“Well, congratulations, then. You’ve succeeded quite admirably. We will be departing for Southampton at once.”

“And by what means will you travel there?”

She looked nonplussed for a moment, then tossed up her chin. “We’ll walk to the village. There must be a posting inn. I’m sure I can arrange some form of transportation.”

“Whitnash is three miles away. It’s pouring rain outside. And it’s mid-afternoon already, which means it will be nightfall before you arrive. That’s presuming you don’t get lost on the way.”

He’d be damned if he’d offer them conveyance in his chaise. Not if it meant sending her out of his life. Forever.

“I’ll manage,” she asserted.

“With a six-year-old child? I won’t allow it.”

“Allow it!” The words echoed in the vastness of the entrance hall as she stopped near one of the suits of armor by the staircase. With a glance at the footman who was trimming the lamps in the library, she lowered her voice to a hiss. “You may be able to order other people around, Mr. High-and-Mighty Duke, but not me.”

Hadrian clenched his jaw. Never before had he met a more exasperating woman—or a more alluring one. There was a dash of pink color in her cheeks that enhanced her wild beauty and stirred the fiery urge to pull her into his arms. But this time she wouldn’t melt; he’d be more likely to feel the sting of her slap. As much as he admired her independent spirit, it frustrated him, too.

For a moment, he considered using Leo as bait. He would be well within his rights to lay claim to the boy on the basis of their blood relationship. Any judge in the land would award him custody due to his rank. Natalie would then be obliged to go to London if she wanted to see the boy. But she would never forgive him such a trick. He would win the battle and lose the war. Already, she’d erected a barrier against him as if he were the enemy.

Blast it. He was accustomed to people heeding his words, not scorning him as if he were of no consequence.

Struck by an awareness of his own arrogance, he tried to see matters from Natalie’s perspective. She had survived a bloody massacre, taken charge of an orphaned child, crossed an ocean to a despised foreign land in order to deliver Leo to his family, only to find herself caught in a web of hostility where her very character and integrity were attacked.

Worse, she’d given the gift of her trust to Hadrian, and he had repaid her with what she perceived to be a betrayal.

Looking at the situation in that light made him feel like a knave, so he strove for a more conciliatory tone. “Forgive me, I oughtn’t have been so presumptuous. What I meant was that Leo would be drenched if you were to depart in the rain. He might even fall ill. Please understand that I only wish to do what’s best for him.” And for Natalie, too, though he didn’t dare say so in her present state of indignation.