Charming Artemis by Sarah M. Eden
Chapter Thirty-Three
A chorus of Jonquil voices echoed around the back lawn of Lampton Park. “Catch us! Catch us!” Artemis had never seen grown men so excited to be playing a child’s game. How easily she could imagine them up to their identical blue eyes in mischief as children. How easily she could imagine their father—her Papa—joining in.
All the Lancasters were participating. A neighbor, whom Artemis understood to be the older brother of Harold’s wife, was there as well. Over forty people running around the vast lawn, laughing and chasing and calling out to each other. Mater held Hestia. Mr. Layton held little Julia. Adam sat beside Sorrel, Kendrick on her lap, watching the game and talking with each other.
Charlie was in the midst of it all, grinning as widely as Artemis had ever seen him. Even though he was not the one meant to be chasing down the other participants, he was such a favorite with the children that they seemed to be playing a separate game with him altogether. They would rush toward him, he would pretend to try to snatch them up, and they would run away giggling.
He had continued to dress with great care. Artemis was absolutely certain her husband was the handsomest of the gentlemen present and was the most enjoyable to watch. And she vowed there and then, she would make certain he always had a yellow silk waistcoat to wear, as the one he had donned that day looked quite splendid on him.
Her sisters Daphne and Athena arrived on either side of her. Both looked entirely pleased with the odd way their families were spending the afternoon.
“It is so easy to picture these brothers as children, isn’t it?” Athena said. “This was likely a very happy home.”
“Ours was not entirely miserable,” Artemis said.
Athena set an arm around her shoulders. “I wish we had made it less lonely for you.”
“I am certainly not lonely now.” She sighed dramatically, not bothering to hide her amusement.
Even Daphne, who often had struggled with Artemis’s tendency toward theatricality, smiled. “I don’t know how Adam is surviving this impromptu house party.”
Artemis didn’t know if Adam would want her to share the very personal recollections he’d shared with her. Instead of giving the answer she felt was most accurate—that Adam was grateful to be with the dowager again—she said, “Persephone is enjoying herself. That is reason enough for him to endure it all.”
“No one, though, is enjoying this as much as your husband,” Athena said not to Daphne but to Artemis. “I suspect Charlie Jonquil is destined to be the favorite uncle in more than one family.”
“He is rather remarkable, isn’t he?” Artemis said.
Daphne set her arm around Artemis’s middle. Two of her sisters stood on either side of her, hugging her, smiling with her. She’d needed this all her life but hadn’t realized until very recently that she had been pushing them away.
“Charlie is not at all the husband I pictured you choosing,” Daphne said. “I always assumed you would attach yourself to someone brooding and a little . . . ill-advised.”
“You expected me to marry Lord Byron?” she asked with a laugh.
Both sisters answered with a perfectly serious, completely unison, “Yes.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” she conceded. “Accident chose better for me than my daydreams did, I daresay.”
“Your personalities mesh well, despite how long you were at each other’s throats,” Athena said. “He lightens you. And, merciful heavens, Artemis, the way he looks at you . . . ”
What did she mean by that?
Harry had arrived mere moments earlier but in time, it seemed, to overhear his wife’s comment. “Charlie is a troublemaker. Every husband here is under pressure to make a good showing for himself so that boy doesn’t put us all to shame.” He took his wife’s hand. But before pulling her away, he said to Artemis, “Go join him. I can tell he wants you to.”
An instant later, only she and Daphne remained in their corner of the lawn.
“Harry has the right of it,” Daphne said. “Charlie is enjoying the game, but he keeps looking over here at you.”
“That is what Athena meant by ‘the way he looks at me’?”
Daphne shook her head. “I’ll let you sort that out. It’s terribly obvious to the rest of us.” She even gave Artemis a nudge toward the game. Daphne never used to be one for teasing or being unreserved, even with her family. Life had not been easy for any of the Lancasters, but they were healing from the pain of a lot of difficult years.
Artemis wove her way around the rush of people, careful not to trip over the tiniest of participants.
Charlie called out “Catch us! Catch us!” to Philip, who was the one currently blindfolded. Crispin attempted to hide behind Charlie, but Charlie slipped away. Harry and James, Artemis’s Lancaster brothers-in-law, had added whistling to the game, which led to cries of “foul” from the blindfolded earl.
A wonderful bit of chaos, just as Charlie had predicted it would be.
He spotted her approaching and smiled. She was certain he was pleased to have her nearby. Without even a moment’s hesitation, he held his hand out to her. She set her hand in his, and he threaded his fingers through hers, then lifted her hand to his lips, turning it to kiss the inside of her wrist.
From nowhere, Layton and Linus appeared, snatching Charlie and dragging him away.
“Catch Charlie,” Layton shouted to Philip. “Please! He’s being nauseating again.”
“I am so grateful to be blindfolded right now,” Philip answered.
Laughter rang out from all around them.
Alice, one of the Jonquil granddaughters, snagged hold of Charlie’s leg and began tugging, clearly meaning to free him. Stanley scooped her up and said something that seemed to put her concerns to rest.
It was such a joyous gathering. How often she’d imagined being part of Papa’s family. And now she was.
Embracing the absurdity of it all, she assumed her goddess demeanor and moved with regal bearing directly to where they held Charlie as a friendly hostage.
She looked down her nose at Layton, Linus, Stanley, and James, all of whom were acting as Charlie’s prison guards.
“I am Artemis,” she declared with every ounce of drama at her very experienced fingertips. “Goddess of the hunt. Killer of men. Release him, or I will smite every last one of you.”
Alice watched her with wide eyes. Artemis winked at her and received an immediate smile in return.
“You are saving Uncle Charming?” Alice asked.
“I am.” She looked to him.
Charlie watched her with amusement but something else as well. Something warm and heart-fluttering.
His captors released him with laughs and bits of teasing. Layton paused long enough to slap Charlie on the shoulder and suggest he “make good on his debt to his wife with all possible haste.”
Charlie sauntered to her, not embarrassed, not laughing. The warmth in his look had turned to unmistakable heat. She didn’t look away.
His arm slid around her and pulled her flush with him. His gaze held hers across the ever-decreasing space between them.
“You’ve saved me, Artie,” he whispered, standing so close his breath tiptoed over her lips. “How can I ever repay you?”
“You’re a mathematician,” she answered. “You’ll find a solution.”
“I’m also a Jonquil, and we tend to bungle these things.”
She hooked her arms around his neck, finding she didn’t overly care about the game continuing on around them or the mussing it would cause to his collar and cravat. She wanted nothing more than for Charlie to hold her, to keep looking at her the way he was, to feel his breath dancing on her lips.
“Catch us! Catch us!” Harold called out as he passed.
Artemis removed one arm from her embrace and pointed at him. “Smite,” she warned.
He laughed.
“Excellently well done, dear.” Charlie spun her about with his arms firmly around her waist.
She giggled as he turned in circles. He brought a lightness to the somber Oliver, and he brought such joy to her. The Jonquils worked that magic on all around them.
But Charlie was special. He didn’t merely entertain whomever happened to be nearby. He saw her and noticed her. He’d not been fooled by the well-honed mask she’d worn since before she’d met him. He’d seen her behind her shield and had refused to be satisfied with the role she played.
She kept her arms around his neck. “Thank you, Charlie.”
His grin was filled with laughter. “For what, Artie?”
“For seeing me.”
“You are very difficult to miss, my dear.”
Caroline pulled him away in the very next instant. That happened all the time at Lampton Park. Though he’d struggled to see it during that long-ago house party, his family’s love for him and need for him was obvious to anyone willing to look. She loved being there, surrounded by siblings and siblings-in-law and nieces and nephews. But for the first time since leaving Brier Hill and the unhappiness they’d experienced there, Artemis found herself anxious to return.
The house would feel different now.
It would, she was all but certain, feel like home.
