Charming Artemis, page 14
“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Charlie did arrive in the room a moment later, looking as uncaring as his outdated and worn clothing would indicate.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.”
Chapter Eighteen
Artemis had abandoned the game. Charlie wasn’t certain why. She’d seemed to be enjoying it, though she’d fumbled a bit for a question to ask him. In the end, the one she’d chosen had been rather perfect. It told his family they knew each other’s interests and pursuits, which they certainly would if their ill-fated marriage was the growing success they were trying to pretend it was. His siblings had asked dozens of questions about his lecture opportunity, and in the midst of it all, she’d disappeared.
She’d placed such importance earlier that evening on getting on with his family that simply walking away made no sense. Nothing about any of this made any logical sense.
He sat amongst the others as the game of questions and commands continued with its usual hilarity. But he couldn’t enjoy it. He and Artemis had kept their interactions cordial. She’d used her signature dramatics to add his family’s amusement to the equation. He’d multiplied that with a bit of his own antics during their round of questions and comments. It ought to have resulted in an improvement of the situation. Yet there he was, alone and confused.
Corbin’s wife, Clara, came and sat next to him, something that didn’t happen overly often. She was as quiet as her husband, though not unfriendly. “I am certain you have and will receive ample unwanted advice from your brothers, but will you accept an observation from a sister-in-law who loves you?”
“Of course.”
Clara held his gaze. “You embarrassed her.”
“Embarrassed her?”
“Artemis.” Clara emphasized the explanation with a nod. “Her husband publicly declared he could not under any circumstances be convinced to kiss her.”
He had panicked a little when his name had been drawn in conjunction with hers. But he thought he’d played it off well. “She knew I was teasing. She does it all the time.”
“You were not looking at her,” Clara said, “but I was.”
“She wasn’t . . . laughing along?”
“I am honestly a bit surprised she wasn’t actually crying.”
His heart dropped. Surely Clara was overstating the severity of Artemis’s reaction. “She doesn’t cry.” But he knew that wasn’t entirely true.
“You made it clear to everyone in the room how low your opinion of her is, Charlie. That would make even the most stalwart heart falter, especially when she is already feeling alone and afraid.”
He shook his head. “She’s Artemis Lancaster. She’s never afraid.”
“She is now Artemis Jonquil, and I assure you she is terrified.”
Charlie pushed air past the catch in his lungs. He’d made a mull of things again. Of course he had.
“Any advice on how I ought to approach this?” he asked.
Clara smiled a little. “Ask any one of your brothers. They’ve ample experience landing in their wives’ black books.”
“Then I come by my stupidity rightly?”
Clara didn’t take the bait. True to form, she quietly motioned him away, a silent suggestion that he go address the mull he’d made.
He left the drawing room and headed to the first place he could think of to look for Artemis: the bedchamber they would be sharing.
The room was dark. He left the door a bit ajar, allowing the dim light of the candle sconces in the corridor to spill a bit inside, enough to spy a candelabra on a nearby table. He took a moment to light the candles using a corridor sconce. He wasn’t entirely convinced Artemis was inside the room, but he wouldn’t know if he couldn’t see. It was possible she’d fallen asleep.
Stepping back inside, he could see that she had, in fact, dozed off. She was on the chaise longue, curled against the arm, a blanket covering only her feet. The same handkerchief she’d held when he’d come across her in the circular sitting room at Brier Hill was clutched in her fist again.
He set the candelabra down securely on the lowboy and stepped over to her. While she was smaller and shorter than he—not an unusual thing, he having the legendary Jonquil height—she could not possibly be as comfortable on the benchlike bit of furniture as she would be on the bed. And she must have been a bit cold with the blanket all but lying on the floor.
He hunched down and set a hand on her arm. “Artemis?”
She took a shaking breath, precisely the sort one could not help when one had been crying. A closer study of her face revealed she had likely been more than merely crying. She appeared to have been sobbing.
Did I do this? He hated to think he had.
“Artie?” He nudged her arm a little more.
Her eyes fluttered open. She studied him a moment as sleep clung to her. She blinked a few times, watching him through a cloud of confusion.
“You’d be more comfortable lying on the bed,” he said.
“It’s not my bed.” She was still slowed by her half-awake mind, though she did sit up a bit more.
