Page 52 of Charming Artemis

“She is now ArtemisJonquil, 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.

“I’ll help you over,” he said. He reached for her handkerchief.

“No.” She snatched it back with every indication of panic.

“I was only going to put it on the bedside table so your hands would be free.”

“I can’t lose it. It’s the only thing he ever gave me.”

The only thingwhoever gave her?

Artemis took a shaking breath, still not entirely awake.

Charlie sat on the chaise longue beside her. “Have you been crying, Artie?”

“I don’t cry.” No one seeing her would believe that.

“What is your policy on forgiving idiocy in husbands?”

She sat up more fully and looked at him. Heavens, there was no misunderstanding the puffed, red-rimmed eyes and droplets of tears on her lashes. No matter her protestations, she’d most certainly been crying.

“I suppose that depends on whose husband has been an idiot.”

He took her hand gently in his. “Yours, Artemis. Yours has been painfully stupid, and I’m hoping you’ll forgive him.”

“Forwhichpainfully stupid thing?” Oh, she was awake now.

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