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.
