Chapter Fourteen
He never should have bought the bloody riding habit.
Adam threw open the glass-inlaid doors of his book room, inviting the sting of cold night air.
It had been a whim, he told himself. Persephone had needed a habit.
He could just as well have left ordering one up to her.
Why he’d taken it upon himself, Adam couldn’t say. And, of course, he’d made a mull of it.
That was what came of acting impulsively.
He’d sent out the order that first day Persephone had attempted to ride.
He hadn’t even waited to see if she stuck with the undertaking.
And, as if anxious to add to his folly, he’d also sent out orders for boots, gloves, and a riding hat.
Her measurements had been taken by a highly recommended seamstress in York, should she require anything be made.
That circumstance had made making a fool of himself far too easy.
But, unbidden, came the image of Persephone brushing her fingers along the fabric of her new habit. He knew the wool was particularly fine, he’d seen it on his last trip to York. Its quality was, in fact, the reason he’d specifically requested the habit be made from that bolt of wool.
“A person ought to be comfortable when riding,” Adam told himself firmly. His choice had nothing to do with the fact that he’d known, almost instinctively, that she would be delighted by the softness of it. He never indulged in that sort of sentimentality.
A howl cut through the silence of the night.
Adam glanced out over the forest, the home of England’s only remaining pack of wolves.
If one insisted on complete accuracy, the pack in Falstone Forest were not technically wolves.
Over the centuries since the forest was planted, the wolves who had lived there mingled with feral dogs that had found their way inside.
But the resulting mongrels looked and acted like wolves, so the word stuck.
Besides, if any man in England ought to have his own personal pack of wolves, the Duke of Kielder ought.
So he never corrected the locals. Wolves he wanted, so wolves he had.
Another howl pierced the air. The pack was more vocal on winter nights than any other time of the year.
The scarcity of food, no doubt, required they hunt more than in milder seasons.
Being confined to such a small stretch of woodland significantly limited their sources of nourishment.
The pack always ended the winter fewer in number than it had begun.
Other than the wind, which seemed never to cease from November on through the winter, and the occasional sounds of the pack echoing from the forest, winters were quiet at Falstone. The nights, Adam had found long ago, could be completely silent otherwise.
“I wonder what Persephone will think of that.” The moment he spoke the thought, Adam clamped his mouth shut. Had he lost his mind entirely? At what point had he begun to care what other people thought of his home?
He spun around, slamming the doors shut behind him.
He would not turn into a sentimental fool.
He didn’t care what others thought. Of him.
Of his home. Nothing anyone said impacted him in the least—hadn’t for years, in fact.
That, he told himself as he stepped inside his bedchamber, was not going to change.
Except that he couldn’t seem to get out of his mind the memory of Persephone stroking that wool. She really had appreciated it, noticed its softness.
Adam flung his jacket on to a chair, followed by his waistcoat.
Persephone had seemed sincere when she’d thanked him for it. Not that he’d wanted her gratitude. Gratitude could be as painful as pity.
Where had that ridiculous thought come from?
Somewhere in Falstone Forest another wolf howled into the night.
“Precisely,” Adam grunted and dropped onto his bed, having dismissed his valet, something he’d been doing more often lately.
He hadn’t altered his routine in ten years or more.
Now he was buying his wife clothes on a whim, cutting his ride short to watch Persephone’s riding lessons, lying awake on his bed, not bothering to change into his nightshirt, listening to the wolves break the silence of the night.
“I’m losing my bloody mind.” It was not a comforting thought.
Adam closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath.
He seldom needed to calm himself. Adam prided himself on never being truly riled or out of control.
Few people would believe as much, most being convinced he was apt to snap in a fit of rage or anger.
But he never actually lost control of his emotions.
Frustration threatened to overwhelm him: frustration with himself, with the sham of a marriage he’d brought on himself, with his own stupidity in allowing another person’s judgment to take the place of his in a matter as important as choosing his wife.
His father wouldn’t have done anything so brainless. The Old Duke, as most of the Falstone staff still called Adam’s father, had been decisive and strong and unyielding, never vacillating over a decision or being cowed by another person’s disapproval.
Dukes, Adam had learned early on, were authoritative and strong. They didn’t worry about being liked. They didn’t hide from the world, no matter how much they wished to. Dukes knew their responsibilities and carried out their duties to the letter. They commanded attention. And they were never weak.
So why, over the past week, had Adam, seeing Persephone’s visible pain at the loss of a brother so young and so obviously dear, found himself wishing he knew what to say, what to do when tears crept into her eyes or when she seemed to suddenly retreat into herself?
Tears are weakness. He’d been told as much many times. Weak and vulnerable. Dukes are neither. Duchesses, neither, he would guess. Adam had never seen his mother cry. She looked pityingly at him, but she never shed a tear. He’d assumed Persephone would be the same. Now he didn’t know what to do.
His door scraped open. Had Hewitt come to murder him in his sleep? The thought brought a laughing grin to Adam’s face. The man really was an idiot. Obviously he didn’t realize Adam kept a gun in his room.
“Adam?”
No. That was Persephone. What the deuce was she doing in his bedchamber? Adam kept himself still, not opening his eyes or indicating he was awake. Maybe she would go away.
A howl echoed outside. On its heels came the sound of Persephone taking a shaky breath. “Adam?” she asked again.
He didn’t answer. A second howl filled the silence. Adam heard Persephone’s footfall, soft and quiet. He opened one eye just a sliver. Was she leaving? No. She had merely crossed to his window, pulled back one of the heavy velvet curtains, and peered outside.
What was she looking for? A third wolf call answered Adam’s unspoken question. Persephone let the curtain drop on the instant and took another haggard breath.
“Why won’t they stop?” she whispered to herself. She sounded genuinely worried.
She was afraid of the wolves? That was hardly sensible. The pack was out in the forest, while she was within the walls of the castle. What harm could they possibly do?
“You are fine,” he heard Persephone say to herself.
Adam managed to stop the smile that wanted to spread across his face. She had some steel to her, he had to admit.
“They’re far away,” she continued softly, moving slowly back toward the door connecting his bedchamber to hers. She looked more like a little girl than a duchess, wrapped as she was in a thick blanket, her bare feet peeking out beneath the edge. “They can’t possibly—”
Another howl.
Something like a whimper escaped from the retreating blanket, and before Adam had a chance to even contemplate what she was doing, Persephone climbed onto the opposite side of his bed, curled into what looked like a ball of blanket.
Yet another poorly thought-out plan of his had backfired.
If he’d simply answered her when she’d come in and sent her back to her room with a flea in her ear, he wouldn’t be in such a predicament.
She was in his room, one of his sanctuaries, one of the places no one ever came. And she was acting like a coward.
She had tried, he told himself, then just as quickly dismissed the obvious justification.
“I’m sorry, Adam,” she suddenly whispered.
For a moment he thought she realized he’d only pretended to sleep.
To be found out shamming his wife was rather humiliating, a feeling he was not accustomed to.
But she continued on, much to Adam’s relief.
It seemed she believed she was apologizing to her sleeping husband. “I am trying to be brave.”
She, apparently, never gained any courage.
Persephone remained wrapped in her cocoon on his bed all that night.
Adam knew she hadn’t left—he’d hardly slept.
He was unaccustomed to the sound of another person breathing in his room—not to mention the little noises she made while she slept, and the fact that she moved several times an hour.
Sometime before dawn, Persephone awoke. Adam did as well, and watched, though he feigned sleep, as she walked slowly and quietly from the room, still wrapped in her blanket. It seemed as if she didn’t want him to know she’d been there.
The wolves, he noticed, were silent. Adam wondered if Persephone would have remained if they’d still been howling. Was she more afraid of them or of him? He was used to being feared, but, inexplicably, he almost hoped she found the wolves the more fearsome possibility.
* * *
“Of course you must see to your mother,” Persephone said to Hewitt that afternoon as one of the Kielder coaches was being loaded with the man’s mountains of traveling trunks.
Other than an extra dose of awkwardness when Adam had first encountered her earlier in the morning, Persephone gave no indication that anything out of the ordinary had occurred the night before.
So she didn’t plan to admit to her fear or her unexpected remedy?
Adam didn’t know what he thought about that.
He listened to the exchange as he stood beside Persephone, deliberately placing himself where Hewitt was certain to notice his close proximity to his wife. Let Hewitt leave with the picture of marital bliss, feigned though it was—fresh in his mind to make him uneasy all the way back to York.
“I hope she is not terribly ill,” Persephone said.
Hewitt shook his head. “My mother fancies herself ill when I have been gone longer than expected.”
Rather tied to the apron strings, wasn’t he?
“That must impact your ability to travel freely.” Persephone seemed quite empathetic to Hewitt’s cause, as if he hadn’t brought most of the inconvenience on himself by putting up with his parent’s nonsense as he had.
Hewitt nodded.
Adam shook his head. “Haven’t you any brothers capable of tending her?” Hewitt had obviously never thought the problem through very well.
A nervous cough preceded Hewitt’s reply. If only the man would grow a spine and learn to speak up for himself. Thinking of that slug of a man as the next Duke of Kielder positively nauseated Adam.
“My brothers are quite capable,” Hewitt said, still that faint hint of apology in his tone. “But as the eldest son, I feel, morally, ethically, it really is my responsibility. My duty.”
So Hewitt did have an ounce of conviction in him, after all. Adam hated to make the begrudging concession, but he was never one to deny giving credit where it was due. Hewitt was still an idiot—reference the rather pathetic conversation they’d had over port the night before.
“The woods in this part of the country are quite impressive,” Hewitt had said. “To think the Druids, themselves, may well have walked beneath those very trees.”
“Provided the Druids had the ability to travel across time,” Adam had answered dryly. “Falstone Forest has only been in existence for four hundred years.”
How could a man so ignorant of the traditions surrounding Falstone and the Kielder holdings possibly be in line to inherit them? Idiot.
“Do come visit again,” Adam heard Persephone say to Hewitt. Before he had a chance to contradict her invitation, Hewitt was passing beneath the inner arch and on his way from Falstone.
Persephone looked up at Adam, her expression unreadable. “He can no longer see you.”
Adam raised an eyebrow in inquiry. What had that comment signified?
“You need not keep pretending that you enjoy standing beside me.” She turned and slowly, with almost tangible dignity, made her way through the enormous front doors of Falstone Castle.
Gone, it seemed, was the quaking figure who had hidden from wolves during the night. Adam appreciated her courage—he always applauded shows of spirit—but the stinging rebuke she’d served him along with it struck home with more force than he cared for.
“Should have tossed her off the bed with the first noise she made.” But he heard in his voice something he hadn’t heard in years: a threat that came across as completely hollow.