“My sisters and I had a picnic not long before Persephone left home,” Artemis said. “She was very pensive, but I didn’t know why. I was convinced something was wrong with the food, but since I had helped make it, I was particularly afraid to ask. I tried to force her to eat more and more and more, needing reassurance that I’d not made a mull of everything. Looking back, I realize she was probably nervous about her upcoming wedding. But I was too young to understand that.”
“Layton was the first of my brothers to marry,” Charlie said. “I can’t recall whether or not he was nervous, though I was eleven years old, old enough to have been a little more observant than I was.”
Mostly, Charlie remembered that he himself was afraid. At that point, the only time he recalled so many people being at Lampton Park was for his father’s funeral. Though he had been old enough to have known how illogical the fear was, he’d been terrified that someone else in his family was going to die.
But that was too personal a recollection to share.
“I was old enough for all the other weddings to understand what was happening,” he said. “My brothers and their wives were always nervous and excited and, generally speaking, rather nauseatingly in love.”
“My siblings as well,” Artemis said. “Even Adam and Persephone are now.”
Though it was without question the longest conversation they’d had since arriving at Brier Hill—indeed, since leaving London—it was a topic rife with potential pitfalls. They, after all, had not been feeling the slightest bit of excitement, nor were they nauseatingly in love or happy. They weren’t likely to ever be. Things were not stable enough between them to risk that discussion.
Charlie chose something different. “I warned Newton that if he proved too much to endure, I would never go visit him and his new wife. I hope he took that very seriously.”
She smiled a little bit at him. “I have every faith they are going to be as impossible to endure as every other happily married couple I have ever encountered.”
“Well, then,” he said, feigning a breezy response. “That friendship, I suppose, has run its course.”
She laughed a bit.
This was working. A friendly conversation, no other people hanging about to add any additional awkwardness to the situation. Perhaps this was part of the formula he’d been searching for. They would take their morning meal here in this room, talk about little nothings. In time, conversation might come easily enough for it to occur throughout the day. Dinner might stop being such a bleak affair.
“If they repent of their stomach-churning coziness,” Artemis said, “perhaps we might have them come visit here.”
That was a fine suggestion, actually.
“Indeed, if we plan carefully enough,” Artemis said, an eagerness entering her eyes, “we could host a few of our friends. This isn’t a large estate, but there’s ample room for a modest gathering.”
Having Newton and Ellie come for a visit was more than doable. Toss could come. Maybe one or two of his Cambridge friends every now and then. And Artemis would wish to see the Huntresses. But house parties, even small ones, came rather dear.
“We have to limit ourselves to only a couple of guests for no more than a few days at a time, and no more than a few times a year,” he said.
“Because you prefer to be a hermit?” A sharpness had entered her voice.
“Because I’m too poor.” It was, perhaps, putting a bit too fine a point on it, but he didn’t have a profession. His entire plan for supporting himself had been snatched away from him three weeks earlier. His income from the Lampton estate was not large. The amount provided for the upkeep of this estate did not cover repeated house parties and gatherings.
Artemis did not seem to be particularly empathetic. “I happen to know your coffers filled recently with £20,000.”
“I know you don’t think highly of me, Artemis, but I insisted when my brother and the duke negotiated our marriage agreement, that your dowry would not become our income. It remains untouched and will stay that way.”
“We are, then, to live in relative poverty so as not to injure your pride?”
He pushed out a breath. “Do not pretend that if I had arranged for us to live off your dowry, you wouldn’t find that equally upsetting.”
“There is no part of this ‘arrangement’ that I don’t find upsetting.”
He pushed back from the table. “Something you should have thought of before dumping raspberry shrub down my front.”
She stood, defiance radiating through every inch of her. “That was an accident.”
He rose as well. “It was a catastrophe.”
“You will hear no argument from me on that score.” She tossed her napkin onto the table and moved swiftly and angrily from the room, firmly closing the door behind her.
Charlie rubbed his temples with the palms of his hands. Was this how it was always to be? Every little moment of progress marred by anger and resentment? He stared down at the bouquet of flowers standing ineffective in their vase. The one piece of advice he had from his father and it wasn’t doing a bit of good.
He abandoned the breakfast as well, stepping back into his bedchamber and closing the door behind him. He was more disappointed than angry. Everything was in shambles. This room had once been Father’s. This had beenhishome, his and Mater’s. When the family had come to visit the estate, Father had been with them. But he wasn’t there now.
