Page 43 of Charming Artemis

The real reason was a lack of money, but that was more embarrassing than the explanation he usually gave. “I don’t dress fashionably enough to need one.”

“A great many young ladies in Society have declared you shockingly handsome. If you dressed to the nines, you’d be devastating.”

It was a fine compliment but a bit of a depressing one as well. What good would being “devastating” be to him now? He was already married, and to a lady who disliked him enough that no amount of fashionable handsomeness would change that.

He sat on the settee and pulled the folded blanket lying there over his lap before tucking into his supper.

“Did you know Rose is niece to your brother’s valet, Wilson?” Artemis asked.

He couldn’t see Artemis now. The settee sat at the foot of the bed, and those curtains were pulled closed. “Philip told me back when the arrangement was first made,” Charlie said.

“And did you feel sorry for Rose, knowing she would be enduring my company for years on end?’

He had, actually. But their pretended amicableness had made for a pleasant couple of days. He didn’t want to throw that all out. “The two of you seem to get on very well.”

“She is the only person of my acquaintance, aside from Wilson and your eldest brother, who shares my enthusiasm for fashion. We can discuss it for hours on end, piecing together wardrobes we would suggest for various people were we in a position to do so. The very first imaginings we concocted together were for Princess Charlotte.”

The nation had very recently come out of mourning for the young royal, who’d died in childbirth. She’d been only a year older than he and Artemis were. Such a tragic end. “Philip struggled a great deal with the news of the princess’s passing. He’d nearly lost his wife the same way mere months earlier.”

“Rose tells me that her uncle is absolutely besotted with the newest little Jonquils.”

“Everyone is,” Charlie said. “Kendrick—Lord Jonquil, I suppose I should say—is an absolutely delightful handful. Lady Julia is something of an angel. She reminds me of Hestia. The two would likely be very good friends.”

“They are practically family now,” Artemis said. “Something I am certain Adam finds unbearable.”

Charlie chuckled. “I will never forget the day he and Philip beat each other to a pulp on the banks of the Trent during that house party. Philip so often acts like a frippery popinjay. It was a bit amazing to see him hold his own against the Dangerous Duke.”

“Even more amazing,” Artemis said, “I have seen the Dangerous Duke sing a lullaby to a sleeping baby.”

Before seeing His Grace hold his children at Brier Hill, Charlie might have struggled to imagine such a scene. He could do so easily now. “His children adore him. That much is clear.”

“I asked him once if his father had been tender and attentive. I know his mother wasn’t, and I couldn’t sort out where he’d learned the way of it. He said his father taught him to be a duke, to be independent and strong-willed and authoritative and dependable, but that he learned to be a father and a husband from another source entirely.”

That was an intriguing mystery. “From what source?”

“He didn’t say, and I could tell he would object to me pressing the matter. I haven’t ever asked him again.”

Charlie had finished his food and rose, crossing to the side of the bed once more. She’d finished eating as well. He took up her plate and her empty bowl. “If I ever need to bribe you, I now know how.” He held up the bowl.

“I’ve loved it since I was a little girl.” She pulled her blanket up, tucking it over her shoulders, and leaned back against her pillows. “Persephone would save back bread for days before my birthday each year so she could make it for me.”

They really had been in dire financial straits if bread pudding had been a delicacy.

Charlie returned their dishes to the tray the proprietress had brought in, then went around the room blowing out the candles. The one on Artemis’s bedside table he would leave for her to extinguish when she was ready.

In the dim light, he carefully returned to the settee. It wasn’t quite long enough for him to stretch out on, but it would do for one night. He hadn’t the first idea what the arrangements would be at Lampton Park. In light of the crick in his neck, he hoped they’d have separate rooms, or at least one with a longer sofa.

“Oh mercy!” Artemis gasped the word out. “The tray.”

“What about it?”

“The proprietress will come back to fetch it at some point,” she said from behind the bed curtain. “Whispers of our arrangement will be all over the inn in an instant.”

That was inarguably true. At the previous inns, Rose had slipped in before the chambermaids arrived to tend the fire in the morning, allowing him and Artemis time to wake before being caught out in the true state of their marriage. While Charlie’s concern was far more for his family’s evaluation of things, the potential for embarrassment along the way weighed on Artemis.

He took up his blanket and walked around the bed to the side opposite of where he knew she was lying and pulled back the curtain. “I’ll lie on top of the blankets. It’ll be dark enough that no one stepping inside the room will be able to tell the difference.”

He pulled the bed curtains closed again and situated himself as best he could. He flicked the blanket he’d brought with him out over them both. That would give the impression needed to prevent the whispers Artemis feared. It was both the most and least comfortable he’d been at any of their inn stops.

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