Page 35 of Charming Artemis

“Daphne adored James from the beginning, but his family’s machinations and the impossible situation it put him in created a painful and personal barrier between them. She had to decide if the future they might have was worth fighting for.”

“I am sensing a pattern,” Artemis said.

“Good, because I’m not finished.” Persephone gave her a look she knew so well from her childhood. It was equal parts older sister and mother figure. “Linus found his perfect match in Arabella, but he had a very real rival for her affection, one she seemed to get on with very well. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to say the odds were not in his favor and walk away. He had to decide if a life with her—”

“Was worth fighting for,” Artemis finished for her.

“I am not going to discount the difficulty of the situation you find yourself in, Artemis. But absolutely nothing will change if you do not try. This will not get better on accident.”

“Ifhedoesn’t think it ‘worth fighting for,’ it won’t get better no matter what I do.”

“Shall I explain all the ways that is not true? I believe I shall.” Persephone put an arm around Artemis’s shoulders. “Even if you are the only one working to find a degree of happiness, youwillbe benefited by it. Secondly, I don’t believe you are the only one willing to try to make this a success.”

“You have not been here,” Artemis said. “He either treats me with disdain or indifference.”

Persephone snorted. “I watched him during our game out on the back lawn. When he ‘caught’ you, there was no indifference there. Confusion, yes. But nothing remotely resembling indifference.”

A bit of heat touched Artemis’s cheeks. That moment had been unexpected. “I think he liked touching my hair.”

Persephone smiled at her. “Your arm, your hair. Setting his hand on your back. Standing close to you.”

“It was rather nice,” she said. “But it doesn’t fix everything.”

Persephone squeezed her shoulders. “I didn’t say it would. You have a very long road to travel, but that moment gave me hope. And watching him with the children convinced me Adam was right about him.”

“What do you mean?”

Persephone stood. “For reasons he has not divulged even to me, Adam has a tremendous amount of faith in the goodness of Charlie Jonquil. One thing I have learned in the nearly thirteen years I’ve been married to Adam is that he is generally a good judge of character.”

“Being kind to children is not the same as being a good husband,” Artemis countered.

“No, but it says a lot about a man’s heart.”

There was no arguing with that. It was her Papa’s kindness to her as a child that still lived on as hope in her own heart. It was how she knew he was a good and loving gentleman. It was how she knew that if she could only find him again, he would be as tender and loving as he’d been then.

Charlie was in the front entry thirty minutes later as Adam and Persephone made their way from the house. Artemis pondered her sister’s words as Charlie offered his farewell to the children. Oliver seemed pleased at the promise Charlie made to come visit him at the castle. Hestia tenderly touched Charlie’s cheek as he kissed her goodbye.

It says a lot about a man’s heart.

Adam shook Charlie’s hand. He gave Artemis a very quick one-armed hug. He had always been more withdrawn and less affectionate than most people. She had learned over the years to stop interpreting that as disapproval. She had needed more affection, more shows of approval and love, but she’d stopped disliking his detached nature.

Persephone was quite his opposite in that respect. She pulled Artemis into a full embrace, squeezing her close and tight.

“Please don’t leave.” Artemis hated that she couldn’t hold back the emotional plea. “Please stay.”

Still embracing her, Persephone said, “You are equal to this. Have faith. Fight for it.”

“I need you here.” She’d begged Papa with those exact words more than once.

Persephone pulled back. She brushed a tear from Artemis’s cheek with the thumb of her gloved hand. Her expression held reassurance, but it didn’t assuage Artemis’s worries.

Artemis stood on the front step, watching her sister leave. Heavens, she was a little girl again. Watching her brothers leave for sea. Watching Persephone leave for her new life at Falstone Castle. Watching her Papa leave Heathbrook without taking her with him.

Persephone might have thought Artemis equal to the challenge, but she wasn’t.

She wasn’t at all.

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