Chapter Thirty-Four
After less than two hours in the gibbet, Mr. Smith was taken from the grounds, his final destination a cell in Sifton. Smith lost a great deal of his cockiness during his confinement in the swinging cage. A charge of attempted murder does that to even a hardened criminal.
Mr. Johns, the apothecary, arrived at Falstone shortly before Smith’s departure and declared himself so impressed with Adam’s work that he suggested he forsake his role as duke and go into medicine. Persephone, he predicted, would be fine. She needed several days in bed to recover and would require several weeks off her feet to prevent the wounds from reopening. A cane, Mr. Johns said, would suffice after a week had passed.
Mother expressed her relief at the diagnosis, though Adam noticed she avoided Persephone’s room almost religiously. She was not unconcerned nor uncaring, simply unable to maintain her countenance when faced with the prospect of another’s pain and suffering.
Deep in a laudanum-induced sleep, Persephone did not even stir when Adam stole into her bedchamber late that night. The roles, he thought ironically to himself, had reversed. He was now the interloper turning to her for reassurance—not because of the pack, nor its noises, but because he could not free himself from the sight of Persephone kneeling on the ground, face twisted in terror, her very life on the line.
He sat for a while on the edge of her bed before lying down beside her. She made not one of the noises he had grown accustomed to hearing while she slept. The laudanum pulled her too deeply into oblivion.
Adam let out a difficult breath. After weeks of worrying that she would leave him, he’d nearly lost Persephone that day. She had almost been taken away from him because a scoundrel decided to hurt her in order to get revenge. No doubt Smith thought it a fair trade.
Are you a great deal different?
a voice in Adam’s head inquired. He’d used trickery to lure Persephone away from her family, to convince her to accept him based on as little information as he could possibly provide. He intentionally made his offer in a way he knew she could hardly refuse. He’d heartlessly presented an exorbitant amount of money to a family that had always been a breath away from financial ruin, knowing their desperation almost guaranteed their agreement.
And why? To upset a cousin he didn’t care for. There’d been no thought of her feelings nor the feelings of her family. He’d felt no concern over what she was sacrificing, what the decision would cost her.
Her family missed her. One need only watch the constant barrage of letters she received from them to realize as much. She herself had admitted that she missed her family. Adam had even heard her, in the midst of her tears, declare that she wished to go home.
Adam turned on his side and looked at her. She was battered and bruised and, if not for the laudanum, would have been in too much pain to even sleep. That is what living with him had done for his Persephone.
She would be better off away from Falstone. She would, no doubt, be happier. He couldn’t bear the thought. Despite his determination otherwise, Persephone had become essential to him.
He shifted closer to her and gently laid his arm across her middle, careful not to disturb her blankets. He leaned in to her ear. “I am sorry, Persephone,” he whispered to her as she slept. “But I cannot let you go.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“I like Falstone, Persephone.”
She smiled at her brother. “So do I.”
Linus studied her quite thoroughly as they sat on her bench in her garden. Linus had developed a very penetrating stare whilst at sea. He hadn’t had the ability to disconcert her with a look before. “Then why don’t you look happy?” he asked her.
“Probably because I am in pain.” She tried to laugh off the question. “I had no idea how long a few simple cuts could take to heal.”
“I understand they weren’t simple at all.” It was very much like speaking with a fully grown man instead of a thirteen-year-old boy. Life at sea had forced him to grow up.
“Considering what might have befallen me, I think of my injuries as comparatively simple.”
Linus seemed to appreciate the straightforward approach. He nodded his agreement, golden hair shimmering as he did.
Persephone had always envied him his curly, golden locks. Linus, Athena, and Artemis all inherited their mother’s coloring: green eyes, fair hair. Daphne and Evander favored Papa with their dark hair and dark eyes. Persephone was the odd one out, her looks a muddied mixture of countless relatives, both distant and near.
“It is so good to have you here, Linus.” She resisted the urge to embrace him the way she once had when he was small child and contented herself with grasping his hand as they sat beside one another.
“I am happy to see you again.” He squeezed her hand. “But I am discovering that every time I am on shore, I quickly find myself missing the sea.”
A wistfulness entered his tone that added emphasis to his words.
“You are more suited to the navy than we originally believed.” Persephone felt infinitely grateful to know he did not feel unhappy in the occupation fate had dictated he take up.
“I am.” Linus smiled at her, his green eyes twinkling in the dim winter light. In the next moment his countenance seemed to fall. He looked away from her, straight ahead into the unseen distance. “Evander was not, however. He sorely missed home.”
She took a slow, unsteady breath. “I believe he is home, now.”
“And he is with Mama,” Linus added, sounding his age for the first time in the two hours since he’d arrived at Falstone.
Persephone held his hand more tightly and bit down on her lip to stop its quivering. She would not spend a single minute of Linus’s short visit in melancholy reflections.
“If I had known, Midshipman Lancaster, that your intention in visiting here was to make your sister cry, I would not have invited you.” Adam’s stern reprimand cut the air.
Persephone glanced nervously at Linus. Would he be upset? Offended? But Linus was smiling at Adam, looking as though he were very near to chuckling.
“You have guessed my devious plot with alarming precision, Your Grace. Every young navy man wishes to bring his female relatives into varying states of hysteria on every possible occasion.”
Adam raised an eyebrow, but his lip twitched with suppressed mirth. How odd that these two, so different in many respects, had already reached an accord with one another. Linus, after two hours at Falstone and one brief conversation with the Duke of Kielder, had learned to not fear his new brother-in-law but return his own dry humor.
Persephone couldn’t have been more pleased.
“And apparently,” Adam went on, “you are also intent on bringing Persephone down to her deathbed.”
“Alas, it is true.” Linus shook his head, those envy-inducing curls shaking with him. “Though I have momentarily forgotten how I intend to do that.”
Adam didn’t miss his cue. “By keeping her out of doors on a cold late afternoon when she ought to be inside where it is warm and staying off her feet so she will have the stamina to endure the ball being thrown here tomorrow night in her honor.”
“Ah, yes. I remember now,” Linus said. “Though I suppose since you have discovered my plot, I shall have to give up my ill-fated scheme.”
“I am afraid it was inevitable.” Adam gave Linus a look of condolence before turning to face Persephone.
She smiled—he no longer averted his face. That was decidedly a good sign. “Persephone.” He held his hand out to her.
She laid her hand in his. Linus placed his hand under her elbow and helped her to her feet. Then her brother retrieved the walking stick Jeb Handly had carved for her, allowing it to take his place at her side.
Linus walked back toward the garden entrance. He had, indeed, grown, and in more ways than the physical difference between eleven years and thirteen. He wore an aura of maturity that went beyond his age. The naval uniform, of course, only added to the effect.
“You seem pleased,” Adam said.
She looked up at him. He still stood directly in front of her, closer than he used to stand. He’d taken to shorter distances in the week since their desperate ride through the forest. Every time she found him in such close proximity, Persephone forced herself not to simply throw her arms around him, to tell him how much she treasured his caring, to tell him how brave he’d been, how much she longed to close the distance between them. But in the past he’d always pulled away at the first sign of intimacy. She wouldn’t for the world undo the progress they’d made.
“I have missed my brother,” she said.
“He is not at all what I expected.” Adam walked with her in the direction of the castle.
Persephone looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Adam did seem pleased with Linus.
“From your description, I expected an infant.” Persephone had the distinct impression that Adam was barely preventing himself from smiling. “Imagine my shock when he walked out of the carriage unassisted. No leading strings or nursemaids in sight.”
“Adam Boyce, are you teasing me?” She hoped her shock sounded feigned enough to not offend him. She’d more than once seen Adam close up after what he perceived as a criticism.
“I never tease.”
“You also, apparently, never host balls. Yet you are doing exactly that tomorrow.”
“I am beginning to suspect I have begun a descent into senility.”
“You are in the oddest mood this evening.” Persephone shook her head in awe.
Adam glanced over at her, obviously seriously pondering something. The moment stretched before he abruptly pulled his gaze away. “You have no idea,” he muttered.
The walk back to the castle was necessarily slow. Persephone’s sore leg hampered her progress, though she didn’t regret taking Linus to her garden, the part of Falstone that felt most like her own. She wanted Linus to see her happy. Perhaps he would convey that impression to the rest of her family—their letters of late had hinted at concern for her.
Their slow progress gave Persephone time to ponder Adam’s sudden shift. She had no complaints. She loved this unforeseen playful side of him, but it confused her. If she understood what had brought the change, she would be easier.
They reached the front steps of Falstone, and Persephone realized she’d pushed her battered body more than she ought to have. With the assistance of both her husband and brother, she climbed to the front door.
“Perhaps I ought to retire.” She eyed the grand staircase with a sinking heart. “Else I’ll never survive the ball tomorrow.”
“Then I will bid you good night, sister.” Linus kissed her on the cheek, his signature gesture—the one Persephone had received every night before bedtime for the six years between their mother’s death and Linus’s departure for the sea. It momentarily undid her.
“How I have missed you, Linus,” she whispered, her voice choked with tears.
“Now, no crying, Persephone.” Linus chuckled. “Your husband already suspects me of having sinister motives.”
She smiled. “I’d hate for Adam to put you in the gibbet.”
“I would hate that, also.”
“If the two of you are done with your sentimental good nights, I believe Persephone is in need of some rest,” Adam said.
Linus offered them both a bow from the waist and made his way up the stairs, no doubt toward his own chambers.
A maid slipped out the doors leading to the great hall, careful to close the door behind her without offering the slightest glimpse inside.
Persephone had noticed similar behavior in all the servants. “The entire staff has been very secretive today.”
“They are under orders to be secretive,” Adam said. “Your ballroom is to be a surprise.”
“
My
ballroom?”
“It is certainly not mine. If this were left to me, there would be no decorations of any kind and only horribly watered-down tea served from chipped china in the corner.”
Persephone laughed lightly. “No one would ever come back.”
“Precisely.”
She felt instantly uneasy. Adam couldn’t possibly be looking forward to the ball nor the visitors it would bring. “If you really would rather we not—”
“Do not start putting words into my mouth,” Adam gently scolded.
“I do not want you to be unhappy, Adam.” She had seldom been so sincere in a wish.
“If you are too unwell to attend tomorrow, and I am left to deal with all of this on my own, I will, indeed, be unhappy.”
Persephone nodded but didn’t reply. She looked quickly at the towering staircase in front of her. She’d been standing far longer than she ought to have been, and her leg was loudly protesting.
“I think,” Adam said as he lifted her quite easily off her feet and held her in his arms, “that Jeb should have carved you a set of crutches. The walking stick seems entirely inadequate.”
“Don’t you dare tell him that.” She put her arm about Adam’s neck, knowing it was one of the few times he would allow such close contact. “I treasure this stick—it is positively gorgeous.”
Adam carried her up the stairs, not seeming at all annoyed at the task. “The man has a great deal of time on his hands now that he is no longer in charge of the gardens.”
“He employs himself wisely, then, I would say.”
The next moment, it seemed, they reached her dressing room, and Adam slowly lowered her into the chair at her dressing table.
“I will ring for your maid,” Adam told her then disappeared into her bedchamber.
She stole a glance at herself in the mirror while he was gone. How she wished there were more there for a gentleman to admire. She hadn’t the fair looks of her mother, and the perpetual black of mourning kept her eyes a dismal brown. If only she’d been able to dance at the ball the next day, then Adam might have found reason to be proud of his wife. Persephone had her shortcomings, but she had always been lauded as an excellent dancer.
“I will see that the kitchen sends up a tray,” Adam told her from the doorway.
Persephone nodded, still scrutinizing her reflection. Her frequent visits to the garden had multiplied the number of freckles marring her complexion. Those, however, were hardly noticeable next to the slightly green-tinted bruise still evident on the left side of her face. What a time to be sporting grotesque injuries. Adam was going to be unhappy enough with the next night as it was.
His reflection joined hers in the oval-shaped mirror, and Persephone locked eyes with him that way.
“I am sorry your family could not come,” Adam said and looked as though he meant it.
“It is fine, really.”
But it wasn’t. She’d been devastated when Athena’s letter had arrived the day after the disaster in the forest. Artemis and Daphne had contracted chicken pox, and though both were progressing without complication to recovery, the family would not be able to make the journey to Northumberland. Linus would travel to Shropshire with a manservant from Falstone in one of the Kielder carriages.
“Do you miss them?” Adam asked quietly.
Persephone felt her chin quiver. No amount of willpower could prevent her emotions from showing, though she managed to hold back the tears. She more than missed her family. She mourned them, in a way. They felt so distant, so far. If she had some future date to which she might look forward—the knowledge that a reunion was only a short while away—the separation might not sting so acutely.
She dropped her eyes. Far too much had happened recently. The wolves, the pain of her injuries, the shock and joy of seeing Linus again. But far and above all of that was the immense change in Adam. He’d been attentive and kind and tender in a way she could not possibly have dreamed possible. He had become in his own way very much the sort of gentleman she had always dreamed of falling in love with. She could no longer deny that he touched a vulnerable place in her heart.
She was irrevocably and inexplicably in love with her husband. It was, perhaps, not the all-consuming passion of which most schoolgirls dream nor the earth-shattering emotion one often equates with love. It was a sensation of safety, contentment, and the feeling that she was, in an unexpected way, cherished.
Adam had made her feel that way, and she couldn’t say precisely how. It was looks, words, a hint of a smile, a suppressed laugh. It was his arm supporting her when she attempted to walk, his eyes studying her in those first days of her recovery, his immediate acceptance of her brother. So many little things.
She ought to have been happy, satisfied with the turn in her marriage, and yet she felt as though something was still missing. She felt isolated and, at times, painfully alone. He had shown that, to a degree, he cared for her. But Adam never gave any indication that his feelings ran deeper than caring regard. She needed more than that from him.
“Cook has sent up some liniment,” her abigail said as she entered the dressing room.
Persephone looked up, wondering what she would see in Adam’s face. She saw nothing, for he was no longer there.