She threw her hands up. There was no denying this was an absurd plan, but no one was backing away from it.
“Lampton, you and Charlie call on me here in the morning. Since your brother is still, by law, underage, you will have to negotiate on his behalf.”
Was this a means of escape? “If Charlie is not old enough to marry—”
Adam didn’t allow her to finish the objection. “He is too young to marry without permission from his family or to negotiate marriage contracts on his own. He is not, however, too young to marry at all.”
Merciful heavens.
“We’ll announce the betrothal as soon as possible,” Adam said, “work out the contracts, and obtain a license so they can marry within the fortnight.”
Artemis blinked back hot tears, struggling to breathe through the fear growing inside.
“This is where the playacting comes in.” Adam eyed them all in turn. “We must give the impression we are all pleased with this. Miss Narang”—he looked to Rose—“put it out amongst the servants that we are anticipating these nuptials with pleasure.” He looked to Lord Lampton. “Ask your Wilson to wield his influence also.”
Lord Lampton agreed with a nod. The earl was known for flamboyance and dramatics. Artemis still had seen none of it during this discussion. Not even a hint, and that scared her.
Adam turned his attention to Artemis and Charlie. “The two of you will pretend from this moment until you leave London for Brier Hill that you are quite pleased with this arrangement. You needn’t make a show of being in love or ecstatic about the engagement, but it is crucial you do not add to the gossip surrounding you by making it obvious you are doing this under duress.”
Artemis shook her head over and over again, her mind struggling to comprehend what her heart was crying out over.
“Once you reach Cumberland, you are welcome to shoot or stab or otherwise murder one another, but not until then.”
She crossed to Adam and tugged him away from the others. “Please don’t force this on me. Please.”
His usually hard expression softened in a way she seldom saw. “I cannot save you from this.”
“He doesn’t love me,” Artemis whispered. “All the rest of the family married for love.”
“Persephone and I didn’t,” Adam said. “Mr. Jonquil’s parents didn’t.”
“I cannot speak for the late earl and the dowager, but I do know you and Persephone didn’t hate each other, so it is hardly the same situation.”
“Regardless, it isyoursituation. And it cannot be avoided.” He sounded sincere but also unmovable. He wasn’t going to help her.
None of them were. A lifetime of abandonment ought to have taught her to stop expecting anything else.
Artemis had often imagined herself a newlywed bride, her days filled with warm glances and overtly romantic gestures, torrid embraces, and a deep, abiding passion worthy of the most gothic of novels. It had been easier to believe in something more literary than literal. The sort of realistic, unwavering, reassuring love she saw her siblings share with their spouses had always felt out of reach. Utterly so now.
She took a shaking breath. She set her shoulders in the hope that she appeared more composed than she felt. “At least at some point, tell me which chapel to arrive at.” She spun about and walked not to the main door but to the servants’ entrance. She could avoid the remaining guests that way. She didn’t look back as she left the room. None of them would be given the opportunity to see her pain.
The servants’ stairs weren’t abandoned, by any means, but they were safer. Few people crossed her path. Fewer still made their study of her overly obvious.
She arrived in her bedchamber and closed the door with a snap. This was a nightmare. After years of imagining herself building a home somewhere with someone who loved her, with the blessing of her beloved Papa, anticipating a future where she was valued and wanted and embraced, she was back to the horror she’d lived as a child.
Once more, she would be living with a man who despised her in a home where she would never be wanted, living far away from Heathbrook and London, where she might have had some hope of finding her Papa, knowing that there would never, ever be anyone in her life who loved her the way she’d always wanted to be loved.
“Best keep to the light, Princess.”
But she felt no light in that moment, no promise of escape. Through the shadows of her room, she crossed to her bedside table and pulled out of the drawer the one thing she needed most in that moment: her Papa’s handkerchief.
“I cannot keep to the light, Papa. There isn’t any.”
With the precious square of linen clasped in her hands, she crumbled onto her bed and wept.
Chapter Five
The day following Ellie andNewton’s wedding, Artemis walked briskly around the green near Falstone House, attempting to comprehend the reality of her situation. She was joined by Daria Mullins and Gillian Phelps, two of her particular friends and members of the group known to Society as the Huntresses. They’d all agreed to postpone a much-needed discussion of things until after Ellie’s wedding.
