Page 1 of Charming Artemis

Chapter One

Shropshire, 1803

Artemis Lancaster didn’t often goto the village with her older sisters. The family took in laundry for pay, requiring that they trek to the market square twice each week, once to retrieve their baskets and bundles and once to return them. But this time, Artemis had finally been allowed to come along.

Father was making the journey as well. He never talked to her. She knew he didn’t like her, but she wanted him to. He was forever telling Persephone, her oldest sister, how grateful he was to her for working so hard and being so helpful. Persephone was eighteen years old now. She was quite grown up. Artemis was six, and though she seemed too little to be very helpful, this was her chance to show himshewas a good girl and a helpful one. She would try. She always tried.

She carried one of the laundry baskets all the way to Heathbrook, though it was nearly too large for her to do so. Over and over, she looked to her father, hoping he would notice she was working without complaint.

He didn’t look at her. Not once. He never did.

At the market cross, she gave Persephone her basket to place on the low wall, where they were meant to wait for those retrieving the laundry the sisters had collected earlier in the week.

“I’m for the bookshop,” Father said.

Persephone nodded. She didn’t look surprised. Did Father often go to the bookshop while the girls waited for the laundry to be claimed?

A large, stern-faced woman came over to them.

Persephone looked over their baskets. “It’s that one.” She motioned to the basket nearest Athena, the sister just younger than she.

The three of them talked through whatever it was they needed to discuss about the laundry. There was nothing for Artemis to do. Father might have something she could do. He would be ever so grateful if she were helpful and hardworking.

She hurried off in the direction he’d gone, rushing to catch up with him. The market cross was busy. The press of people on the high street was greater than she’d realized. But a hardworking girl would not give up easily. She wove around them. She picked herself up when the jostling left her sprawled on the ground. The second and third time it happened, she scraped her knees and hands.

The hem of her dress tore. Father would not be pleased. Clothes came dear, and the family had so little money. Of that she was absolutely certain. Few things were spoken of more often.

Artemis made her way to a shop front, away from the pressing crowd. Her heart was beating in her hands, and they were red and sore. One of her knees was bleeding.

Ought she to continue after Father? He might think her too horrible a sight and wish her gone. He’d never say as much. He never said anything to her.

Her shoulders drooped. Perhaps it’d be best to just go back to Persephone and Athena. They didn’t need her help though. Father might. And he might be really happy to have her with him. For once.

She would try. She would be very brave and try.

She trekked down the road, ignoring the pain in her hands and knees, determined to show her father she was a good daughter. But she didn’t find a bookshop. She turned down a different road. And didn’t find it there either.

Long moments passed. The streets blurred together.

She didn’t know where she was or how to find her sisters again. Or her father. Or how to get home.

She was lost.

Panic swelled in her throat, making her breaths jump and catch. Tears poured from her eyes with her deep, painful sobs. What if no one found her? What if no one even realized she was gone? Her family might simply go home and forget they had a little sister.

Artemis dropped to the ground, curled into a ball, and wept and wept. She was so very lost and alone.

“What’s happened?” A man’s voice, soft and gentle. “Why are you crying?”

She lifted her head the smallest bit. A man she didn’t know knelt on the ground in front of her. He was near enough that she’d heard him even though he’d whispered, yet he was also far enough away that she felt calm despite his being unknown to her.

He smiled a bit. His was a very friendly face. “Are you hurt?”

She nodded and held up her scraped palms. “I fell.”

“I am sorry to hear that.” He shifted a little, sitting instead of kneeling. She’d not ever known a grown person who would sit on the ground and in the dirt. They were always so very worried about getting smudges and mud on their clothes. “Did you injure yourself in any other way?” he asked.

She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “My knees. And I tore my dress.”

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