Charming Artemis by Sarah M. Eden
Chapter Seventeen
Artemis was still on edge, but she was finding her footing at Lampton Park. They had been assigned a shared bedchamber—the one, she had been told, that was Charlie’s from his years growing up at the Park—and it was proving more awkward than any of the inns they’d stayed in.
They’d changed for the evening meal in shifts and had managed only a stilted version of a conversation in the drawing room, the dining room, and, now, amongst the family after the meal. Rose had made it known to the housekeeper that the chambermaids were not to come into the bedchamber in the morning to light the fire until Rose indicated they should. That would save them the humiliation of having all the house know that this newlywed couple were none too pleased to be sharing close quarters.
Things had gone relatively well during their afternoon interactions with the extended family. Her new sister-in-law from Spain had proven an utter delight. Lord Lampton, who had insisted she call him Philip, had joined in their absurdity with eagerness. They’d laughed and enjoyed bits of what her Papa would likely have called “silliness.” Artemis was breathing a bit more easily. She could rest on her familiar approach to such things and have some faith it would work.
Charlie didn’t seem overly dedicated to their efforts. He’d dressed a bit better for the meal than he had during the day, but his appearance was still haphazard and careless. He would give everyone the impression that he placed no importance on being with them. They would begin to wonder at his unhappiness. They would likely blame her.
“I am certain someone from the staff, perhaps even one of your brothers’ valets could be spared to help you dress for meals,” Artemis said as they made their way down the stairs.
“I thought the ‘enormity of your endurance’ could see you through the misery of having to look at me.”
That he repeated the joking comment in such a disapproving tone was . . . odd. “We were jesting.”
“Yes. I know.” Tension filled his voice.
“I found a way of being welcomed among your family. Is that not what you wanted?”
He released a tight breath. “Joining them in mocking me is not quite what I had in mind.”
“You don’t object to it coming from them, but you object to me being part of it?”
“We were meant to come here and present a picture of unity. Instead, I was a man at a mark.” They stopped a few feet from the drawing room door. “I am keeping my end of this bargain, Artemis. I need you to keep up yours.”
“Are you, though?” She couldn’t keep her voice entirely calm. “Within moments of arriving here, you were off enjoying your family and having quiet moments with them whilst I followed you around like a lost puppy. That is hardly a ‘picture of unity,’ Charles.”
“Do not call me that.”
She pushed out a frustrated growl and walked past him into the drawing room. Half the family was there already. Regardless of her frustration with the gentleman she’d been forced to marry, she would not embarrass either of them.
“Did I manage a dramatic entrance?” she asked those who had turned at her arrival. “That was my goal.”
“Not quite,” Philip said.
She dipped her head regally. “I shall try again.”
She stepped back out. Charlie was watching her from the very spot she’d left him a moment ago. She would not allow him to make her doubt her ability to survive this. A moment to catch her breath and she spun once more. She glided back into the drawing room and swept both arms in a grand gesture, ending in a pose worthy of the London stage.
Philip gave her a silent bit of applause. Many of the others laughed; the rest smiled genuinely. That was key to this family, she was discovering. They liked to laugh and share light moments. She would remember that.
“Is Charlie planning a grand entrance as well?” Lady Marion—Layton’s wife—asked.
“Does he often?” Artemis asked.
“Only when arriving from a rooftop.” Even the vicarly brother was participating in the teasing.
How could Charlie not enjoy this? Her family had been weighed down by death and poverty for so long that they struggled for these kinds of moments. Linus was better at it than the rest of them. Artemis tried her best, but her heavy heart made even her most earnest efforts more forced than natural.
Charlie did arrive in the room a moment later, looking as uncaring as his outdated and worn clothing would indicate. He was inarguably handsome. She could not understand why he didn’t even try to dress a bit neater and more flattering. There were so many valets at Lampton Park just then that he might have had all the help he wanted simply for the asking.
Was being married to her so miserable an experience that he couldn’t bring himself to look anything but . . . miserable? She didn’t want him to be. The Charlie who had shown her such consideration during their journey, who had been so loving to Oliver and Hestia, who had kindly listened to her painful memories of her father, deserved a measure of happiness.
The family promenaded informally into the dining room, sitting not by rank but by preference. All of Charlie’s brothers, those present at least, chose to sit by their wives. It was sweet, really. Their mother sat at the head of the table, watching them all with such fondness.
Would Artemis’s mother have felt that way seeing her children now? Artemis wanted to believe the mother she’d never known would have loved her if she’d lived. And that she would have wanted Artemis to be happy, just as the Dowager Countess must surely want Charlie to be.
A picture of unity. An impression of happiness. It really wasn’t too much to ask.
All around them, his brothers showed their wives easy and natural affection. The way it manifested varied from one couple to the next. Philip and his wife bantered. Layton and his wife smiled at each other almost ceaselessly. Lord Cavratt regularly lifted his wife’s hand to his lips for a tender kiss. Corbin and his wife had what appeared to be silent but fully understood conversations. Jason and his wife occasionally slipped into Spanish, something Jason sounded as though he’d only recently learned but spoke relatively well, no doubt having taken up the study of it specifically for her benefit. Harold and his wife exchanged glances of warm friendship and affection that no one could possibly miss or misunderstand.
Charlie mostly ignored her. She tried to keep up the pretense of ease and contentment between them. Perhaps he was simply too accustomed to being a single gentleman amongst his married siblings. Perhaps it was too easy to forget the role he was now meant to play.
The gentlemen did not remain behind after the meal but chose to forgo their port in favor of remaining in the ladies’ company. They walked in a convivial clump, all grins and laughter. Artemis liked being among this family. They were joyous. Being with Charlie’s brothers was good for him, no matter that he took a little exception to their teasing. Even with that, he was more content here than he’d been at Brier Hill. If ever there was a chance for something positive between the two of them, it was now. Here. Among his family.
“Fight for it,” Persephone had said. Artemis would do what she could.
“Philip has proposed parlor games,” Lady Lampton said. “As he will be impossible if he does not get his way, I suggest we indulge him.”
“What game?” Lord Cavratt asked.
“Snap dragon?” Philip suggested.
“No.” The dowager quickly put paid to that suggestion. “You and Layton always get carried away, and someone ends the night injured.”
“Perhaps when we were eight,” the second-oldest son objected.
“Twenty-eight,” their mother returned.
Teasing was nearly universal, at that.
“What about questions and commands?” Lady Marion suggested.
“Provided the forfeit is not something terribly embarrassing,” Clara, the most reserved of the sisters-in-law, said. “Or the questions or tasks.”
Philip tossed her a look of empathy. “None of us will embarrass you. My word of honor. Your husband, on the other hand, is fair game.”
“I have a suggestion for the forfeit,” Mariposa said. “If the question or command is made between a couple, the forfeit will be a kiss.”
A chorus of agreement filled the room.
“And if not a couple?” one of the brothers asked.
“A heart-felt compliment from the one refusing,” Lady Marion said. “I daresay we will enjoy watching you brothers struggle to say something kind to each other.”
Quick as that, names were scrawled on bits of paper and tossed into an obliging hat, and the game began.
The Jonquil family were genuinely hilarious. Their questions ranged from confessions of childhood misdeeds for which one brother had blamed another to social missteps made in adulthood. The commands involved everything from sneaking into the kitchen to nip off with a biscuit to requiring the vicar, of all people, to climb the bannister of the grand staircase, which he did with both ease and finesse.
What an utterly fascinating family. And she had a chance to be part of it, to be one of them. If only she could find a means of carving out a place for herself.
Fight for it.
Her name was pulled from the hat as the next person to require either a question or a command. Here was an opportunity to prove herself a welcome and fitting addition. The person to whom she would direct her requirements was drawn next.
Charlie.
He stepped with her into the center of the gathering as the others had done when being drawn. Three, thus far, had been couples. Not a single one had agreed to answer the question or follow through on the command. The one being challenged had insisted upon the forfeit. The kisses that had followed had been met with teasing and indulgence.
She and Charlie weren’t on such terms. She would think of a question he would not be embarrassed to answer. One they could laugh about. One that would show their connection in a positive light.
“Forfeit!” Philip called out.
“Go on, then,” another brother added his voice. “Choose the forfeit.”
“Not a chance of it,” Charlie said. “She can ask any question she wants; I’ll answer no matter what it is.”
The declaration, tossed out so carelessly but sincerely, struck her like a slap in the face. Not a chance of it.Any question. No matter what it is. She’d not intended to force him to kiss her, but she’d also had no intention of embarrassing him. She’d moved forward with that end specifically in mind.
“Boo!” Philip said, getting many of the others to join with him.
“You’ll not sway me,” Charlie tossed at the lot of them.
It was all a great joke, one that Charlie grinned along with.
Not a chance of it. She was the only wife in the room whose husband had publicly declared that he would not kiss her no matter the alternative. She was the only one who had been rejected so wholly and entirely. And publicly.
“Protest all you want,” he said to his brothers. “Your browbeating hasn’t worked on me in years.”
She stood there in front of them all, watching as her husband bantered with his brothers at her expense. Look at me. See me here, drowning in the humiliation you’re heaping on me. But he didn’t. She might as well have been five years old again, silently pleading with her father to care about her pain and loneliness. Her father hadn’t. Charlie didn’t. There was part of her that knew, unless she found her Papa again, no one ever would.
“You haven’t asked your question or given your command.”
Artemis wasn’t certain who had called out the reminder. She swallowed against the lump of emotion in her throat. She blinked and breathed, trying to pull herself together.
Goddesses don’t cry.
“My question.” She needed to think of something. Anything. And she needed to think of it before the tears she felt began to fall. “What—Have you decided on a topic for your lecture to the Royal Society?”
Charlie shook his head. “Not yet.”
Questions began flying from all around the room. He was to lecture at the Royal Society? When had this opportunity arisen? When would he be there? What topics was he considering? Who had extended the invitation?
The distraction hadn’t been planned, but it was welcome. She slipped from the center of the circle of siblings and away from them all.
Her husband had been repulsed at the idea of kissing her. He might have even kissed her on the cheek, and though he would have been teased a bit, it would have been seen as a sweet moment of bashfulness or consideration of her feelings. Instead, he’d humiliated her, rejected her in front of the family she wanted so badly to accept her as one of their own.
She’d kissed him on the cheek at the inn a few nights before. Had that repelled him as well? That tender moment, one that had given her so much hope, now felt empty.
She slipped from the drawing room. She couldn’t bear to be in there any longer. The game might be taken up again, but she wasn’t likely to be missed.
“Not a chance of it.”
“You’ll not sway me.”
She moved with quick steps up the stairs to their bedchamber. Careful not to tip over the vase of fresh flowers on the bedside table, she pulled open the drawer and took out the handkerchief her Papa had given her so many years ago. She needed him there, but that bit of linen was all she had of him.
She crossed to the bell pull and gave a quick tug. If she could have changed without assistance, she would have, if only to spare herself scrutiny as she battled with her own misery.
This heavy feeling of rejection and worthlessness had been tucked firmly behind her protective walls since she was a little girl. If she let it out entirely, it would shatter her.
She needed an escape, a refuge. But there was none. Even sleeping, she felt the weight of it all. She was expected to sleep in the bed as if she were a welcome and wanted guest, but she knew that was a lie. Resigning herself to the floor would feel more fitting, but she could not endure further humiliation.
There was no light to keep to. No comfort to be had.
She carefully tucked the handkerchief into the cushion crevice of the chaise longue where she could easily retrieve it. She focused on the vase of flowers, a simple bit of uncomplicated beauty. Flowers must be important to the Jonquils. Vases of fresh blooms were found throughout Brier Hill, and they had adorned this room since that evening when she’d returned to dress for the night’s meal.
She took several deep breaths, reclaiming her calm demeanor. Rose arrived. She wore the look she so often did, the one that said she saw far more than she was letting on.
“Please don’t ask questions,” Artemis quietly requested. “I just want to lie down and be left alone.”
Loyal and good friend that she was, Rose didn’t press for answers as she helped Artemis change into her night clothes. She even took up a discussion on a safe and unemotional topic.
“I believe there is room enough in here for a bit of sewing and sketching. I brought supplies for both.”
“I would like that,” Artemis said, breathing through the lingering pain in her heart.
“I would very much like to design a gown for the barrister’s wife,” Rose said. “She has so unique a quality about her: diminutive in size yet grand in temperament. I suspect she would not be overwhelmed by bold colors.”
Artemis nodded. She’d had much the same thought. “And Lady Lampton, I understand, wears a somewhat cumbersome contraption about her middle to add stability to her hips, thus the overly large dresses she wears. I think we could design something that would accommodate her bracing while still flattering her figure. Perhaps she would welcome the idea.”
“It could not hurt to create a sketch,” Rose said. “Even if nothing comes of it, we would enjoy the challenge.”
The challenge and the escape. She could lose herself in their efforts and, for a time, forget how painful the world was quickly becoming once more.
Artemis took up the blanket Charlie had been using and spread it over her lap as she sat on the chaise longue.
Rose blew out the candle, blessedly silent on the topic of Artemis’s choice of sleeping location. Rose stepped from the room, leaving Artemis in darkness. She didn’t lie down. Not yet. She held Papa’s handkerchief in her hand, hoping she could keep back her tears but nearly certain she’d not manage it.
Not a chance of it. Charlie’s voice echoed in her thoughts. I’ll not be swayed.
“I’ve tried so hard, Papa.” Her whisper broke in the blackness. “I need you here. I need you to tell me you love me. I need you to hold me again. Without you, I am so alone. Without you, no one wants me.”
