Chapter Ten
Winter had come early, just as Jeb Handly had predicted. It was the third week of October, and already a bitterly cold wind was whipping around Falstone. But arctic cold didn’t bother Adam’s faithful horse, and it didn’t bother Adam. Unfortunately, biting cold also failed to intimidate Harry.
“Old Jeb really ought to seek out a position as royal weather predictor,” Harry said as they cantered through the front gate.
“There is no such position.”
“If Mad King George knew of Jeb’s abilities, he’d have the position created,” Harry insisted.
“If he heard you calling him Mad King George, he’d have you thrown in jail.”
Harry laughed. The man didn’t even take treason seriously.
“Jus’ so, Yer Grace,” a voice echoed across the paddock near the stables. “She’s a bit skittish ’s’morning, it bein’ so cold an’ all.”
“Haven’t you a horse who isn’t skittish about cold?”
Adam’s head snapped at the sound of Persephone’s voice. He hadn’t seen much of her in the two days since their encounter outside his book room. Part of the reason, he acknowledged, was that he’d been avoiding her. Something about Persephone made him uncomfortable.
Every other female he’d ever encountered was either instantly horrified or gave him the kind of sad look one generally reserved for injured puppies or fatally ill children. Persephone simply looked confused whenever they were in one another’s company. Adam hadn’t yet decided on the best course of action. Indecision was a feeling entirely foreign to him.
“There’s Atlas,” the groom who was standing near Persephone suggested.
John,
Adam identified him.
John Handly. Jeb’s son.
The man was good with horses. Persephone had sought out the right person if she was seeking any information about the stables. Wise girl.
“Atlas?” Persephone asked with a hint of doubt. “Who named him Atlas?”
“His Grace did,” John answered, the statement almost sounding like a question.
Adam was close enough to see a smile touch Persephone’s lips. “And His Grace does not think it a ridiculous name?” she asked, almost mockingly. “It being Greek and mythological?”
“I ’spect not, Yer Grace,” John replied. “Named ’is own mount, Zeus. That be one o’ them heathen gods, too.”
Persephone looked very near to laughing. A quick glance at Harry revealed that he, too, found the revelation particularly entertaining. They were laughing at him.
Adam tensed his jaw. “Such names are
not
ridiculous for horses.”
Persephone turned as he spoke, a look of embarrassed surprise on her face. Now she would slump her shoulders and tiptoe off. Adam watched and waited. But Persephone surprised him. Her jaw set, she seemed to square her shoulders and returned his gaze. “Then I had best search the forest for a sorceress who can transform me into a horse, or else I shall be doomed to spend the rest of my life in a constant state of ridiculousness.”
It was a set-down, Adam knew. And yet he couldn’t help feeling reluctantly impressed at her show of backbone. “You would make an atrocious horse, Persephone.” Adam dismounted with his back to her.
“There are some ‘obvious flaws’ in that plan, then?”
Again, a barbed comment. Adam had little experience being on the receiving end of criticism. “Why, precisely, have you come to the stables?” Adam allowed a stable lad to lead Zeus back to the stables while he moved to stand on Persephone’s right side.
“I was hoping to attempt to ride again.” Persephone watched Alibi, who was running in a rather erratic pattern around the paddock.
“How long have you been out of the saddle?” Adam asked.
“Ten years.”
“Ten years! And you were going to attempt to retake riding on
Alibi
?” Not such a wise girl, after all.
“No, Yer Grace,” John quickly jumped in. Like his father, Jeb, John had few qualms about addressing Adam without invitation; it was an impertinence that didn’t bother Adam in the least. He only interrupted or spoke up when the topic was one on which he was considered an expert. The man knew when to assert himself and when to hold his tongue. “She weren’t wanting to ride Alibi. Her Grace had only just arrived at the paddock an’ asked if the filly were ailin’ or upset.”
“Alibi is a fine horse in warm weather,” Adam explained to Persephone, hoping to stem the tide of any rash course of action she might be considering. It was his experience that people, in general, had a tendency to do incredibly stupid things when faced with situations they knew little of. “She is confined to the stables and the paddock in the cold.”
“I gathered as much from John,” Persephone replied. It was something near a scold. Adam turned his head enough to look more closely at her. No one ever scolded him. “He suggested Atlas as an appropriate mount. And I am inclined to agree, his name having instantly endeared me to the creature. I am assuming the horse is, indeed, a
he,
considering his namesake was most definitely male.”
“Another heathen god?” John asked her disapprovingly.
“Decidedly heathen,” Persephone answered with a growing smile.
“And was you named for one o’ them heathens, too?”
“A goddess,” Persephone nodded. “She was abducted by the god of the dead, who held her captive in the underworld. The Greeks believed that while Persephone was held prisoner, the world was plunged into cold and darkness.”
“Laws,” John whistled the word through the gap in his front teeth. “And how’d the Greeks say she escaped?”
“She was eventually permitted to leave, but only for part of the year. While she is free, they believed, the world saw growth and warmth and harvests. During those months when she returns to the underworld, the earth again mourns for her.”
“Such a sad story,” John said.
“It was merely an attempt by the ignorant to explain the changing of the seasons,” Adam grumbled.
“I have always thought it a very touching story,” Persephone said, in obvious disagreement with Adam’s assessment.
“That the poor gel got stolen off?” John asked her, disbelieving.
“It is a story so full of love. Her mother’s love and grief is what brings Persephone back to her family. And when she returns to her loved ones,” Persephone said, a look of sentimental longing on her face, “their joy is so full that the entire earth comes to life with the enormity of it.”
“Laws, that is a rather fine thing to think about.” John nodded. “Makes a man wish his parents had thought to give ’im a name with some kind of grand story to it. There must be loads of them stories from the Greeks.”
“I will not have you rechristening my stable staff with mythological names.” Adam worried at the moment that she might actually select a new name for John.
Persephone laughed, precisely as Harry would have. Harry did, in fact. He stood on Persephone’s other side. If Adam hadn’t kept his head turned in the other direction, he might have seen him there, and Harry’s sudden burst of laughter wouldn’t have been nearly so unexpected.
“Nonsense, John,” Persephone addressed the stable hand. “The Bible is filled with Johns who have rather fine stories attached to their names.”
John seemed to ponder that. “And them stories are true,” he said, as if discovering an added bonus.
“Precisely,” Persephone answered. “The story of my name may be touching, but it is not true.”
Then John, he of the gapped teeth and sun-ravaged face, smiled at Persephone with so much admiration, it was all Adam could do not to yank the man off his feet by his hair. Not that it was the poor man’s fault. A duchess ought not to be speaking so familiarly with a stable hand. It confused things. And Adam’s duchess ought not to have been the sort of lady to inspire admiration in all and sundry, in the first place. If Persephone had been anything like what he’d expected, Adam’s life wouldn’t have been plunged so suddenly into confusion.
And John was still smiling.
“Are you going to saddle Her Grace’s mount, or shall I be forced to do it personally?” Adam growled.
John seemed to snap to attention. “’Pologies.” He pulled his forelock. “Would Atlas be suitable, Yer Grace?”
“Fine,” Adam snapped.
John disappeared into the stables. Adam took a few breaths to compose himself. He’d never before had to try so hard to control his emotions. He’d always been one to hold to a steely calm.
“So you are really going to try riding again?” Harry asked Persephone.
“To be perfectly honest, I am not certain one could accurately call my previous experience ‘riding.’ Our neighbors, the Uptons, allowed me to ride a pony of theirs on occasion when I was a child. If memory serves, that particular pony was in his second decade and did little more than shift his weight.”
“Then you have never truly ridden?” Harry sounded astonished.
“Impoverished grandsons of only slightly less impoverished barons do not keep a stable, Harry,” Persephone answered with an ironic laugh.
Alibi was being led—forced was, perhaps, the more apt description—from the paddock, and Atlas was being brought out of the stables.
Adam surveyed the gelding with a critical eye. Persephone had never ridden; not if her description of that pony was accurate. Atlas was calm today. But, then, Atlas always was. He was slow, sedate, moving more like a heavy-laden work horse than the riding mount he was. It was the reason Adam had chosen Atlas as his name. The gelding moved as though he bore the entire heavens on his shoulders.
Atlas’s one drawback was size. Standing more than fifteen hands high, Atlas might be too large for Persephone, especially considering her lack of experience. But Adam was certain there were no ponies in the stables. And many of the others, Alibi for instance, were not as large but hadn’t the temperament for an unskilled rider.
“Fiend seize it,” Adam growled. Why was it that Persephone constantly presented him with situations for which he had no solution? Adam was not accustomed to being at a loss.
“He’s calm an’ steady, Yer Grace,” John said to Persephone, still smiling like a besotted calfling.
Adam thought he heard Persephone take a deep breath, as if to calm herself, before making her way into the paddock. Was she nervous? Horses could sense discomfort, and it made them nervous in return. Adam grew evermore uncertain about Persephone’s plan.
Atlas shimmied a little as Persephone approached. She stopped, stiff and watching.
“He’ll not hurt you.” John encouraged Persephone on.
Adam wondered if she would continue on. Most likely, Persephone would bow out of the whole thing and skitter off. People, in general, were cowards.
“Can I give him a carrot?” Persephone asked John uncertainly.
“’Ave you got a carrot?”
Her eyes never left Atlas. “I brought one from the kitchens.” She patted her coat pocket.
Adam realized, watching her, that Persephone was not dressed for riding. Where was her habit? Her riding whip? The bonnet she was wearing would not stay on should Atlas give her much of a jarring. “Ridiculous,” Adam mumbled, but for once he didn’t turn away from something he found absurd. Something in him wanted to know if she would mount, if she would see through what she’d set out to accomplish.
“The Uptons’ pony was fond of carrots,” Persephone further explained.
“Perhaps the poor thing waddled so much because he was overfed,” Harry called out with a chuckle.
Persephone glanced back at him and smiled her amusement, the first true smile Adam had ever seen from his wife. It was perfect: lovely, straight, white teeth, mouth turned up symmetrically, no scars to cause grotesque pulls and puckering in her face. It was the sort of smile a man ought to be in raptures over. But Adam only felt an overwhelming frustration at seeing yet another reason why Persephone was not at all what he’d wanted in a bride.
She was laughing, and the sound pulled Adam from his thoughts.
“He didn’ nip you, did he?” John asked.
“Not at all.” Persephone still flashed that radiant smile. “Only surprised me.”
“If you don’t want him snapping food from your hands, don’t bring any with you.”
“I will remember that, thank you, Harry.” Persephone seemed to roll her eyes. Adam nodded his approval of her response: useless advice ought to be dismissed.
“’E’ll be calmer while he’s eating.” John motioned with his head toward the saddle and mounting block already in place.
Persephone hesitated. She eyed Atlas with obvious apprehension.
She was going to back down, Adam was certain of it. He shook his head. One didn’t shrink from challenges, one faced them head-on.
Adam pushed away from the paddock fence. “If she and Atlas part company, see to it that John has her brought up to the castle,” Adam mumbled to Harry and began walking away.
“Don’t you even want to see her try?” The chastisement in Harry’s words was too pointed for Adam’s taste.
“She is backing down already. I have seen enough people quit in my lifetime without witnessing the same thing again.” Adam heard the tinge of bitterness in his voice and hated it.
“I think she might surprise you.”
Adam continued to walk away. But, only a few steps later, he found himself slowing his pace. Then, almost against his will, Adam looked back.
Persephone was on the mounting block, listening intently to instructions from John, while two stable hands stood nearby, ensuring Atlas kept still.
Adam stood frozen, watching. She’d been nervous, that had been apparent. And if her rapt attention were any indication, she still was. But she had come this far.
After a moment’s hesitation, Persephone was in the awkward sidesaddle, attempting to arrange her inadequate skirts into some semblance of propriety. Her grip on the reins was a touch too tight, but otherwise she gave the impression of being nearly at ease.
“Hmm,” Adam grunted. She hadn’t run. That was unexpected.
He gave a nod of approval that stopped almost instantly at a flash of ankle from the would-be rider.
“Needs a bloody riding habit.” Adam turned to make his way back to the house.
Persephone had a little steel in her. That was good, Adam thought to himself. She was going to need it.