“And she sent those things back here with you, only to have Lord Godwin take them all away?”

Hadrian conceded that with a nod. “I was allowed to keep only one item, and the rest was donated to charity. Now, don’t look so aghast, it built character and kept me from becoming too spoiled.”

Natalie smiled rather abashedly to hear her own accusation mocked. For Leo’s sake, it was a relief to learn that not all upper-class children were overindulged. She glanced up at the castlelike house, picking out the nursery windows at the top floor and imagining Hadrian arriving here as a grief-stricken little boy who had been denied even the comfort of his mother. “How did your father die?”

“A fall from his horse during hunting season. To be honest, I scarcely remember him. There’s just the impression of a tall man who would pick me up and swing me in the air to make me laugh. Other than that … nothing.”

“Your poor mother, to lose both her husband and her son all at once. It still seems cruel to me that you were removed from her care.”

“For company, she had my younger sister, Elizabeth, who was given everything she desired and consequently picked up all of our mother’s habits of impetuosity and overindulgence. But one cannot dislike Lizzy for her faults since she also inherited Mama’s generous heart. And my sister has wisely married an extremely wealthy marquess, though she may yet beggar Wrenbury before all is said and done.”

In his half-smile, Natalie detected a genuine fondness for his mother and his sister. It touched her heart, and she felt a slight crumbling in the wall she’d erected against him. “Do you see them often?”

“Enough to make up for the years apart.” Hadrian gave her a sardonic grin. “I devote a fair amount of time to scolding them about their spending. I haven’t given up yet on reforming them.”

“And here I believed all aristocrats to be useless wastrels.”

“I’m neither miser nor saint. Yet I might very well have squandered my fortune as a gambler and profligate had I remained in my mother’s keeping.”

Natalie braced her palm against the cold stone of the bench in between them. “Regardless, I still think it’s wrong to separate a child from his mother.”

He glanced away, his gaze pensive. Then he looked back at her and shrugged. “The past is done. Growing up at Oak Knoll, I learned moderation and discipline. As a boy, I thought Godwin too strict, but now I can appreciate his tutelage, for he taught me to be a shrewd investor and a prosperous landowner.” Hadrian smiled mischievously, his gray eyes showing a hint of blue in the brightness of the sun. “So, Natalie, have I redeemed myself in your critical estimation?”

His smile charmed her with all the power of a wizard’s enchantment. He was only being affable, so why did she feel like a moonstruck girl?

Matching his light tone, she said, “I stand corrected, of course. You were not precisely spoiled as a child. Only unfairly elevated to a privileged stature by an accident of birth.”