Chapter Four
“What did you do to Jones?” Harry asked, watching the coward’s head-hanging retreat from the book room.
“I fired him,” Adam said.
“Again?”
Adam didn’t answer but kept his eyes firmly fixed on the roaring fire from his preferred armchair nearby.
“How many times have you fired the poor man?” Harry dropped into the chair opposite Adam’s. He always made himself perfectly at home in Adam’s book room, a presumption that drove Adam absolutely crazy.
Adam shrugged. “Six. Seven. And every time he sulks away like a lily-livered coward.”
“You didn’t pull a pistol on him this time, did you?”
“I have never pulled a pistol on Josiah Jones,” Adam insisted curtly. Harry looked doubtful. “I may have held an épée to his throat once or twice, but he was never in any real danger.”
“Did he know that?” Harry asked with a raise of his eyebrow.
“The man may have been operating under a false assumption.” Adam leaned his head back casually, crossing his booted feet where they rested on a footstool. “Can’t imagine why.”
“Perhaps it has something to do with your less-than-pristine reputation, Adam. Rumor has it you’ve run through a few men in your time.”
“Rumor has it I’ve done quite a few things.” Adam rolled his eyes.
“Fought a duel on the floor of the House of Lords, for example,” Harry said.
“Ridiculous.”
“Shot the pistol out of a man’s hands in a duel, without so much as winging him,” Harry continued.
Adam nodded. “Twice.”
“Bested Gentleman Jackson.”
Adam smiled at the memory. That had been extremely gratifying.
“Bloodied Poisenby’s nose at a ball.” Harry was smiling. He’d been there for that now-famous occurrence.
“Broke his nose,” Adam amended.
“Walked out of Lords in the middle of a speech by Addington.”
“The man was being obtuse,” Adam said.
“He was the prime minister,” Harry pointed out.
Adam just shrugged. The papers had spoken of little else for several weeks after his abrupt departure from the House of Lords that day. But he’d made his point.
“And you wonder why Jones thinks the worst whenever you’re angry with him,” Harry said with an ironic twist to his mouth.
“He’ll recover.”
“I hate to even ask,” Harry prefaced.
“Then don’t,” Adam answered.
Harry, as usual, ignored him. “Why did you let the man go this time?”
“He has apparently lost his mind.”
“How so?”
“Why are you so deuced curious?”
“You provide me with constant puzzles,” Harry answered. “What, precisely, has caused you to question your man of business’s mental capacity?”
“He gave me some advice—”
“Ah.” Harry shook his head.
“—that proved remarkably stupid,” Adam finished.
“As stupid as sitting up in one’s book room with one’s friend on one’s wedding night?” An ironic twinkle lit Harry’s eyes. “Because that, Adam, is a level of idiocy far and above ordinary stupidity.”
Adam clamped his jaw shut. He would spend his wedding night wherever he chose. “I stood through the wedding, endured the wedding breakfast, and spent an interminable dinner with my flock of new sisters-in-law.”
“Did they stare at you?” Harry asked, unaffected by the cold glare Adam skewered him with. “It would be understandable, you know. Not having been warned.”
“I ought to have written, then?” Adam didn’t hold back the sarcasm in his tone. “I suppose I should have included a postscript with the proposal. ‘By the way, I have a mutilated face that you will be forced to see day in and day out for the rest of your life. Hope that’s not a problem.’”
“Perhaps not those precise words.” Harry had the audacity to sound on the verge of laughing.
“I was thinking more along the lines of, ‘I should mention that I am often cranky and will probably bite your head off at every little thing. And it would be best if you came to Falstone a day or so ahead of time so you can get a good look at me before making any of this irrevocable.’ That would have been a good idea, you know.”
“Should I have posed for a miniature, do you think?”
Harry nodded. “Full right profile. And you should have made a list of all the rumors circulating about you, indicating those that were true, those that were exaggerations of the truth, those which were untrue but plausible, and those which were completely absurd.”
Adam allowed his lips to turn up ever so slightly. “There are few rumors that would be considered completely absurd.”
“She ought to have known that ahead of time.” Harry sounded almost scolding. “’Twould have been only fair.”
“She wasn’t exactly forthcoming, either, I will have you know.”
“Forgot to mention something important?” Harry asked. “Like another husband, perhaps? A third limb?”
“Her name is Persephone.” Adam gave the revelation all the emphasis it deserved. Much to his satisfaction, Harry looked taken aback. “A man ought to know a thing like that about his future wife. Persephone Iphigenia. What a bloody ridiculous thing to name a child.”
“So you are spending your wedding night in a chair in your book room because your new wife’s parents had a rather classical taste in names?” Harry shook his head in disbelief. “I’m beginning to think Addington isn’t the only obtuse gentleman in England.”
Adam didn’t care for the insinuation. “My pistols are kept in this room, you know.”
“Do I look worried?” was the flippant response.
Harry never was appropriately subdued by Adam’s threats. Infuriating man.
“I had a chance to speak briefly with your new bride, Adam. She was delightful. Perhaps a little quiet, but that is to be expected considering the upheaval in her life lately. I’ll confess I had expected someone rather long in the tooth, rather long in the face, in all honesty.”
“So did I,” Adam grumbled.
“But she’s a fetching thing,” Harry continued.
“Young and quite pretty—” Harry stopped abruptly.
He gave Adam a searching look. Adam glared back, daring Harry to make some philosophical remark or assessment.
Harry, as always, did just that. “You expected someone desperate and ugly and undesirable. Instead, your bride turned out to be a vast deal more than passable.” Harry shook his head.
“Not quite what you bargained for, I’d guess. ”
Adam turned his gaze to the fire and kept his jaw firmly clamped. He would not honor that assessment with a response. His marriage was no one’s business but his own.
“So, because she is young and fine looking and appears to be good natured, the poor girl is upstairs, alone, probably wondering what she’s done wrong, and you are down here brooding. Adam, you are completely bacon-brained.”
“I should call you out for that.”
“Do,” Harry answered. “But not tonight. I’m tired.” Harry rose to his feet. “Call me out tomorrow, would you? I’ll most likely pick pistols, by the way. I’d like to see that shoot-the-weapon-out-of-my-hand trick I’ve heard so much about.”
“I ought to lock you in the dungeon,” Adam muttered as Harry made to leave.
“You should,” Harry agreed, walking to the door. “No point having a dungeon if no one is ever consigned to suffer in it.”
“Pack your things and take yourself off at first light.” Adam’s demand emerged half-hearted.
“Am I supposed to walk out of here stooped and defeated now?” Harry turned back to face Adam from his position at the threshold. “I don’t think I would play that role nearly as well as Jones.”
“Don’t mock me.”
Harry smiled. “‘Night, Adam.”
“‘Night.” Presumptuous lout.
“And Adam?”
“What?” he snapped.
“Give the poor girl a chance,” Harry said. “Ain’t her fault you ended up with every man’s idea of a perfect wife. She could probably even manage to be a nag if you asked her.”
So Adam threw a book at him.
Harry’s laughter echoed in the empty corridor as he made his way toward the room he always occupied when he visited.
“I don’t know why I keep inviting him back,” Adam mumbled.
Harry had an annoying habit of interfering in Adam’s life.
He never found Adam remotely off-putting and always laughed off every threat Adam made against his person.
Furthermore, he was precisely the sort of gentleman Adam generally avoided: easy in society, handsome, self-assured.
If he’d been an idiot into the bargain, Adam would have despised him.
As it was, Adam wasn’t entirely sure why he didn’t dislike him.
He’d hit a nerve that night, however. Adam found himself thinking of Persephone—ridiculous name. She probably was wondering where Adam was. Though, more likely than not, she would be grateful to be spared the sight of him. He certainly had no intention of inflicting himself on her.
Adam pulled himself up out of his chair.
He was tired, he had to admit. And spending the night sleeping in his chair, as comfortable as it was, did not appeal to him.
He walked quietly from the book room, up a flight of stairs, passing tapestries and arms and tables holding mementos passed down by generations of Boyces.
He dismissed his valet on the spot, preferring to divest himself of his wedding clothes on his own. He was finding the attire almost suffocating at the moment.
Jones ought to have known better, he thought for the hundredth time that day. Adam had been very specific in his requirements. Someone who needed his money. Someone with no other prospects. Someone who would be grateful for even a hideous husband.
Jones had chosen Persephone Iphigenia Lancaster.
Adam muttered a curse. So much for thwarting Mr. Gordon Hewitt. A young, pretty wife would want nothing to do with Adam.
Adam’s eyes wandered, of their own volition, to the door connecting his bedchamber with the new duchess’s.
It sounds like I’m accusing you of a crime. Adam nearly smiled at the memory of her words. He’d known immediately what she’d meant: killed her. The name did sound that way, though no one had ever said so before.
She was intelligent, on top of it all. Intelligent and witty and beautiful. And they were stuck with each other.