Trials of Artemis

Trials of Artemis: Book One of the
Haberdashers

by Sue London

bysuelondon.wordpress.com

Amazon
Edition

Graythorn
Publishing

Copyright © 2013 Sue London

All
rights reserved

Cover
by Kim Killion, Hot Damn Designs

This book may not be reproduced by any
means including but not limited to photocopy, digital, auditory, and/or in
print.

Table
of Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Author’s Note

About the Author

Athena’s Ordeal (Haberdasher’s Book Two)

To my husband Devin for being supportive
and helping me to believe in happily ever after. Without your kiss Sleeping
Beauty would have never awoken. Nor would she have made it to that marketing
class…

Considering that so much of a book
requires hiding away and typing it's amazing how many people there are to thank
when it is all said and done. As was evident from my dedication, if it weren’t
for my husband Devin I probably wouldn’t be writing romance at all. Thanks for
being my sweet, romantic partner. And for being half of the Dev and Susie show
that keeps everyone laughing.

Enormous thanks to my sister for being my
first fan and also giving me the necessary boot in the pants by saying
"I'm not reading anything else until YOU FINISH SOMETHING." This
wasn't the sci-fi epic she was hoping for but I know she still loves me anyway.

Thanks to my good friend Steve who never
missed a chance to say, “What you really ought to do is publish a book.” Thanks
for the advice and coffee talk. And for lending me your Michael Connelly books.
I promise those are coming back some day.

There are not enough words to express my
thanks to writing buddy extraordinaire Kris Silva who went through my beta
draft with a fine tooth comb, and a fine wit, to point out opportunities for
improvement. And who also supplied me with a collection of her Muppet fiction
to keep me entertained while she was reading. (It’s good stuff!)

Tremendous thanks also to Jen Sylvia
whose insightful comments in beta review helped to make this book so much
better, and so much more, than it was. (Did you see all those ‘so’s Jen? I took
them out of the rest of the book but had so many left over it seemed like a
waste to just throw them away.)

Thanks to Elizabeth K. Hinds for Regency
history pointers, including how to find the Parliamentary debates online. Who
knew?? She did.

Thank you so much to my Facebook “fans”
(yes, fans before publication, how 21st century!), especially Mike Worthan,
Lydia Ondrusek, Neil Shurley, Dan Gage, Dusk Pennington, Jeremy Warach, Jen
Stayrook, and Ed Rafalko. You guys are awesome.

Last but not least, thanks to my twitter
buddies who make 'the writing life' not so lonely (well, and maybe not quite so
productive, but what are friends for?), especially those mentioned above for
Facebook plus Kerry Schafer, Jeffe Kennedy, Jenn Spiller, Steve Huff, Wendy
Sparrow, J.C. Gregorio, Suzanne Gale, Kelly Breakey, Kristina Martin, Bill
Cameron, Luis Vazquez, Amanda Alley, Dayton Ward, Rick Gualtieri, Matt Forbeck,
and Lindsay Buroker.

Many of the above are awesome writers and
bloggers. You should go look them up now!

And thank
you
for taking a chance on a new writer. Hopefully we’ll have a lot
of fun together.

"But, the bravest are surely those
who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike,
and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it."
~ Thucydides

"Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack
jump over the candlestick."
~ children's rhyme

A cool summer rain pelted the rolling
green grounds of the Bittlesworth estate. Rivulets of water dripped outside the
folly claimed as a clubhouse for the afternoon, beating a staccato patter on
the soaked earth. But all three of the youths inside were focused on the
ceremony that Sabre was performing, cutting thin wounds in first Jack's and
then George's palms. Jack looked a bit skeptical but George shrugged. Sabre had
older brothers and seemed to know about these things. Joining their hands
together, palm to palm, they sat in a circle while Sabre intoned, "Blood
of my blood. Flesh of my flesh. We are now and forever the Haberdashers."
And that was how three little girls pledged an oath of friendship the summer
they were eight years old.

February 1815, London

Jacqueline
Walters barely suppressed a sigh as she looked around the ballroom. She knew
that Sabre had picked the name Haberdasher because it sounded daring. When Jack
had learned that haberdashery was the term for men's accessories, hats and
gloves and the like, she had argued that they needed to change it. Now she
could admit that Sabre, or more precisely Miss Sabrina Bittlesworth, was
nothing short of prescient in selecting the name. Ten years later it seemed
that Jack's entire family was bent on making her some man's accessory.

"Oh,
Jackie, isn't it quite the thing?" Her younger sister Samantha squeezed
her arm. This was Sam's first formal ball
and
Jack was sure that her sister would walk around gawking at the decorations if
she didn't think it would mark her as a complete unsophisticate.

"It's
lovely, though I hate to think of how many peacocks are roaming around
completely naked in service of it." The ballroom was grandly done in
bright blues with peacock feathers displayed to excess. There were also quite a
few trees from the orangery, the bright fruits making complementary splashes of
color in the room. “Lady Wynders certainly knows how to make an
impression."

Sam
continued to gush. "I think it's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. I
want to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming."

Jack
smiled down at her little sister. "Surely if it were your dream there
would be at least one kitten."

"Oh,
don't be such a goose, Jack!" Sam said with a nervous laugh.

"I'm
just saying that your love of kittens is renowned," Jack continued.
"Why, when you are Lady Such-and-such and throw your first ball I shall
expect to see kittens there."

"Don't
tease me so, Jackie," Sam admonished. "I shan't aspire to a
title."

How
like Sam to disparage the idea that she might snag a titled husband. However,
if one of the Walters girls were to elevate her station it would undoubtedly be
the petite, golden, and sweet-natured Samantha. Tall, serious Jack had been on
the marriage mart for two years now and had been marked as a bluestocking, too
intelligent and outspoken to be a good Society wife. She had slowly faded into
the background as a wallflower, accepting that she would most likely be firmly
on the shelf in another year. In the meantime she could be a chaperone for her
sweet sister in the hopes of helping Sam make a worthy match. Perhaps, she
thought, someone that she could stand since she would most likely be living
with them as a helpful maiden aunt one day. Of course Mama and Papa still
expected Jack to make a stunning match, but she was sure that as Sam blossomed
in her first Season the pressure regarding Jack's own marriage potential would
wane.

“You
know,” Sam said, tapping her fan on Jack’s arm to get her attention. “Men would
be much more interested in you if you didn’t look at them all like they were
Lord Lucifer.”

Jack
frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous, I don’t look at them like that.”

“You
were, just now. Staring at that poor little man over there as though he were a
disciple of the devil himself.”

Jack’s
gaze swept the room. “What little man? I was thinking about something else
entirely, I assure you.”

Sam
gave a delicate sigh. “Yes. You always are.”

A
handsome young man of Jack's barest acquaintance approached them for an
introduction to Sam and Jack knew that it had begun. Four introductions and two
glasses of punch later Jack was certain that her sweet little sister was
already beginning to take in a way that Jack never had herself. Did she look at
men as though they were that reprobate Lord Lucifer? Certainly not. To the best
of her knowledge she didn’t look at men at all. Few of them took the
opportunity to speak to her and fewer still asked for a dance. Not that she was
surprised since she matched the height of most of them and towered over others.
As such she spent most of her time at these events lingering along the wall and
thinking.

During
one particularly long country reel that Sam had been invited to dance and Jack
had not she took the opportunity to find Lord Wynder's famed classics library.
Even level-headed Jack had to admit that being ignored for two years to then be
sought out as a conduit of introduction to a debutante had a certain sting to
it, one that she was certain could be relieved with a quick peek at a rare
book. Perhaps he would even have some tomes on weaponry. She was quite sure
that Lord Wynder wouldn’t mind. Too much. Especially since he would never find
out.

After
perusing the shelves Jack finally chose a book, setting the lamp on a shelf
high enough to shine its light down onto the pages. Greek was difficult to read
in the best of conditions and the combination of dim light and cramped writing
in this particular text almost made her give up entirely. An arm sliding around
her waist from behind interrupted her focus on the text. She stiffened as she
felt the warmth of another person pressing up behind her, accompanied by a
smell that was a mix of mint, cloves, and leather.

"And
here you are," a deep voice murmured in her ear. "You're early."

It
was one of Jack's peculiarities that she wasn't the type to jump and scream.
Both Sabre's and George's brothers had made it their mission over the years to
get a girlish, squeamish reaction out of her to no avail. In this particular
instance she was frozen like a statue while her heart sped into an erratic beat
in her chest. Who was this man? Who did he think
she
was? She felt his breath on her neck as he nuzzled closer to
her, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on her stomach.