He felt confused and indecisive. He had no idea why he’d kissed his wife and no idea what he meant to do about it. Except keep his distance.
Chapter Twenty-Two
So much for distance.
The wolf pack had begun early that night. Either Persephone’s nervousness at their noise had rattled him or the pack had drawn closer to the castle than usual. They were louder than they used to be. And Persephone was closer now as well. She’d tiptoed through the door only a few moments earlier. After her usual whispered “Adam?” she’d hurried, much faster than on previous nights, to the bed and climbed up.
A particularly menacing howl erupted outside. Adam heard Persephone quietly groan. “They’re getting louder,” she whispered to herself.
This was the precise reason he’d decided to stay away from his wife. Hearing the distress in her voice, Adam felt sorely tempted to reach out and touch her. He found himself wondering if she would feel less afraid if he held her hand. He quickly dismissed that thought. She’d probably run from the room as fast as her legs would carry her.
Adam felt the bed shift as Persephone changed positions. She did that a lot during the night. It had bothered him at first, but the last couple of nights he’d found himself waking up if she hadn’t moved in a while. He’d peek, convinced she had left the room, only to inevitably spot her in her mountain of blankets. Then he’d lie there, watching to be certain she still breathed. Which only proved he was losing his mind. Only an idiot would jump to such a far-fetched possibility.
“Thank you for my letter, Adam,” Persephone whispered. He could tell she had turned to face him. She didn’t usually.
He was so tempted to open his eyes. Why? He had decided to keep his distance. How much greater distance could a person achieve than being sound asleep?
“Linus sounds happy,” Persephone continued, her voice never rising above a whisper. “He didn’t mention Evander, which worries me a little. It was always his way to avoid topics that were upsetting. But he did promise to keep writing.”
Why did Persephone feel more comfortable talking to him when he was asleep?
“I hope Linus writes to Papa. He and the girls will be worried about him as well.”
Adam felt her shift again, and then a bundle of blankets brushed his arm. That distance he meant to maintain was disappearing quickly.
“Thank you, Adam,” she said once more. “I know you don’t like it when I thank you for the things that you do, but I really am grateful.”
Persephone seemed to settle in after that—the only problem being that she settled right beside him.
At what point had Persephone begun to smell like lavender? At what point had Adam learned what lavender smelled like?
Soon, Persephone began making those noises that meant she was sleeping. Adam opened his eyes. She couldn’t have been more than inches from him.
Lavender.
Adam shook his head. He would never have thought he would notice something like that. Or notice that a lock of Persephone’s hair had fallen across her face. That had to be driving her absolutely mad.
What was he thinking? Persephone was asleep. She wouldn’t even notice her hair.
Adam, however, couldn’t seem to notice anything else. Even in the dim glow cast by the embers in his fireplace, her hair seemed to shimmer. Cautiously, slowly, he reached out and touched a wisp of it.
Soft.
Adam brushed her hair back from her face.
She really was too pretty to be married to him. Did she regret accepting him? He hoped she didn’t.
She’d said she had enjoyed kissing him. Those hadn’t been her exact words, he acknowledged. She’d said he kissed well.
Very
well, Adam amended.
Deuce take it, he wanted to kiss her again.
Adam flipped abruptly on to his other side, shifting as he did to the very edge of the bed. Distance, he reminded himself. That was vital.
Persephone had the uncanny ability, he was discovering, to leave him thinking and doing things he would otherwise never think or do. And his thoughts had begun to dwell on her more than could possibly be healthy.
He vowed, as he lay there uncomfortably on his side, to keep a room’s length between them from that moment on. During the daytime, at least, he corrected. The wolves frightened her, after all. He’d simply hang off the end of the bed until the pack learned to keep quiet.
Part of him hoped they never did.
* * *
For a moment, Persephone felt nothing but shock. She’d been riding, that much she remembered.
“Persephone?” Adam’s voice came at her from what felt like miles away.
She blinked a few times. The world around her would not come into focus.
“Persephone?” Adam sounded rather urgent.
“Adam?” A few more blinks and she could make him out. He knelt beside her, which meant she was lying on the ground. And he looked worried. “What happened?”
“Honeycake threw you,” Adam said. “Are you hurt? Can you sit up?”
“I don’t know.” Persephone felt extremely confused. She couldn’t decide if her bewilderment came from the fall she only vaguely remembered, or the fact that Adam was touching her face and looking at her as though he were genuinely worried.
“Let me help you,” Adam said.
He’d never offered to do anything for her before. He’d brought her a coat once, and more or less threw it at her. Adam slipped a hand underneath her and lifted her with no visible effort to a seated position, still not releasing her.
“Does anything hurt?”
Persephone shook her head, unable to look away from him. She’d never seen him like this: fretting and nervous.
“Why were you on Honeycake?” Adam ran a hand down her arm, as if checking for breaks. “Honeycake is less docile than Atlas. You aren’t ready for a challenging mount.”
“Atlas twisted a knee.” John had told her as much when she’d arrived for her daily ride.
“And you? Did you twist or hurt anything?”
“You asked me that already.”
“A person can be killed being thrown from a horse.” Adam helped her to her feet.
“Not at a walk.” Her wits gradually returned as her head slowed its spinning.
“No, I guess not.” Adam had never before sounded so distracted. He didn’t look away. Six weeks of seeing nothing but the side of his face, and suddenly Adam was staring at her. He touched her face once more, so gentle, so caring. Persephone closed her eyes. Why couldn’t he always be this way? “You’re certain you aren’t hurt?”
“I imagine I will be sore.” She leaned her face into his palm.
“I don’t ever want you to ride Honeycake again,” Adam said into Persephone’s left ear. The last time he’d been that close to her, he’d kissed her. Persephone felt her face flush at the memory. “You will stay on your feet until Atlas is available again.”
“Yer Grace,” John Handly’s voice interrupted.
Persephone bit back a sigh of frustration. To her surprise, Adam didn’t pull away. She felt his arm wrap around her and pull her closer to him. She opened her eyes and found herself eye to shoulder with him. She didn’t let the opportunity pass by, but laid her head on Adam’s shoulder, pleasantly surprised to feel him hold her tighter.
“Is Her Grace well?” John asked.
“I don’t want my wife riding Honeycake,” Adam said, that tone of authority in his voice.
“Honeycake is usually very calm. I can’t explain it. It was almost like something spooked ’er.”
“I do not want Her Grace on Honeycake.”
“Yes, Yer Grace.” John pulled respectfully at his forelock.
Persephone closed her eyes once more, savoring the feeling of being held. She’d always imagined the comfort of being in the arms of her husband. So few of her schoolgirl dreams had proven accurate during the short weeks of her marriage. She was determined to prolong the moment as long as possible.
“See to Honeycake,” Adam instructed John. Then, bending his head toward Persephone, he said, “Your abigail can have a hot bath prepared for you—that should help with any stiffness.”
“There really is no need for this much fuss,” Persephone said, thoroughly enjoying every moment of fuss.
“You’ll disagree when you are too stiff to come down to dinner.” Adam led her from the paddock.
“This is very kind of you, Adam.”
“Nonsense.” He dismissed her gratitude, just as she knew he would. His arm remained around her waist. “You’ve been thrown from a horse, Persephone. Any decent gentleman would be concerned.”
“Then thank you for being decent.” She leaned against him as they walked.
“You’re welcome,” Adam answered with noticeable unease. But, Persephone realized with a smile, he hadn’t brushed away her gratitude. It wasn’t an enormous stride, but it was something.
“Her Grace has had an accident,” Adam informed Barton the moment they passed through the doors of the castle. “Have a hot bath brought to her dressing room and have Cook prepare a pot of her bruise ointment.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Barton hurried off to follow through with the orders.
Persephone was actually smiling by the time they reached her room. Other than while holding her letter from Linus yesterday, she had seldom smiled since coming to Falstone.
“The kitchen can send up a tray if you would rather not come down for dinner.” Adam grew more distant.
“Adam?” She looked up at him. He shifted his face away. “When Atlas is well again, can I come riding with you and Harry?”
“Atlas can’t keep up with Zeus,” Adam said.
“Couldn’t you rein Zeus in a little? Or let me join you at the end of your ride, when Zeus has slowed down.”
“You should keep to the paddock.” Adam stepped back a little.
Persephone followed, staying close to him. He’d held her so lovingly, so tenderly. Why was he moving away? She wanted him to hold her again, to make her feel wanted and needed, if not precisely loved. “I would like to try riding out,” she said. “Atlas wouldn’t throw me like Honeycake did.”
“I’d rather you not take that chance.”
“But you would be there.” She reached out, laying a hand on his chest. He stiffened. Persephone forced herself to stay as she was, despite the disappointment she felt at his apparent displeasure. Why had he grown so suddenly distant? Had she only imagined him warming to her, at least a little?
“That is no guarantee—”
Something about that admission, about the vulnerability in his voice, tugged at her heart. She tipped her head up and laid a soft kiss on his lips. He didn’t pull away but didn’t seem to be returning the gesture. Hoping against hope that he wasn’t as disinterested as he seemed, Persephone reached up and touched his face with her hand.
Fast as a flash of lightning, Adam had hold of her wrist and pulled her hand from his face. She stepped back from him, surprised but mostly disappointed.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, hurting at his rejection of her affections.
Adam released her wrist and turned away. “The bath should help,” he muttered as he walked away. “And the ointment.”
“Adam,” Persephone called after him.
He didn’t turn back.
Persephone sighed. Obviously she’d misinterpreted his concern. She’d most certainly misunderstood his kiss the day before. He’d kissed her with what she’d falsely interpreted as tender feeling. That he didn’t welcome her kisses had just been made painfully obvious.
In those brief moments when Adam had held her after her accident, Persephone had felt stirrings of affection. But he’d pushed her away. She didn’t understand him, didn’t know what to think about Adam, about their marriage.
She’d always thought that affection would grow between them. She’d hoped that the tenderness she’d seen in him just moments before would remain. Instead he’d grown distant and cold. She’d taken a risk and reached out to him, only to be rejected.
It wasn’t in her nature to give up entirely, but for the life of her she couldn’t help feeling discouraged.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Adam threw off his blanket and sat up in bed. The wolves had been howling for nearly an hour. Where the deuce was Persephone?
He got out of bed. She ought to have come in already. She’d never waited so long before. Adam crossed to the connecting door but turned back without touching the handle. He was being ridiculous. Persephone was probably sleeping.
She hadn’t come down to dinner. Maybe her fall had been more serious then he’d realized. Adam crossed back to the door again but stopped directly in front of it.
If Persephone wanted to come in, she would have. She certainly wouldn’t want him going into her room. Adam shook his head and stormed back to his bed.
“Ridiculous,” he snapped at himself, flinging himself down.
Adam closed his eyes, determined to fall asleep. But he couldn’t clear his thoughts of Persephone. Gad, she’d scared him half out of his wits. He and Harry had been back from their ride for a quarter of an hour, and instead of going straight to the castle like he should have, Adam had stayed to watch Persephone ride.
He’d been impressed seeing her on a more difficult mount than Atlas. Then that blasted horse had thrown her. Adam didn’t think he’d ever run as fast in all his life. When she didn’t get up right away, he’d panicked.
What a sap he’d turned out to be. He should have handed her over to one of the grooms, should have kept his distance like he’d told himself he would. But he’d been worried.
Adam opened his eyes again. ’Twould be pointless to pretend he was going to sleep. Persephone was cutting up his peace. Seeing her lying still on the ground of the paddock had been more unsettling than the letter he’d received about Harry’s illness. It had been more panic-inducing than the dream he still remembered so vividly about the wolves.
She’d kissed him.
She
had kissed
him
. At first he’d been too surprised to do anything but stand there, smelling her. Then she’d touched him. Touched those blasted, bloody scars, exactly the way Mother always had when he was little. She would run a finger down the longest one, the one that followed his jaw. “My poor boy,” she’d say.
Adam wanted no one’s pity.
“I’m sorry,” Persephone had said. She might as well have offered a “my poor boy.” A man comes to his wife’s aid after she’s thrown from a horse, and what does he get in return? Pity. He’d all but carried her back to the house, but Persephone didn’t see him as her champion. All Persephone saw were the scars.
“It is too blasted quiet in here,” Adam grumbled, sitting up again.
A howl sounded outside. Adam watched the door. It didn’t open.
“This is ridiculous.” Adam got to his feet again. He couldn’t sleep, and he knew deuced well it was because Persephone wasn’t there.
He hadn’t had insomnia since childhood. The first few weeks after Mother had moved to London, he hadn’t been able to sleep. Nothing Nurse Robbie said or did had helped. He’d eventually learned to force himself to sleep—not an easy feat for a six-year-old.
Mother never had come back. Persephone was going to.
Adam marched to the connecting door and opened it. Persephone wasn’t asleep, Adam realized, seeing the bed empty. He found her in the next instant, sitting on the window seat, holding back the thin, blue curtains and gazing out into the darkness.
“Persephone.” He kept his tone detached and neutral.
She jumped at the sound of his voice. “Adam!” Persephone turned to look at him, dropping the curtain.
“Aren’t you asleep?” Adam asked, feeling like an idiot for posing such a pointless question.
“I couldn’t seem to get to sleep.”
“Are you stiff from your fall?” The memory of her accident flashed quickly through his mind.
Persephone shook her head. A howl echoed outside the window, and she visibly tensed. She turned to the window, pulling back the curtain once more.
“They are loud tonight,” Adam said.
Persephone nodded mutely.
“How long do you plan to sit at that window and worry over the wolves?” Adam fought down a surge of empathy for Persephone. He knew how nervous the howling made her.
“Until they stop,” she answered in a tiny voice.
She meant to sit there all night instead of coming into his room, where she would actually be able to sleep? No point in both of them being awake.
Adam crossed to her bed and pulled off the blanket. He reached her at the window and draped it over her shoulders.
“Adam?” Persephone looked up at him, so obviously confused.
“You should have come in when the wolves first started.” Adam made his way to the door.
“Come in?” she repeated.
“And curled up on the bed.” He stopped at the door and turned toward her, waiting.
“You knew?” Persephone whispered, her face paling noticeably. “I . . . I thought . . . I thought you were asleep.”
“Asleep?” Adam answered, with an ironic raise of his eyebrows. “That’s the problem.”
“Problem?”
“I can’t sleep.” He shook his head at the ridiculousness of it. “You’ve ruined the room for me.”
“What do you mean, I’ve ruined it?” Her forehead creased with confusion.
“My bedchamber used to be quiet. Then you started coming and making all those noises—”
“Noises?”
“When you sleep.”
“I make noises?” Her pallor began to pink.
“And you move,” Adam added. “Constantly.”
“Good heavens,” she whispered, pressing her hands to her cheeks. The blanket slipped to the floor.
Adam let out a frustrated sigh and crossed back to her.
“I have never been so embarrassed in all my life.” Persephone turned away from him. “I was so sure you were asleep.”
Adam picked the blanket up again and wrapped it around her.
Lavender.
Adam stepped back. Distance, he reminded himself.
“You must think I am an absolute coward,” Persephone whispered. “And presumptuous. And . . . and . . .”
Adam held his hand out to her. She stood there, silently, just looking at his hand. Adam let it drop. Obviously, she didn’t want his company any more than his own mother had, any more than every other person he’d ever known.
Adam walked away, moving to the door. He should never have come in. The Duke of Kielder begged favors of no one. He’d learned to force himself to sleep once—he could do it again. And he didn’t care!
“Adam?”
He stopped on the spot.
“Do I really make noises in my sleep?”
He nodded.
“Loud noises?” She sounded uncomfortable.
“No.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown. “Like . . . like a puppy. Little noises.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?” She wore the blanket wrapped around her precisely the way she had every night for weeks.
“I’ve grown used to it.” He found himself too uncomfortable with the conversation to continue looking at her.
“I don’t want to bother you.” She sounded closer.
“You won’t.”
“All right.”
“All right?” Adam looked over his shoulder at her.
“The wolves don’t bother me as much in your bedchamber.” Persephone even smiled a little. She passed through the connecting door.
“Are they quieter in there?” Adam followed her through the door.
“No,” she replied. “The way I’ve figured it, if the pack ever actually makes it into the castle, they’ll eat you first.”
Adam was grateful he walked behind her. That comment brought a smile to his face before he could stop it. One look at his disfigured smile, and they’d be right back to “I’m sorry” and “my poor boy.”
A minute later they’d returned to the established routine. Persephone lay curled in a ball, securely wrapped in her blankets. Adam could feel himself growing tired already.
How was it that in only a few weeks he’d come to depend on her for something as vital as sleep? Adam had promised himself after Mother had left twenty years ago, he would never depend on anyone.
“People depend on dukes. Dukes do not depend on people,” Father used to say. He’d never said that before Mother moved to Town.
“Good night, Adam,” Persephone said from the ball of blankets.
Nurse Robbie used to say that:
Good night, little Adam.
No one else ever had. Adam closed his eyes. He could almost picture her rocking beside his bed. Why were memories of his one-time nurse suddenly flooding back? In twenty years he hadn’t thought of her once, and in the past month those memories wouldn’t stop.
“Good night, Persephone,” Adam muttered in reply.
What was happening to him? He’d made a fool of himself over Persephone’s fall earlier. He ought to have stayed calm and detached.
He was chasing down his wife, practically begging for her company. He needed her nearby just to sleep.
Now he had turned mawkish over a childhood memory.
Adam rubbed his eyes. Maybe it was a temporary illness, something that would pass.
“Adam?”
Why was it that when Persephone said his name like that, quiet and uncertain, his heart seemed to thud a little harder? He shifted his eyes enough to look at the talking ball of blankets. As usual, she faced away from him.
“What?” he asked, managing not to snap at her in his frustration.
She hesitated. For a minute Adam thought he had offended her, and it bothered him. Giving offense
never
bothered him. What the blazes was happening to him?
“Why did you decide to get married?” She whispered the question, but without tears, without any threat of erupting emotions. It seemed almost as if Persephone was truly just curious about his motivation.
“At the time it seemed like a good idea.”
“Does it now?”
How did he answer that? In a lot of ways it had turned into a horrible idea. Married life hadn’t turned out the way he’d anticipated. His plans had been for a wife desperate enough to marry that she wouldn’t care one way or another what her husband was like. And when a man married a desperate, uncaring woman, reciprocating those feelings was easy.
But he had married Persephone. Instead of life as usual at Falstone, he wondered about her and worried about her. She was supposed to have been plain and unappealing, but was pretty—more than pretty, really, with an aura of determined joy about her that was unlike any person he’d ever encountered. She attempted to smile through tears. She stood up in adversity. She wasn’t cowed or browbeaten.
She wasn’t what he’d wanted. A lady like her, he was discovering, could not be easily dismissed.
“Mrs. Adcock said you would.” Persephone’s reply caught Adam off guard. In his reflection, he’d almost forgotten her there.
“Said I would what?” It felt strange talking to a pile of bedclothes.
“Regret marrying me.”
Adam felt his jaw tense.
“At the Pointers’ several days ago, Mrs. Adcock said to Miss Greenburrough that most gentlemen who pay for a wife regret the purchase in the end. It was blatantly obvious she referred to our marriage settlement.”
Adam’s entire body tensed. He knew Mr. Adcock was a jack-a-napes but hadn’t realized how well suited he and his wife really were.
“Mrs. Adcock had mentioned her sizable dowry at least a dozen times, so I happened to ask Lady Hettersham, loudly enough for Mrs. Adcock to hear, whether or not it seemed odd that some ladies found it necessary to offer money to a prospective bridegroom in order to bring him up to scratch. No gentleman would accept a horse so ill-recommended that he had to be bribed to accept it.”
He laughed. Adam Boyce, Duke of Kielder, actually laughed out loud. He could not remember once, in the past twenty years, laughing out loud at anything.
“I thought Mrs. Adcock’s tea would come flying out her ears—she looked so livid.” Persephone laughed as well. “Mrs. Pointer was hard-pressed to maintain her countenance. She later informed me that Mrs. Adcock had been singularly proud of her dowry for years. Lady Hettersham very much doubts Mrs. Adcock will be as fond of mentioning that as she has been—at least amongst the ladies of the neighborhood.”
“You compared her to a horse? I doubt even I could have produced such a cutting retort.” He chuckled again. “Well done, Persephone.”
“I have not pulled caps with anyone in years.” Persephone giggled.
Giggled?
Somehow Adam had never pictured that sound coming from a grown woman. And, stranger still, he found himself smiling at it.
“I felt like a regular warrior.” Laughter rang in her tone. “Perhaps before I next call at the vicarage, I should try on one of the suits of armor for size. I could check the armory for a jousting lance and simply unseat my adversary as she rides up to the vicarage. I would be the terror of the neighborhood.”
She laughed at that. So did Adam. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how good it could feel to simply laugh. And at what? A fanciful picture of his wife riding around the neighborhood knocking people off their horses.
“If it comes to full combat, let me know.” Adam heard the smile in his tone. “I am rather handy with a crossbow.”
Persephone laughed. Knowing he’d made her laugh was, for Adam, a strangely satisfying experience.
“Maybe Harry could be our page, and we could go conquer Adcock Manor.”
“Harry would make an abysmal page.” Adam shook his head. “But he might be trusted with a battle ax.” It was, beyond a doubt, the strangest conversation Adam had ever had: lying in the dark, talking to a lady wrapped cocoon-like in a blanket, planning a medieval-style siege of a neighboring estate.
“Mr. Hewitt could be page,” Persephone said, then burst out laughing.
Adam smiled into the darkness. “You have finally hit upon an occupation at which he could excel.”
“The four of us would make a wonderfully fearsome team,” Persephone said with something between a sigh and a yawn. “You see, Adam, marriage to me might not be such a terrible thing for you after all.”
There was no answer to that.