“I told you I would be careful.” His usual gruffness nearly disappeared in the weariness so heavy in his tone.
“I suppose I should have believed you.” Persephone wished they were comfortable enough with each other to reach out to him, to comfort him the way she would have any other member of her family.
“Yes, you should have.”
“You look cold,” Persephone said. Why did conversation between them have to be so awkward?
“I am freezing.”
“You should change. Something warm and dry.”
“Harry—”
“Mr. Johns will see to Harry.”
“Are you to be my voice of reason, then?” Adam asked, almost chuckling. He reached out a hand and briefly touched her cheek.
It was so unexpected, Persephone involuntarily flinched. Adam pulled his hand away on the spot, his mouth tightening to a tense line.
“Your hand was cold,” Persephone said, wishing he would reach for her again.
“My apologies,” he said rather formally. “If you will excuse me, I have been told that I ought to change out of my cold, wet clothes.”
“I am glad you have returned, Adam,” Persephone said as he stepped past her. She laid her hand on the cheek he’d touched.
It was the first time in a month that anyone, other than the stable hands who helped her mount, had intentionally touched her. She hadn’t realized until that moment how deeply she’d craved human contact, how much she’d missed the simple gesture of being touched.
Adam had been so gentle, so kind, in that brief moment. If only, she thought to herself, he could be that way more often.
Chapter Seventeen
Adam flung his damp cravat toward his valet. The boots had been the first thing to come off. Adam vaguely remembered a pair of woolen stockings his nurse would put him in on cold winter mornings. Whatever had happened to Nurse “Robbie?” He hadn’t thought of her in years. She used to sing some ridiculous song to him about a boy the size of a thistle. He used to ask her to sing it over and over, and she always did.
What had brought back that memory? Adam wondered, buttoning up a clean waistcoat. It was a far more sentimental thought than he usually indulged in.
Adam shook it off. His valet approached with a claret-colored jacket, one Weston had been particularly proud of. He often wore that jacket in Town. It was the latest cut and fashion, and deucedly uncomfortable. Generally speaking, he willingly endured the minimized range of movement required to cut an impressive figure—impressions were everything in society. But in that moment, for the first time in memory, Adam cared not at all how impressive he looked.
“Not the claret, Hansen.” He nearly smiled at the look of shock on the face of the man who’d been his valet for ten years. “The brown wool.”
Hansen’s eyes doubled in size. Adam actually did smile at that. At the sight of Adam smiling, Hansen’s jaw dropped. Adam shook his head, holding back a chuckle. “Harry doesn’t care what I’m wearing,” Adam said, unsure why he was explaining himself. “And the wool will be warmer.”
Hansen nodded mutely and returned to the wardrobe to seek out the usually overlooked jacket.
Walking down the corridor to Harry’s chamber, Adam felt excessively pleased with his choice. He might actually thaw out from the hours-long drive to retrieve his one and only friend.
“He looks remarkably ill.” Persephone’s voice floated out Harry’s bedchamber.
Adam approached slowly. In the back of his mind the memory surfaced of Persephone standing at the top of the staircase, obviously relieved to see him.
“Mr. Windover will recover easily enough,” Mr. Johns said. “I’ve sent Cook instructions for a tisane.”
Adam stood in the doorway of Harry’s bedchamber, watching Persephone.
“Then I am certain he will be fine,” Persephone said. “My husband has expressed his confidence in your abilities. Just this morning, in fact, he spoke quite highly of your competency.”
“Did he, indeed?” Mr. Johns sounded genuinely surprised by the praise.
Adam was a little surprised by it as well. He may have expressed his confidence in the apothecary to Persephone but had hardly expected her to reiterate his words.
“That means a great deal.” Mr. Johns still sounded a bit taken aback. “His Grace is not known to be extravagant in his praise.”
“No, he is not,” Persephone confirmed.
“Hm,” Mr. Johns said, something between a chuckle and an expression of surprise.
When the apothecary drifted back toward Harry’s bed, offering instructions to Harry’s valet, Adam stepped inside.
“Adam.” He couldn’t tell from Persephone’s tone if she was happy to see him or not. A blush spread across her face, and her eyes almost immediately lowered.
Because he’d touched her, Adam assumed. He hadn’t intended to. It had been an impulse, one he had uncharacteristically acted on.
She’d flinched, immediately backed away from his touch. She’d said something about his hand being cold, but Adam felt certain that was not the reason.
“Mr. Johns seems quite confident that Harry will recover,” Persephone said.
“That is reassuring.”
He forced his eyes toward Harry but found he wanted to keep watching Persephone. Was she afraid of him? Repulsed? Indifferent? Somehow he couldn’t imagine Persephone being indifferent to anyone. Unlike himself, she seemed to feel something for every person she met.
“The fever is not dangerously high,” Mr. Johns said. “I have provided some powders that should help bring him around.”
“Thank you, Mr. Johns.” Adam couldn’t remember the last time the apothecary had spoken to him with so much ease. Generally he stammered and sputtered.
Mr. Johns smiled as if Adam had offered him a compliment. “A couple days in bed should put him to rights. I’ve instructed his man on treatment and administering the tisane.”
Adam had never seen Mr. Johns look more confident. Could a simple compliment heard secondhand change a man so much?
“Then we should probably let Mr. Windover’s man see to him,” Persephone suggested.
“I haven’t had a chance to check on him myself.”
“I think you can trust Mr. Johns, Adam. Bringing Harry here was the best thing you could have done.” She stood directly beside him, looking up into his face. Adam looked away, knowing what she would see if he didn’t. “Letting him rest would be the second best thing.”
“You really think he will recover?” Adam asked Mr. Johns.
“Absolutely.”
“Well, then, I suppose I would be well advised to listen to my wife and let him sleep.” Adam shook his head at his easy agreement. He wasn’t usually one for being led.
“I have found that listening to my wife is always advisable,” Mr. Johns answered with a smile.
Mr. Johns was married? The apothecary had been coming to Falstone for eight years or more, and Adam hadn’t, until that moment, even known he was a married man.
“You’ve been out in the cold all day, Adam,” Persephone said. “You should get some rest as well.”
Quite to Adam’s surprise, Persephone took his hand in hers and gently led him from the room. As if he were a mere child, Adam followed without comment all the way back to his bedchamber.
“I will have the kitchen send you up a hot dinner.” Persephone stepped back from his doorway.
Adam couldn’t think of a response. He wished she yet held his hand, wished she hadn’t already stepped away. He’d never known another person whose proximity he missed so immediately.
What was happening to him? He, who needed no one—who kept the world at arm’s length—wished Persephone would remain.
He’d spent the better part of his journey to the Boar and Dagger thinking of Persephone’s parting words. She’d made him promise to be careful. And he had been. At any other time he would have told James Coachman to spring the team in hopes of reaching Harry faster. In
stead they’d taken a more sedate pace.
And as Harry had slept on the trip back, Adam had thought of Persephone again. He’d imagined her waiting at the door for his return, happy to see him, perhaps greeting him with an embrace. It had been rather far-fetched and completely uncharacteristic. Yet the image had refused to be dismissed.
He’d even been disappointed when Barton had opened the doors of Falstone Castle and Persephone hadn’t been there. But not two steps inside, he’d seen her up on the landing. Then she’d all but run down the stairs.
Who could blame him for reaching out to her? It had been an idiotic thing to do, he acknowledged with a frustrated shake of his head. He was simply tired and overwrought after hours in a snowstorm to retrieve his friend, who’d proved even more ill than he’d anticipated.
A good night’s sleep, Adam told himself. That was all he needed. In the morning he’d be himself again.
Chapter Eighteen
A long, clear howl pierced the darkness for the third time in only a few minutes. Adam held his breath. Apparently the moon had broken through the clouds enough to provide the pack with some light.
“You’re a sop,” he told himself, even as his eyes darted again to the connecting door between his chambers and Persephone’s.
It must have been nearly one in the morning. Persephone had likely already fallen asleep and hadn’t even heard the noise that, apparently, unnerved her so entirely. If he’d realized the pack would be silent for so long, he might not have been so insistent they return to Falstone so soon after reaching the Boar and Dagger. The inn hadn’t proven as run-down as he’d anticipated, though the innkeeper was every bit as grasping and dishonest as the letter from Harry’s valet had hinted.
Adam could have handled the man for one night—he still had every intention of seeing that Mr. Smith’s business practices were looked into. Any innkeeper who required a fee before allowing a sick man to send for a physician was not at all the sort of businessman Adam wanted in the vicinity.
Nevertheless, Mr. Smith and his shady business weren’t the reason for Adam’s haste. Neither was concern for Harry’s well-being nor the ever-growing drifts of snow. It was Persephone and those ridiculous wolves. Not that he’d believed they were going to devour him on his return trip as she had so comfortingly predicted. All the way to the inn and all the way back he kept thinking of how greatly she feared the pack—feared the sound of them—and how, for some inexplicable reason, she seemed less afraid with him nearby.
Adam shook his head at his own uncharacteristic actions. Her fear was irrational, completely and utterly nonsensical. He ought to have sent her back to her own rooms that first night and forced her to face them. A person couldn’t go through life afraid of things that weren’t threatening. It would be better for her in the long run.
If she came in again—Adam’s eyes darted back to the still-closed door—he’d simply tell her so. He’d send her back through the door with instructions to show a little fortitude.
Adam heard the door scrape open. His eyes were closed in an instant.
Why in heaven’s name did he feel nervous?
“Adam?”
He reminded himself of his intention to send her away. Adam didn’t say a word.
Persephone’s footsteps sounded quietly as she crossed the room.
What am I doing? Adam demanded of himself. He’d made a decision, chosen a course of action. But he wasn’t sticking to it. He never changed his mind once he’d come to a conclusion.
The bed shifted, and Adam knew Persephone had climbed in again. She’d done so the past two nights. If he opened his eyes, he would, no doubt, see her wrapped in a blanket, curled in a ball, sleeping on her side.
A wolf howled from the distant forest.
Persephone seemed to sigh, a sound of immediately recognizable relief. “Oh, Adam,” she whispered, and somehow Adam knew she wasn’t actually addressing him, “you’ve married a coward.”
Adam wanted to tell her she wasn’t the coward she’d labeled herself. He’d seen her mount Atlas when she’d had no previous experience with riding. She’d lived with him for weeks without once turning into a trembling heap. That was a rare accomplishment.
She feared the wolves, which didn’t really make sense. But Persephone had found a way to deal with her fear. That showed a remarkable amount of intelligence, a character trait Adam valued highly. Persephone wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted in a wife, but she had her good points.
She’d been in the room less than five minutes when Adam realized she’d fallen asleep. Strange how her being in his room seemed to relax her, when it only made him tense. Perhaps it was the fact that she was not a peaceful sleeper. There was the frequent movement, coupled with little noises at regular intervals.
“At least,” Adam whispered almost silently, “she doesn’t snore.”
There was nothing for it but to try to sleep. Adam opened his eyes and turned his head in Persephone’s direction. She was little more than a mound of blankets. Persephone slept on her side, as always, with her back to him. Adam could make out nothing but her hair. It was brown, too dark to be blonde. His hair was black. It seemed as good a combination as any.
Adam shook his head, pushing out a breath of frustration. Why the blasted blazes was he analyzing their hair colors? He really was losing his mind!
He shifted so he faced the canopy that hung over his bed. He slammed his eyelids shut and commanded himself to sleep. Like every person who ever received an order from the Duke of Kielder, he obeyed. He hadn’t expected sleep to come so easily and never would have predicted the dream that followed. Adam never had nightmares.
Fog rolled in, dense and biting—the frozen kind that nipped at every exposed inch of flesh. Adam rode Zeus, the horse’s hooves crunching through a frozen layer of day-old snow. From the shrouded distance a howl echoed among the trees. Adam heard the sounds of the pack on the move. Snow had, no doubt, driven their prey underground, and the pack, in its hunger, seemed to be growing more aggressive. Their howls had sounded closer to the castle lately.
“Go on, Zeus,” he urged the unusually skittish stallion. They were still miles from Falstone. He had no desire to be lost in the forest with fog rolling in.
A growl echoed off the trees. More growls joined it. Then barking.
“The pack is hunting,” Adam muttered to himself. The idea made him uneasy, nervous. He was armed, of course . . . Adam was always armed.
A long, bone-chilling howl signaled a chorus of identical calls. Somewhere in the midst of the chorus of voices, Adam heard a snort he recognized at once as equine, followed by a horse screaming, the way the more aggressive stallions did if put together in the paddock. It was a fighting sound.
Adam didn’t like it. Zeus didn’t either. His mount was fighting him with every step as Adam made his way toward the increasingly hostile sounds of the pack and the frantic noises of a horse Adam felt certain had found itself in their midst.
There was no reason for a horse to be in the forest. The nearest stables were at Falstone, and the grooms never lost sight of an animal long enough for it to wander from the gates. Falstone Chapel was several miles further, but Mr. Pointer kept his cattle securely inside the vicarage barn when not in use.
Adam’s heart began pounding. Something was not right.
He pressed Zeus on.
The howling gave way to barking, snarling, the sounds of predators on the hunt. The horse’s sounds grew more erratic, less aggressive, and more frightened.
“On, Zeus!” But the horse resisted.
Between trees and through fog, Adam followed the sounds as they grew louder. His heart pounded. For the first time in years he actually felt fear. Still he kept on, as fast as the fog and Zeus’s uncharacteristic nervousness allowed.
Suddenly the sounds were all around him. The pack had surrounded him. He could hear them but couldn’t see a single wolf through the thickening fog.
A rasping Adam recognized as strangled breathin
g joined the other noises echoing madly through the air. He knew it was the horse.
He urged Zeus closer. Close enough to see through the fog, a horse struggled to stand, bloodied and breathing loudly, harshly. It was saddled but riderless. Adam’s eyes darted around, but the fog didn’t reveal his surroundings.
He moved closer still. When had the horse lost its rider? Before or after the pack had arrived?
Suddenly, Adam panicked. He recognized the horse. Atlas. With a sidesaddle.
“Persephone!”
Adam sat bolt upright in his bed, heart still pounding, breathing as heavy as if he’d run the length of Falstone’s outer wall.
“Persephone.” Her name came out breathless, laced with the panic that still hadn’t subsided with waking.
She wasn’t lying on the bed where she ought to be.
“Persephone?” he said a little louder, looking around the room, which was strangely well lit and bright.
Adam jumped from the bed and moved swiftly to the connecting door. He pulled it open, the tension in his shoulders almost painful.
“Persephone?” She wasn’t in her bedchamber. “Perse—!”
“Adam?” Persephone stepped through the doorway to her dressing room, dressed for the day.
He covered the distance between them in a few long strides. He grasped her upper arms, holding her still as he looked her intently over, still half-convinced he’d find her bruised, perhaps bloodied. Other than obvious surprise and even a little alarm, Persephone appeared to be whole and unharmed.
For the first time since seeing Atlas without her in his dream, Adam felt some of his tension seep away. Never had he been so frightened for another person as he had been in the past few moments. And all on account of a stupid, stupid dream.
Adam released Persephone’s arms. “Ridiculous,” he muttered to himself and walked away. A dream! He’d never been unnerved by a dream in his entire life.
Adam slammed the door shut behind him as he returned to his own bedchamber.
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