Frustration bubbling up inside, she raised her book once more and said, “Mr. Hewitt was trying to be consoling.”
“He was making you teary again,” Adam countered. “I got the distinct impression you did not wish to cry tonight.”
Now how, Persephone wondered, had he come to that conclusion?
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.
