Adam sat, too. All the times she’d left before Adam’s surgeries, she’d done so at the surgeon’s request—no, requirement, if her retelling wasn’t exaggerated. Could her eagerness to go really have been an indisposition toward the sickroom?
She always had come back once he was well into his recovery, after all difficulties and dangers had passed. But there had been other times when she had left Falstone, times unconnected to illness or surgeries or injuries. At least that was how he remembered it. Perhaps he’d had a stomach illness or a head cold and simply didn’t remember it. Adam couldn’t recall Father being ill during that time.
“Your Grace?” a voice politely inquired from the doorway.
Didn’t anyone in this house realize he had a great deal on his mind? Every few minutes, it seemed, someone was vying for his time.
“What?” he snapped.
The young maid at the door shrunk back a little. Adam recognized her—the maid who’d provided him with fresh water to clean his hands and words of encouragement during the ordeal caring for Persephone.
“Her Grace is asking for you,” the maid said. “She seems anxious.”
Adam was on his feet before she’d finished the first sentence. “Excuse me, Mother,” he said as he crossed the room.
The little maid stood at the door as Adam passed through it, eyes cast down and expression hurt.
“I am sorry for snapping at you,” Adam said, hardly believing he was apologizing to anyone, let alone a chambermaid. “I have had a very trying day.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she answered quietly.
“Thank you?” Adam asked as he walked toward the stairs that lead to the second story, the maid following.
“For apologizing,” she said. “I know you don’t have to, probably aren’t supposed to, even.”
Adam shrugged. “Probably not.”
“You know, you’re not much like people think you are.”
“How is that?” Adam asked, beginning to regret his slip in rigidity.
“You’re supposed to be fearsome and unkind, but I ain’t never seen a man care for his wife the way you did for Her Grace. And you apologize to someone who really ought to be beneath your notice. It’s not what people would expect from the Duke of Kielder.”
“Then perhaps you would be so kind as to keep that a secret from the masses.” His tone had lightened a bit, his mood actually improving after such a short conversation.
“Yes, Your Grace.” The maid curtsied as they reached the door to Persephone’s sitting room. “If you don’t tell Mrs. Smithson I been talking to you instead of disappearing like I’m supposed to.”
“What is your name?” Adam asked.
“Fanny Hartly, Your Grace.”
“Hartly? Jeb Hartly—?”
“My pa’s uncle.”
“I will keep your secret, Fanny Hartly, if you will keep mine.”
She smiled, the same uneven smile all the Hartlys seemed to have.
Adam found Persephone awake when he entered the room. She was sitting up, something that surprised him to no end. She would have been more than justified in remaining prostrate in bed for days. Adam discovered with each passing day just how many ways he’d underestimated her.
The look in her eyes stopped him in his tracks. She looked worried, afraid, even.
Adam sat on the edge of her bed. When had that become a favorite place of his to perch? “What is it, Persephone?”
“I have been thinking back on my ride.” She spoke quietly.
“Surely that can wait until you are more fully recovered.” He allowed his fingers to inch closer to hers. He wanted to hold her hand but didn’t dare reach out, knowing she’d pulled back the last time.
“There were some strange things, Adam.”
He brushed his fingertips along hers. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Things I thought at first were just oddities, but . . .” She shifted, wincing at what must have been a sharp stab of pain, no doubt in her leg. “But there are too many to be coincidences.”
“What do you mean?” Something in her tone told Adam that Persephone was in deadly earnest.
“What happened today,” she said, “I don’t believe was an accident.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
The fact that Adam seemed to believe her so instantly worried Persephone even more. She’d hoped that her suspicions were the result of a rather telling blow to the head or perhaps the piercing pain in her leg.
“Tell me these coincidences.” Adam looked her full in the face without a hint of discomfort.
“John didn’t help me mount,” she said. “Usually the stable hand waits for him, but this time he didn’t. John seemed surprised but didn’t say anything. And—I know this will sound strange—the groom who helped me smelled like . . . well, like—”
“Bacon?” Adam finished for her. He looked alarmed.
“How did you know?”
Adam rose from the bed. Persephone wished he hadn’t. He’d been touching her fingers, the gesture immensely comforting and pleasing in a way she needed at that moment. He’d told her only the night before that he didn’t care where she went or what she did. When he touched her so gently and tenderly, she couldn’t help thinking he wasn’t entirely indifferent.
“Was it a faint aroma?” Adam’s face was set in a look of concentration.
“No.” She remembered with a wave of nausea the almost repugnant smell that had met her when she’d stepped onto the mounting block. “At first I thought perhaps he’d been helping in the curing house or had slipped in a lard spill in the kitchen. The scent was so strong I could still smell it—”
“—while you were riding.”
“Exactly.”
“Anything else unusual?” Adam paced the room.
Persephone took a difficult swallow. Her suspicions mounted. Something had happened, something deliberate. She didn’t like the idea of someone setting out to hurt her. “Atlas never spooks,” she said. “We were riding along fine. I shifted in the saddle a little, and suddenly he bolted. It was so unlike him. I can’t help thinking something must have been wrong.”
“Most likely,” Adam muttered.
Persephone watched him pace. His was not the look of a man at ease.
His expression grew suddenly very contemplative. “The groom who helped you mount, does he assist you often?”
“Occasionally.”
“Do you know his name?”
Persephone shook her head. It had never seemed odd before, but it did then. She knew the names of everyone else in the stables who regularly assisted her. “He wears a green handkerchief around his neck,” she remembered out loud. “None of the others do.”
“John Handly will know who it is.” Adam sat on the edge of Persephone’s bed, facing her.
“You are going to talk to him? That groom, I mean?”
“If he had any hand in this, I intend to do far more than talk.”
The thought of Adam brangling with a potential murderer sent a chill through her. “But what if he’s dangerous?”
“No one is as dangerous as the Duke of Kielder.”
“Would I have to talk to him?” She shrunk at the idea of confronting someone who might have deliberately sabotaged her ride.
“Of course not. I’ll not allow him within several counties of you again.”
Persephone had always dreamed of marrying a man who would take some of her burdens away. Papa had never been good in difficult situations, often too preoccupied with the distant past to deal with the here and now. Adam couldn’t have been more different from Papa in that respect.
“Thank you, Adam.” She smiled up at him.
He actually smiled back. Her heart flipped over inside her chest.
“How is your leg?” he asked.
“It hurts terribly.” The throbbing grew just at the mention of it.
“And your head?” His eyes traveled to the wound of which he spoke.
She grimaced. Her
head pounded, though the pain was not as bad as in her leg.
“Your eye is still swollen. Can you see out of it?”
“A little,” she said.
He brushed his fingers along her hand again. She held as still as possible. If Adam realized he was touching her, he would probably pull away, and she did not want him to stop.
“You do not appear to be feverish.” Adam examined her so intently that Persephone felt almost as though he’d touched her face. She’d never before felt a person look at her.
He was closer to her than he’d been a minute before.
“Mr. Johns has been sent for,” Adam said. “He’ll no doubt administer some laudanum for the pain.”
“That would be helpful.”
He drew closer, leaning toward her as he spoke.
“And he’ll check your wounds—see that they’re healing properly.”
She couldn’t vocalize a response.
“He’ll let us know when you can expect to be on your feet again.” Adam’s voice dropped so low it was barely audible. A mere inch or two separated them. She saw his eyes drift to her mouth. Could he possibly be longing for what she was? Did he too ache for even the smallest of kisses?
Her heart raced frantically, pounding a chaotic rhythm in her ears. He didn’t pull back, didn’t look away. Why didn’t he simply kiss her instead of torturing her this way?
“Perhaps in time for the ball,” she muttered when nothing else came to mind.
Adam seemed to snap back to attention. “The ball.” He pushed out a breath. “Perhaps. Perhaps.” Adam rose to his feet, shaking his head as if to clear it.
He walked distractedly to the doorway. “I will go speak to that groom now.”
“You will be careful, Adam?”
He looked back at her. For a moment, he just stood there, still and watching her. Then he nodded and silently left the room.
* * *
Adam had far too much to think about. Mother’s inexplicable, teary-eyed confession. Continuing flashes of memory from that frantic ride through the forest with Persephone. Thoughts of the pack. Of bacon. He’d never once spent more than a moment thinking of bacon, and now he pondered it in tremendous detail.
His mind raced as he made his way to the stables. Jeb Handly walked alongside him.
“How fares Her Grace?” Jeb asked, real concern in his voice.
“Considering what she’s been through, she is doing well.”
Jeb nodding sagely. “The sickroom always was a trial to Her Grace.”
Adam stopped and looked at him. “You’re speaking of Mother?”
“Aye.” He said it as if it ought to have been obvious. “And how fares your wife?” Jeb continued undeterred.
“She is in some pain but doing well. You say my mother had difficulties in the sickroom?”
“Aye. Even a bloodied nose’d set her to swaying. The Old Duke never could convince her it weren’t a horrible failing in her.”
Why had no one told him any of this?
“You seem set on gettin’ somewhere,” Jeb said, as they began walking again.
“Stables,” Adam muttered the answer, still thinking over what he’d learned that day. “I need to speak to one of the grooms.”
“Which’en?”
“I don’t know his name. He wears a green—”
“Calls ’imself Jimmy,” Jeb answered before Adam had even finished his description. “New one. Quiet like. Keeps to himself.”
“Any idea where I might find this Jimmy?”
Jeb motioned with his prickly chin. “Here comes me John. He’d know.”
They walked toward John Handly, going about his duties despite the horrors of the day. He could always be relied on.
“What can I do for you, Your Grace?” John asked.
“I’m looking for a member of your staff. Jimmy.”
“With the green—?” John motioned at his neck.
Adam nodded.
“He’ll be around somewhere.” John glanced around the paddock. “He in some kind of trouble, Your Grace?”
“He helped Her Grace mount this morning, and she tells me he reeked of bacon, more than could have been accidental.” Tension coursed through Adam at the thought of someone intentionally harming his wife.
“On purpose, then?” John’s search grew noticeably keener.
“That is what I mean to find out.” If it proved true, the man would pay dearly.
John moved swiftly in the direction of the stables, searching the faces of his staff as he went. Adam kept pace with him, his jaw clenching more with each step.
“We’re looking for Jimmy,” John called out to a group of stable hands nearby.
“Ain’t seen him in a while,” one of them answered.
“I ’ave,” said another. “A minute ago, at the back of the stable. Putting some things in a bag, he were.”
John’s eyes shifted to Adam, and he could see the man had the same thought he did. Jimmy meant to slip away unnoticed. No one ran from the Dangerous Duke and got away.
“’At’s him, Faltsone.” Jeb pointed a knobby finger across the paddock.
Sure enough, a man with a green handkerchief tied messily around his neck moved swiftly along the far end of the stables. He walked with his head down.
“Jimmy!” John called out.
The man looked up. In an instant, Adam knew him—the groom was none other than the innkeeper at the Boar and Dagger.
His temper snapped. “Smith!”
The man took flight instantly. Adam didn’t hesitate.
“Stop him!” he bellowed to the stable hands.
The entire staff sprang into action, chasing the man down. He headed toward the front entry of Falstone Castle, his destination, no doubt, the forest beyond. He’d be harder to find once he passed outside.
Adam ran hard, pushed on by his anger. He would have the man’s neck!
“What if the wolves come back?” John managed to ask as they both sprinted after their prey.
“He tried to kill my wife,” Adam threw back. “If the wolves don’t tear him to pieces, I will.”
None of the stable staff were closer to the gate than Smith. He’d reach it without any of them stopping him.
A few of the undergardeners watched in obvious confusion. They were smaller than Smith, but they were armed in their own way. Shovels and picks and axes make effective weapons.
“Stop him!” Adam shouted.
They needed no further instructions. Brandishing their tools, they ran at full speed to the entrance, blocking Smith’s path out.
Smith veered away, changing directions. He wouldn’t make it outside the castle walls. He was trapped. Smith skirted the outer gardens, running along the stone walls. He’d reach the dairy next. Who knew what he’d do to the maids working there if given the chance. Desperation made a man unpredictable and, thus, extremely dangerous.
He waved the stable hands, following close on his heels, to the left. “Half of you cut him off before he reaches the dairy. The rest, head straight for him,” Adam instructed. He motioned to the gardeners still guarding the exit. “Some of you take his path, don’t let him backtrack.”
All obeyed orders without hesitation.
Adam, with John at his side, cut through the gardens, over hedges and low walls. Smith stopped when he saw the small army from the stables closing in on him, but he couldn’t retrace his steps for the gardeners blocking that path.
Adam reached him. A single blow produced enough blood to prove the man’s nose was broken. He grabbed him by the shoulders and pinned him to the thick, stone outer wall.
“How long has this vermin been working at the stables?” he asked John.
“A month or so.”
“His real name—” Adam shoved him harder against the unforgiving stone wall “—is Mr. Smith. He is the former owner of the Boar and Dagger, which was forced to close because—”
“Because the High an’ Mighty Duke of Kielder got his skirts in a
bunch,” Smith replied with a sneer.
Adam shifted his grip to the man’s throat, holding tight enough to give the man pause but not to cause any actual harm. “Because he is a cheat and crook.”
“The Quality thinks they can take whatever they want from an honest working man.”
“Which you are certainly not,” Adam growled. “And you had bloody well better have a good reason for being here.”
A crowd of grounds staff and stable hands pressed in around them.
“Earnin’ a livin’, Yur Grace.” It was, apparently, possible to address a Peer by the proper title and still sound condescending.
Adam squeezed a little harder. “Explain to me—” He barely refrained from strangling the man on the spot “—how it was that my wife’s mount reeked of bacon.”
Smith just grinned, the same slick, oily grin he’d offered when Adam had arrived at the Boar and Dagger looking for Harry and had asked why no one had sent for a physician.
A fist to the gut wiped that smile from his face.
“You expected the wolves to attack,” Adam growled in the man’s ear.
“You took away the only thing that mattered to me.” Smith wheezed out the words. “Jus’ returning the favor, guv’nuh.”
“You’ll hang for that!” John Handly shouted at the man.
“I have a better idea.” Adam shoved Smith upright and flat against the wall once more.
“Ye let us ’ave ’im, Yer Grace!” a stable hand shouted behind him.
“No one hurts our duchess!” another called out.
Adam looked at Smith, stared him down until he saw fear creep into his defiant eyes. He heard him force a difficult swallow.
“Put him in the gibbet.”
“What!” Smith roared.
“Right-o!” someone in the crowd called.
“Ye can’t do that!” Smith shouted, panic-stricken. “Ye have to consult the law!”
Adam grasped him by the throat once more and, his face an inch from Smith’s, growled out, “I am the Duke of Kielder. I am the law.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
After less than two hours in the gibbet, Mr. Smith was taken from the grounds, his final destination a cell in Sifton. Smith lost a great deal of his cockiness during his confinement in the swinging cage. A charge of attempted murder does that to even a hardened criminal.
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