Page 36 of Charming Artemis

The two days since her family’s departure had been as lonely as Artemis had feared. She and Rose had spent long hours working to create the gown they’d designed on paper. The undertaking had not proven as satisfying as usual.

“I’ll work on this,” Rose said on the second afternoon. “Your mind’s wandering too much.”

“My mind can wander while my fingers are working.”

But Rose shook her head. “Spend the afternoon perusing the pattern books. That’ll bring you a bit of relaxation and perhaps a few new ideas.”

She would have argued, but the prospect was the most tempting activity she’d been presented within two days. So she set her feet in the direction of the bookroom.

It, however, was not empty. Charlie, clad in untucked shirtsleeves and trousers with frayed cuffs above his bare feet, paced in front of the large table upon which a pile of books and parchment were spread. He was flipping through a text, brow pulled low in concentration.

The sight took her back to her family home, to year upon lonely year of her life there. Father had often looked similarly disheveled and distracted when he’d been deep in his academic studies. He’d paced in just that way. He’d scattered his books and papers about.

She had stood in Father’s doorway, watching, wondering if he would notice her there, if he would say something. Anything. When she was little, she’d cried. With maturity had come the realization that her tears were wasted on him not because he didn’t still break her heart but because he didn’t care.

“Is something the matter?” Charlie’s voice pulled her from her memories, but only just.

She couldn’t entirely bring her mind to the present. It remained heavy, and her heart hurt. “My father used to pace about when he was riddling out a puzzling concept.”

“He was an academic as well, I’ve been told,” Charlie said.

She nodded. Her mind’s eye repeatedly transformed this much larger and brighter space into the dim and crowded bookroom to which her father had so often retreated. This was not that place, and Charlie was not her father, yet she couldn’t force her feet to take her fully into the room. She hovered in the doorway as she had for years in her family home.

“I used to stand on the threshold and watch him.” She wasn’t whispering, but neither could she force her voice to emerge at full volume. “Sometimes I talked to him.”

“About his studies?”

She shook her head. How easily she could see her father, watch him pacing, feel the agony of his indifference. “I would ask him to look at me, to talk to me. He never did.”

“Many men become consumed by their studies,” Charlie said.

Artemis forced the air to empty from her lungs. “I mean heneverdid. Not once in my entire life.”

“Criminy.” Shock filled the whispered exclamation.

She dragged herself inside not because she was ready to but because she wanted to believe she was stronger than the weight of these memories. “He never looked at me or spoke to me. He didn’t talk about me to my siblings or the neighbors or the vicar. The closest he came was after Persephone moved to Falstone Castle and I would write to her. My father would tell Athena what he felt ought to be written to Persephone, but he never acknowledged that the letters were being sent by me. He never said my name. I wasn’t even included in his will. Even in death, he ignored me.”

“Good heavens, Artemis.”

Another deep breath failed to release her tension. “Persephone said it was because his mind was broken. But he was brilliant. His papers on mythology were met with academic acclaim. I heard him undertake thoughtful conversations. His mind worked, at least in some capacity, but it—orhe—refused to admit that I existed.”

She had seldom talked about this, not ever with anyone but Persephone. And her beloved, long-lost Papa. Heavens, how she needed him. For years, she’d needed him to come back for her.

“Did Persephone have any idea why your father was so... confused?”

A gentle way of explaining it. She appreciated that.

Artemis leaned her back against the wall beside the door. “My mother died giving birth to me. Acknowledging that I was real and alive and present would have required him to acknowledge that she was dead. Persephone believes his mind couldn’t endure it.”

Charlie moved closer to her. “I suspect that explanation doesn’t truly make it better.”

She swallowed down a lump of emotion. “My mother traded her life for mine. I’ve spent the past twenty years wondering if the exchange was worth it.”

He took her hand. “I don’t think these things can be measured that way.”

Artemis dropped her gaze. “But of the two of us, maybe she was the one who ought to have lived. Maybe her life was the more valuable one.”

He leaned against the wall beside her, near enough that his presence added a bit of warmth to the chilly, rainy day. He rubbed her hand between his. “Your father’s treatment of you certainly didn’t help, did it?”

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