Page 50 of Charming Artemis

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.

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