Charming Artemis by Sarah M. Eden
Chapter Thirty-Two
A week had passed since the day a lifetime of dreams had been snatched away from Artemis, and she felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into despair. Charlie was being so very kind and tender. He’d brought her flowers every morning since she’d learned of her Papa’s identity and fate. He hadn’t pressed her to leave the room, sensing, it seemed, that she was not equal to doing so.
She had heard from him that all of the Gents, save Mr. Layton, had departed, though Charlie’s siblings all remained. She’d heard in his voice a longing for her to join them all. How she wished the deep, throbbing pain she felt wasn’t so debilitating; he deserved a friend and companion and wife who wasn’t falling entirely to pieces. She didn’t have the strength to be that person. She didn’t have the strength to be anything but heartbroken.
A light knock at her door was followed by Rose peeking her head inside. “There is someone here to see you.”
“Who is it?”
Rose opened the door all the way and motioned the visitor inside.
Adam.
Worry filled her on the instant. Adam was not known as the Dangerous Duke for no reason. He wouldn’t hurt her or be cruel—she knew him well enough to not worry about that—but she had not known him to be terribly empathetic. Indeed, the two of them had been at odds more often than they’d been allies. And he could be very impatient when he thought someone was being overly emotional or lacking in backbone.
Rose slipped out once more. Adam turned his sights on Artemis.
She stiffened her posture and firmed her resolve. She would wear indifference like a shield. Without it, even a moment of criticism or lecturing would break her.
He moved directly to her and, to her shock, pulled her into an embrace. “I am sorry, Artemis. I know what it is to lose a father.”
She’d braced herself for censure—she could have deflected that—but kindness from a man known to be harsh tore open every wound she had. She threw her arms around him and wept.
He held her, just as she’d always wanted her father to, precisely as Papa had. He held her with tenderness and caring, with every indication that he would protect her and look after her.
“I wish you’d told me,” he said gently. “I could have helped you sort the mystery.”
“He was dead by the time I became your sister-in-law. You couldn’t have changed that.”
“No, but Persephone and I could have softened the blow of his loss. And I knew the late earl. I could have told you about him.”
She shook her head. “Bowing acquaintances in Society is hardly the same thing.”
Adam put her a tiny bit away from him. “Fetch your wrap. We’re going to go for a walk while I tell you a story.”
“The Duke of Kielder doesn’t tell stories,” she said, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“The Duke of Kielder also doesn’t rush across counties, yet here I am.”
“Why are you here?” It was testament to her distracted state that she hadn’t even pondered how odd it was that he was at Lampton Park.
“Your mother-in-law sent a missive telling me you were in distress and needed your family.”
Mater had done that for her? “But how did you get here so quickly from Northumberland?”
“I was in Lancashire, at Daphne’s home.”
She lifted a shoulder, a well-worn gesture of dismissal. “Trading Daphne for Artemis is quite a comedown for you.”
“None of your theatrics.” He motioned her toward the door. “I mean to be very forthright with you. I expect you to return the favor.”
They were soon walking along an outer path on the back lawn. Artemis didn’t think she’d ever “gone for a walk” with Adam before. He didn’t ignore her as her father had done, nor did he treat her like a nuisance. They didn’t always get on, but he was never unkind. Still, this level of personal interaction was not common between them.
“My father died when I was seven,” Adam said without preamble. “I was sent to a boarding house adjacent to Harrow where other young boys not old enough yet for formal enrollment were housed and educated whilst awaiting the passage of the necessary number of years. I’ve never felt more alone in all my life.” From Adam, easily the most private person she knew, this amounted to a shockingly personal confession. “Harry became my friend after I’d been there almost a year, he also having been shipped off early, but nothing came close to filling the hole left by my father’s passing.”
“This is not helping,” Artemis muttered but not petulantly. His retelling was breaking her heart further, and she wasn’t certain she had the strength to endure more pain.
Adam was undeterred. “Mere weeks before my father’s death, I made the acquaintance of a newly married couple who came to Falstone Castle to attend a ball. They showed me particular kindness. I received a letter from them shortly before my departure for Harrow expressing their condolences at my father’s passing and a wish to see me again. My mother had received many correspondences, though she did not remain at the castle for long after Father’s funeral. They were the only people who wrote to me, and they continued doing so. I heard from them regularly while I was away.”
Artemis had heard none of this history.
“When I returned to Falstone Castle at the first term break of my school career, I did so alone. Harry had not yet made himself my friend, and my mother was, as always, away. An invitation arrived from this heaven-sent couple to spend a bit of time with them at their home, which was not terribly far from Falstone. Arrangements were made, and I trekked to Cumberland to spend time with them. The lady filled the role of mother that I needed so desperately at that time. The gentleman managed the perfect balance of older brother and father figure. I don’t know what I would have done without them in those early years.”
He, too, had found solace and reassurance in the kindness of an assumed father. “Did he remain a part of your life?”
“After a time, life took them away from the home they had been living in, meaning they were not so nearby and not as able to visit or have me visit them. We did not see each other as often, but they never neglected me. I continued to receive letters. They even looked in on me at Harrow on more than one occasion. The gentleman visited me at Oxford, knowing from his own time at university that fathers often spent time with their sons during those formative years. He made certain I was not left out of that tradition.
“When I finished my schooling and began going about in London, my substitute father, for want of a better description, stood me for membership in his club, he introduced me to those people I most needed to know. As the time approached for me to take my seat in the House of Lords, he tutored me in the on-goings and politics of that body without ever attempting to substitute his judgment or viewpoints for my own.”
“He, then, was also a member of the House of Lords?”
Adam nodded. “And he had a family of his own yet never begrudged me the time he spent helping me. His wife was ceaselessly kind and thoughtful toward me as well, though I was by then the gruff and off-putting person well-known to all and sundry.”
It was difficult to imagine Adam as anything else.
“An invitation was sent to their family when I married your sister,” he continued. “I sent it personally. The only one I penned myself. The rest, you understand, were decided upon and issued by my mother.”
“Then you were able to have your honorary father at your wedding.” Her heart ached anew. “I had so hoped to have mine.”
“No, Artemis, I didn’t. They didn’t come.”
She looked to him, surprised. “Why not?”
“Because they were in mourning. The gentleman who had been, in many ways, a father to me had died earlier that year.”
“The same year as—” A suspicion began to form in her mind. “Brier Hill is where the Lampton heir lives. It’s very near to Falstone Castle.”
He nodded.
“And the Earl of Lampton claims a seat in the House of Lords.”
Again, a nod.
“Your father figure was . . . my Papa.”
“And he was remarkable,” Adam said. “I haven’t the least confusion at your very real and very immediate attachment to him and his to you. I’ve never met his equal. He and his wife taught me to always champion the cause of the vulnerable. They are the reason I rushed here three years ago to come to the rescue of their soon-to-be daughter-in-law. No matter that I insisted my attendance at the dowager’s house party was forced upon me, I came in support of her and in deference to the memory of him.”
“Is he the reason you tolerate the current earl? I know he irritates you at times.”
“That is a rather complicated thing, Artemis.” He actually looked a little embarrassed. What was happening? “I knew Lampton when he was a young child, though I’m certain he doesn’t remember that. Under different circumstances, we probably could have been friends.”
“What circumstances would have brought that about?” She couldn’t even imagine.
But Adam shook his head. “Let us simply say, life dealt a few too many blows.”
“Including Papa being—” The sentence refused to emerge. She struggled so much to accept that the man she had so long searched for was irrevocably out of reach.
“Charlie’s parents are the reason why, when your predicament with Charlie came about, I didn’t simply shoot the boy and have it over with. I see so much of both of them in him, and that gives me more hope than I can express.”
“He is very kind to children,” she said, hearing the softness in her voice.
“Just as his father was.”
Artemis took slow breaths, trying to take in so much so quickly. “Charlie is also very kind to me now.”
Adam nodded. “The late Lord Lampton was unwaveringly loving toward his wife. Charlie will have learned well how to be a tender and caring and respectful husband.”
“I have seen that side of him more often of late. I am trying to trust in it, but trust doesn’t come easily for me.”
He stopped their forward movement and turned to fully face her. He set his hands lightly on her arms. “We have not always got on, Artemis. We are enough alike that we have butted heads over the years. But I need you to know that I love you like my own sister. I have from the moment I overheard you telling Persephone that she was the best mama you’d ever had. I recognized in you the same pain and loneliness, the same feeling of being utterly lost that I had struggled with at your age. I wanted to be a support to you the way the late earl was to me, but I didn’t know how. I’ve likely done a terrible job of it over the years.”
Tears pooled in her eyes. Adam was never this vulnerable, never laid bare his emotions, and it was stirring her own.
“Why have you never spoken of your connection with them?” Artemis said. “When we were here for the house party, you didn’t say a word. At the wedding and the wedding breakfast, you didn’t say anything. Charlie’s parents were clearly a significant part of your life, but no one has any idea.”
“When the earl died, I felt very much at sea, trying to determine how to move forward. My father had told me, ‘Dukes don’t need people.’ I clung to that, told myself it was true. I needed it to be, because I could not bear to mourn another father.” Adam swallowed what appeared to be a lump of emotion. “I protected myself from that pain by pretending it didn’t exist. Life had permitted us a great deal less time together in the years before his passing; he had a large family to look after, and I had a tremendous load of responsibilities. I told myself that I’d imagined the connection between us, that it had been less significant than I’d let myself believe it to be. If I didn’t think very hard on what I’d lost with his death, then I was convinced it wouldn’t hurt so much.”
“Protective walls,” she muttered, knowing full well she had plenty of her own.
“I didn’t see the dowager for years, I’m ashamed to say,” Adam continued. “I began to wonder if she wanted anyone to know that she’d had a hand in raising me. Perhaps she didn’t approve of the person I became. Perhaps she would be embarrassed for people to know of our connection.”
Artemis’s heart broke for him. She had known Adam during the years he was referencing and would never have guessed he’d felt any of these things. He kept so much of himself hidden.
“I left it to the dowager countess to determine how much of our history was known,” he said.
“You must have missed her,” Artemis said.
“Terribly. Which is why I can appreciate what you have felt the past thirteen years.” Adam met her gaze. “If you had told me of your search, I would have moved mountains to help you. You struggle to trust, but please trust me and trust your new husband, and I implore you, trust his family, especially his mother. I promise that you can.”
“I will try.”
He pressed a brotherly kiss to her forehead, something he had never once done. She almost didn’t recognize her brother-in-law in that moment. She was more than a little shaken by the inexplicable transformation.
“Now.” His gruff tone returned as he pulled back and dropped his hands. “You have been too distracted to notice, but there is a great deal of chaos nearby, and I think it best if you join in.”
“Chaos?” She turned in the direction he indicated.
Her family. Her entire family. Persephone and her two children. Athena and Harry and their four children. Linus and Arabella. Daphne and James and their two little ones.
“We were all in Lancashire,” Adam said. “It was the family’s hope that once your business here was completed, Charlie would bring you to visit there. But when the dowager’s letter arrived, the Lancaster sisters would hear no arguments. The entire brood was packed up and traveling in a matter of moments, trusting on the generosity of the Jonquils to make room for us all.”
“They came because . . . of me?” she asked.
“Because they love you.”
“Do you?” She allowed a bit of a laugh to enter her tone.
“I tolerate you,” he muttered.
She saw through his grumpiness. To an extent, she had for years.
From behind them came light footsteps. They both looked back. Mater was there, coming up even with them.
“Thank you for allowing us to descend upon you without warning,” Adam said. “I will, of course, thank your daughter-in-law as well.”
She smiled at him. Artemis, seeing the interaction, wondered how in the world she had missed the deeply caring, maternal way her mother-in-law looked at Adam. It had likely always been there, but she’d missed it. She had been so wrapped up in her own loneliness and fears for so long that she’d missed so very many things.
“Let us go join your family, Your Grace,” Mater said. “I cannot tell you how pleased I am that they are here.”
In the very next moment, Charlie rushed over, Hestia in his arms. “Look who’s come, Artie.”
Her heart was still weighed down by her loss and by the uncertainty of all she faced, but seeing her family there, knowing they’d come for her, and having Charlie nearby, as loyal and unshaken as ever, buoying her with a smile, she found she could breathe again.
Charlie bounced Hestia a little, having stopped directly in front of Artemis. “I mean to introduce this darling angel to Kendrick and Julia. I am determined that they will be friends.”
“You said that if we ever had all our nieces and nephews together, we would play an enormous game of catch us, catch us,” she said. “I think—” Her voice broke, but she pushed on. “I think Papa would have liked that.”
Charlie set his free arm around her. “He would have loved that.”
Artemis leaned against him, resting her hand against his chest.
He held her quite as if she were the most precious thing in all the world. “I’ve missed you this past week, Artie. You’ve felt terribly far away.”
She closed her eyes, shutting out every sight and sound but him. “My heart hurts so much. I will struggle with this for a long time, I fear.”
“I am not going anywhere,” he said. “And I’m not leaving.”
She’d spent so much of her life imagining a love story fit for a gothic novel and assuming that was what she wanted. This moment, though, this gentleman, this feeling of being cared for and cared about and important, topped every version of her own love story she’d ever imagined.
