eyes. “I know love and faithfulness were never part of our original bargain, but you gave me so much more than you ever promised.”
“You exceeded our bargain, too, pet.” A silvery mist rose in his eyes, which glowed with love. “Somehow you eased the burden of my past and leeched the poison from my wounds. You brought back to life the parts of me I thought had died with each member of my family. It is a debt I can never begin to repay.”
Artemis shook her head. “Not a debt. It was a gift that brought me happiness and fulfillment in the giving. We can make each other happy, Hadrian. I know we can, if only you would let us try.”
“I never doubted that.” He raised a hand to stroke her cheek. “It was the price I might pay in heartbreak if I lost you that made a coward of me. But I’ve come to realize whatever time we have together will be worth even that.”
He’d promised she would have no further cause to weep, but he was wrong. His words brought fresh tears to her eyes, but they were happy tears. Cleansing tears. Like welcome rain on drought-parched fields.
Lee seemed to sense something momentous was passing between the two people who loved him most. He did not make a sound, or squirm to escape their embrace, but snuggled into it with a contented sigh.
“Do you remember,” murmured Hadrian, “when I told you I had a commission to perform for my partner, Simon Grimshaw?”
Though she did not understand why he’d changed the subject, Artemis nodded. She recalled everything from the night he’d first come to her bed—every look, every touch, every word.
“Simon asked me to fetch him back a mistress from England. He was badly used by his late wife and wants nothing more to do with marriage. I reckon it was a daft way to go about finding one, putting a notice in the papers, as if I was hiring a cook or a laborer. I didn’t tell you about it because I thought you wouldn’t approve. But I didn’t try to hide it, either, because it never occurred to me how my actions might look.”
A hiccough of laughter bubbled out of Artemis. The world suddenly looked brighter, its colors more vivid, as if her tears had washed away a film of dust from her eyes…and from her heart.
“As for me…” Hadrian caressed her tear-streaked face with his eyes “…there is on
ly one mistress I will ever want. Only one woman I will ever love. That is the one I’m married to.”
Even as her heart swelled so full of joy Artemis feared it would burst, one final foreboding chilled her. Hadrian loved her and she loved him. That changed many things, but not everything.
“Then you will take us with you to Singapore?” she whispered, half-afraid to ask.
Hadrian shook his head. “I shall have to find someone to escort Simon’s mistress to Singapore, because I have no intention of leaving you and Lee. I mean to stay here, do everything I can to help the young mine workers and start up a new branch of Vindicara. Mind you, I do not expect to work the long hours I once did. I have found a great many pleasanter ways to spend my time.”
Taking Hadrian’s hand, Artemis slipped it behind Lee to rest against her belly. Now she had no qualms about sharing her happy news with him. “By next spring, we should have one more thing to keep us both happily occupied.”
A look of dumbfounded delight warmed Hadrian’s features as he caressed her taut, subtly rounded belly. When he recovered his voice at last, it was husky with emotion. “I hope it will be the first of many.”
As he inclined his head for a kiss that would seal their new commitment to one another and to the family their love would create and nurture, Artemis whispered, “Bless all Northmores!”
Epilogue
Newcastle, England—January 1825
“That’s it, then. They’re off.” From the quayside, Hadrian waved toward the brig Godspeed easing out of the Tyne channel.
From the ship’s taffrail, four half-grown boys and a young woman waved back.
Hadrian turned toward Artemis, who stood by his side, swathed in a fur-trimmed wrap that modestly concealed her growing belly. “That was a fine idea you had about hiring those lads from the mines. I reckon Simon will find plenty of work for them in Singapore. In the meantime, they can keep an eye on Miss Conway during the voyage out and she can look after them.”
“I hope so,” murmured Artemis, her delicate brow furrowed as she gazed toward the departing ship.
“What’s the matter, pet?” Hadrian slipped a protective arm around her waist. “Have you caught a chill? I knew I shouldn’t have let you persuade me to bring you to town in this cold weather.”
With the passing weeks of autumn, his happiness and contentment had ripened. He’d worked hard to banish the fears that might mar his enjoyment of each new day with his family. Though he was getting better, it did not take much to make him fret over their well-being.
“This trip has not done me the least harm.” Artemis cast him a fond smile. “I was just thinking about Bethan Conway.”
“What about her?” Though his wife’s words reassured him, he still kept his arm clasped around her. “Is that why you insisted on coming to town? Were you afraid I’d be tempted to sail off to Singapore with Miss Conway?”
“Don’t be silly.” She pressed against him, making Hadrian impatient for bedtime, which was still far too many hours away. “You are the most devoted husband I could wish for. I would trust you on a ship full of women. I insisted on coming to town because this may be our last opportunity to enjoy a little honeymoon off by ourselves for a while. And because I wanted to talk to Miss Conway before she sailed. I don’t much care for the idea of sending a young woman halfway around the world to become the mistress of a man she’s never met. I wanted to make certain she knows what sort of situation she is getting herself into.”
“And what did you conclude?” Hadrian led her back toward their waiting carriage. Much as he loved their nephew, he looked forward to this few days alone with his beautiful wife.
“I cannot make her out at all.” Artemis shook her head. “She seems so respectable…even innocent. The only answers I got to my questions were ‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘Thank you, ma’am.’”
“It was the same when I met with her.” Hadrian helped Artemis into the carriage, then covered her legs with a blanket. “But I confess, I was thinking more about you than about her, poor lass. I didn’t pay much heed.”
“Her name and accent are Welsh,” mused Artemis. “Perhaps she doesn’t know much English.”
As he climbed into the carriage, Hadrian thought back over his brief meeting with the young woman. “She wrote a good letter in reply to my newspaper notice. Though I suppose someone else might have written it for her.”
Artemis turned toward him and clutched his hand. “We must do something—send someone after her or get a message to the ship! Miss Conway may not understand where she is going or what will be expected of her.”
“Calm yourself, pet.” That was so like his wife, to care deeply about the welfare of anyone who might need her help. A rush of tender feelings made Hadrian’s heart swell until he feared it would burst his ribs. “The lass may not speak much English, but I reckon she knows her geography. She seemed very keen to get to Singapore for whatever reason. As for Simon, he’s a decent fellow. He won’t force her into anything she doesn’t want. Perhaps it will all work out for the best.”
The concern in her eyes melted away, replaced by a sparkle of fond merriment. “Hadrian Northmore, have you taken up matchmaking? Did you not once tell me it was a dangerous occupation?” He flashed a devilish grin, then pressed a gentle kiss upon her brow. “If she might make Simon as happy as you have made me, I will happily run that risk!”
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
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First published in Great Britain 2010
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Deborah M. Hale 2010
ISBN: 978-1-408-91643-8
* Gentlemen of Fortune