“But how do I skew our chances toward a happy ending?”
“You let us help you.” Corbin didn’t often break his silence. When he did, everyone listened. “Tell us what’s causing her pain, and we’ll—we’ll do all we can to—to alleviate it.”
It would help to talk about the situation. It would help even more to not be alone in facing it.
“Artie’s mother died when she was born, and her father was—let us just say that ‘neglectful’ falls horribly short of the mark.” Charlie rose and began pacing the small, crowded gatehouse. “When she was still little, a gentleman passed through her village. Through a series of circumstances, they sort of adopted each other. He passed through a few more times, and their connection grew to the point that she thought of him as a father. She has spent the years since looking for him, hanging all her hopes of healing from her own father’s neglect and dismissal on finding the man she came to refer to as her Papa and being reassured by his fondness for her that she was a person worth caring about.”
Charlie rubbed the back of his neck.
“I promised her I would help her find him. If you’d heard her recount her history with him or seen the pleading in her eyes, you wouldn’t doubt how important it was for her to have him in her life again. He was clearly a member of Mater’s generation, so I recounted what information I had to her, and she knew very quickly who he was.”
They were watching him closely, listening raptly.
“It was Father.”
A collective intake of breath. A couple whispered exclamations of surprise.
“He had been passing through after visiting Lord Aldric and happened upon her weeping by a shop because she was lost.”
“He never could turn away from a crying child,” Stanley said.
“After that, Father changed his usual route when traveling to either Lord Aldric’s home or Mr. Barrington’s to make certain he always passed through her village. From what Mater and Mr. Layton have told me, he did what he could to learn her name without raising any alarms in the area or in her family. He never was able to, but he worried about her, just as he worried about Arabella and Sarah and Scott—”
“And me,” Crispin added.
“Realizing the gentleman she pinned all her hopes on passed away and has been gone for the entirety of the years she’s been looking for him has devastated her,” Charlie said. “It’s as if every breath of hope was squeezed from her and she has nothing left. She won’t talk to anyone, interact with anyone. She has entirely collapsed in on herself, suffocated by her grief, and I don’t know how to reach her there.”
For a moment, there was no discussion, no movement. Had Charlie finally found the crisis his family was not equal to addressing?
“She’s mourning the loss of a dream,” Philip said. “That is a very deep and personal grief. Has she other dreams to cling to?”
He thought on it. Artemis hadn’t expressed many hopes or aims or wishes. Marrying for love had at least been implied, but that dream had also been snatched away. “She said once that she wished ladies of birth were permitted to open dress shops. She and Rose, her abigail, are remarkably good at designing and fitting gowns; they are constantly undertaking it. But that’s not something I can give her.”
“Why not?” Jason asked.
Charlie looked over at him. “Ladies cannot run shops. Her reputation would be ruined, and no one would patronize it.”
“Ladies and gentlemen alike run establishments quite regularly, actually,” Jason said. “They simply do so with the help of a go-between.”
“Truly?”
Crispin joined the discussion. “My brother-in-law, Henley, has some experience in such things. He could likely offer insights and warnings of potential pitfalls.”
Those pitfalls were numerous. “Is he dependable enough to entrust with such a secret?”
Without hesitation, Philip and Crispin both said, “Yes.”
He didn’t want to get his hopes up. The thought of giving Artemis one of her dreams, especially one that she had never imagined was possible, filled him to bursting. But what if they were wrong? What if he tried, only to disappoint her again? He knew in his bones she would not recover from that.
“What else can we do for her?” Harold asked.
“Bribery?” Crispin suggested.
“There’s not enough money in all the Lampton coffers to make her happy about being one of us,” Philip said. “A comedown for one with her sense of fashion and Society. Except for me, of course.”
Laughs and looks of lighthearted annoyance were tossed about in abundance.
“Could we offer her a puppy?” Layton suggested.
