Chapter Twelve
“I didn’t poison the port.” Adam and Hewitt sat in uncomfortable silence after dinner the night after the interloper’s arrival at Falstone. “It’s actually quite good.”
“Yes, of course.” Hewitt cleared his throat nervously and raised the glass of red liquid shakily to his lips.
Adam managed not to roll his eyes. How could this man possibly be related to him? He had no backbone whatsoever.
“Delicious,” Hewitt croaked out, seemingly surprised to find he was, indeed, still alive.
In an apparent effort to please his host, Hewitt threw back his entire portion and promptly found himself in the midst of an all-consuming bout of sputters and coughs.
“I . . .” He coughed, making an almost pained face.
“. . . that was . . .” He cleared his throat several times.
“. . . delicious.” Hewitt wiped a tear from his eyes. “Delicious.”
“Yes.” Adam nodded, taking a more moderate portion from his own glass and watching Hewitt quite as if nothing untoward had just occurred. “What brings you to Falstone?” Adam set his glass on the table and turned his intense gaze on his cousin.
Hewitt went just a touch pale. Coward. “My—my mother.” His voice even cracked as he spoke, despite his being several years Adam’s senior. “She suggested I stop on my way back to Yorkshire.”
“Unless you were returning by way of Scotland, I seriously doubt Falstone was ‘on your way’ to Yorkshire.”
Hewitt cleared his throat and looked very much as if he wished for another glass of port, sputtering or no. “I did tell Mother that.” Hewitt tugged at his cravat. “She felt certain you wouldn’t mind.”
No doubt she also wouldn’t mind if Hewitt fingered a few things to take back with him to the bevy of “G”s at home.
“How do you find your accommodations?” Adam propped his elbows on the table, interlocking his fingers and resting his chin on them, keeping his eyes glued to Hewitt’s face. The scrutiny made Hewitt fidget. People always revealed more than they planned when they felt uncomfortable.
“The Orange Chamber is . . . is very . . .” Hewitt finally decided on “quiet.”
“Quiet?”
Hewitt looked away. The Orange Chamber could be very quiet—it being the most remote of the castle’s fifty-plus guest chambers.
“It has a fine view,” Adam added. The Orange Chamber overlooked the back courtyard of Falstone, where the remains of a still-usable gibbet and stocks stood. Adam wondered if Hewitt recognized what he saw out his bedchamber windows.
“Yes,” Hewitt said quietly.
Adam stood. “Let us join Her Grace in the drawing room.”
Adam let his eyebrows furrow as he led the way from the dining room, Hewitt only a few steps behind him.
The man was as much of an idiot as he had been on his last visit, even if he had refrained from summing up the value of his future acquisitions.
Probably because there was nothing left for him to assess.
A footman opened the drawing room doors as Adam and Hewitt approached, effectively warning Persephone of their arrival. In fact, she watched the door as they entered, a smile touching her face, though not the blinding smile she’d offered Harry the morning before.
Adam felt an inexplicable twinge of regret.
“I am afraid we haven’t much to offer by way of entertainment,” Persephone said to Hewitt. “I am hardly a musician, nor am I much of a conversationalist.”
The apology grated at Adam. She ought not to feel the need to apologize to Hewitt.
He was the interloper, the uninvited guest. Hewitt ought to be whimpering and sniveling and taking himself off in a fit of devastation at her very presence.
Persephone’s arrival at Falstone, as far as Hewitt knew, spelled the end of any hope the G.
Hewitts had of getting their hands on the Kielder legacy.
“Then we must simply speak of Shropshire, Your Grace.” Much of Hewitt’s early discomfort dissipated. “I passed through your home county only this week, you must realize.”
“Did you, indeed?” Persephone’s eyes widened with obvious pleasure. “How did you find Shropshire?” She motioned for Hewitt to take the chair near the sofa where she sat.
Silently daring both Hewitt and Persephone to gawk at him, Adam took his seat directly beside his wife and attempted to appear enthralled by their discussion of various types of trees and wildlife.
He found, however, that his gaze, which he intended to have shifted between Hewitt and Persephone as they spoke, kept returning to his wife.
He hadn’t seen her so animated in the three-plus weeks she’d been at Falstone. Harry had occasionally brought a twinkle to her eyes. But she seemed to have come alive under Hewitt’s influence.
Adam didn’t like it at all.
“Both boys are on the Triumphant,” Persephone said to Hewitt.
“Both together?”
“My grandfather called in a few favors, I believe,” Persephone said. “Linus was so young when they left. We all felt better knowing Evander would be with him.”
“I doubt Evander was much older.”
Persephone shook her head. “He was twelve.”
“A little young to be starting in the navy,” Hewitt acknowledged.
“Far too young for my comfort.” For the first time, Adam heard worry in her tone. She’d spoken of her brothers before, but never with such feeling. Why had Hewitt inspired such confessions when he, her husband, received little more than a laundry list of information about her life and family?
Because that is the way it should be, Adam reminded himself. He begged confidences from no one.
“They are in the Atlantic, then?”
Persephone nodded. “Not far from Spain, last I heard.”
“There is a great deal of activity in that part of the world just now.”
“Do not remind me,” Persephone said. “I worry over them almost constantly.”
“Each has the other to look after him, though.” Hewitt offered an understanding smile. “And, if my understanding of our naval men is accurate, they will find a great deal of loyalty in their shipmates as well.”
“Yes, thank you.” Persephone returned his smile. “That does put my mind a little at ease.”
Hewitt’s smile grew, until his eyes met Adam’s, and then the smile disappeared in an instant.
That was much better.
* * *
Hewitt had been at Falstone for three days, and Adam was only refraining from strangling the man by sheer willpower.
He sniveled and slumped when taken one-on-one but regained his equilibrium in Persephone’s presence.
Adam watched for any signs of infatuation but found none on either side, which was extremely fortunate for Hewitt.
Else he would quickly find that not all the rumors about the Duke of Kielder were exaggerations.
Despite theirs being only a budding friendship, Persephone’s and Hewitt’s ease with one another did not sit well with Adam because, he told himself, it would be impossible to get Hewitt to resent Persephone’s presence if he liked her so very much.
Hewitt was supposed to see her as a threat, as the one person who could prevent his obtaining his inheritance.
Then, when Hewitt was at his most dejected, Adam could throw him out, content in the knowledge that Hewitt would never return.
Adam had taken pains to sit beside Persephone at every opportunity in Hewitt’s presence. He was finding it was not much of a chore. She would occasionally produce one of her magnificent smiles, or she would laugh with real enjoyment, and Adam found himself very nearly smiling in response.
Adam grew more adept at maneuvering their relative positions so his unmarred side was exposed to his picturesque bride.
It did occur to Adam on one or two occasions to wonder at his insistence at keeping his scars from her.
He hadn’t hidden them since his childhood.
He had decided then not to allow his deformities to cow him, to not let others use his pain as a weapon.
But from the moment he’d seen Persephone in Falstone Chapel, he’d been unwilling—practically unable—to give her the opportunity to be disgusted by him. And she hadn’t been. Yet.
Hewitt hadn’t choked on his port at dinner, Adam noticed as they walked to the drawing room on the third night of Hewitt’s sojourn.
At least he had improved in that respect.
He had, however, quickly backed out of the sitting room that afternoon when Adam had pulled out his dueling pistols.
He’d only intended to clean them. Coward, Adam remembered with a smile.
Stepping through the drawing room doors, Adam’s eyes automatically sought out Persephone. She did not smile up at them at their arrival as she had the last two days but remained seated, bent over a paper in her hands.
Adam tensed. She hadn’t obtained another map, had she? He strode across the room, determined not to let Hewitt see her studying the layout of her own home. Upon closer observation, Adam realized the paper was filled with writing, a letter, perhaps.
She seemed to take notice of his approach and looked up at him. Her eyes filled with tears even as more coursed down her face. She looked between Adam and Hewitt, her eyes almost pleading for something, but what, Adam couldn’t say.
A sudden surge of sympathy clamped his mouth shut. He did not want emotional attachments, he did not want to feel sympathy or concern.
Hewitt spoke first. “Good heavens. What on earth has happened?”
“There has been a battle.” Persephone’s voice shook.
Her brothers. Adam felt his stomach knot.
“One week ago,” Persephone said.
October 21, Adam calculated in his head.
“Near Cape Trafalgar.” Her words were halting and difficult to discern. “The Triumphant sustained heavy losses.”
“And what of your brothers?” Hewitt asked the question on the tip of Adam’s tongue.
The tears picked up pace as her chin began to quiver.
No. Adam sat beside her on the sofa, at a loss.
“Evander is dead.”