Page 34 of Charming Artemis

Charlie envied him that. “I’ve heard of a few recent lectures on mathematics that I would have liked to attend. My friends declare that an oddity in me.”

“It’s an oddity that makes sense.”

Charlie didn’t know quite what to make of that observation. “Does it?”

For the briefest of moments, the duke didn’t say anything. He’d done that often during his visit to Brier Hill, though Charlie wasn’t certain if it was a common thing with him.

“Before leaving London, I made a few arrangements.” His Grace adjusted Oliver’s position so the boy was resting in his arms and on his shoulder. They walked slowly around the small flower-filled garden. “Under my recommendation, the Society is extending to you an invitation to offer a lecture on a mathematical topic of your choosing.”

Shock rendered Charlie unable to answer immediately.

“A date has not been chosen. I told them I would inform them of the date that would be preferred.” Only the infamous Duke of Kielder could make such demands of a prestigious organization even he admitted to being only marginally involved with. “Pick your topic. Prepare your lecture. Then tell me when you are ready to have a date selected.”

“You are in earnest?” Charlie pressed.

“I amalwaysin earnest.”

Lectures for pay was one of the few options available to an academic who was married and, therefore, unable to be a don. To be invited to speak to the Royal Society would open doors for him. From this opportunity, if he managed the thing without making a fool of himself, would come others.

Years of struggling to publish papers and gain notice had loomed large in front of him. With a single meeting and a likely imperious set of demands, his brother-in-law had swept all that away and set him on the path he’d been aiming for.

“You must have a degree of faith in my intelligence and reliability,” Charlie said.

“As I told you at your wedding breakfast, I have placed faith in you that you yourself have not yet earned.”

“If you will forgive the impertinence, Your Grace, trusting people for no reason seems very out of character for you.”

The duke turned back toward the garden gate. “I said you hadn’t earned my trust. I didn’t say I had no reason for giving it.” He left on that mysterious explanation.

Was there any member of the extended Lancaster family who made any sense whatsoever?

Chapter Twelve

“Do you really have togo?” Artemis stood in the guest chamber Persephone and Adam had used the past few days, watching her sister gather the last of her things. “Everything has been so much better with you here.”

“That is because we are a distraction.” Persephone gave her an empathetic but slightly scolding look. “You can avoid reality for only so long before it catches up to you.”

“Reality sat heavy enough in this house before your arrival, I assure you.” Artemis dropped onto the bed, frustration weighing her down.

Persephone set aside her reticule and sat beside her.

“We can hardly have a conversation without arguing,” Artemis said. “Charlie has made perfectly clear that he resents me. I am certain I have not hidden my disappointment at our current arrangement. We are both stuck in this house, married no matter our objections, and facing a miserable future.”

“And is a miserable future what you want?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what are you doing to change that?” In true Persephone fashion, she had offered a reprimand, advice, and empathy all at once.

“What can be done?” Artemis answered quietly.

“I suspect you think our siblings rather sailed toward their happy futures, but that is not remotely the case.” Persephone took Artemis’s hand in hers. “I always dreamed of life in a cozy cottage with an affectionate husband who married me because he loved me tenderly and entirely. Then I married the most terrifying man I’d ever met, who lived in an enormous, drafty castle and married me in an act of revenge against a cousin.”

It was, without question, the bleakest explanation of the earliest days of Persephone’s marriage Artemis had ever heard her give.

“I had to decide if my happiness,ourhappiness, was worth fighting for.” Persephone squeezed Artemis’s hand. “Harry fell in love with Athena almost the moment he met her, but she was looking for love everywhere but with him, and everything about their situation testified to the reality that his chances of earning her affection were small indeed. He had to decide if that whisper of a chance was worth fighting for.”

Artemis had been so young during Athena and Harry’s courtship that she remembered very little of it.

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