He knew he probably ought to have said something, but he couldn’t think of a single thing worth verbalizing. Empty reassurances about her brother’s bravery or heroism wouldn’t ease her pain. Saying he knew how she felt would be a bald-faced lie. Professing any tender attachment or caring concern on his part would be no less untrue. Adam cared for no one. Just as no one cared for him.
Persephone’s little sister, the tiny one—Artemis was her name, he thought—had asked who would take care of Persephone, before Artemis had left for Shropshire.
Adam heard a shaky breath on the path behind him and thought he could picture the girl’s tiny face—one so much like her sister’s, her mouth twisted in a line of disapproval, brow furrowed with worry the way it had been during that brief conversation.
No one, it seemed, was watching out for Persephone.
Chapter Sixteen
It was a very good thing Adam slept so deeply, Persephone thought to herself over her breakfast tea the next morning. The wolves hadn’t been particularly loud the night before, but she hadn’t felt well. As predicted, her head had begun to ache not long after she’d retired to her bed. While the tears had stopped, she still had an ache in her heart that might very well never go away.
She’d walked slowly, quietly to the connecting door of their bedchambers, just as she had the night before last. Again, Adam didn’t respond when she whispered his name. She’d tried several times. Convinced he slept, Persephone did as she had the previous night. Wrapped tightly against the cold, she’d climbed onto his bed, careful not to wake him.
Odd that being near him allowed her to sleep so quickly. She had always shared a room with Athena. Perhaps she simply needed the reassuring familiarity of another person in the room. Yet, comforting as it was in the moment, she knew a very real fear that should Adam discover her there, he would not find the intrusion welcome.
“You’ve missed your riding lesson this morning.” Adam’s voice suddenly sounded from the doorway of the breakfast room.
Persephone looked up in momentary alarm. She shook her head inwardly. He couldn’t possibly know what she’d just been thinking. She managed to make sense of his statement and forced a reply. “I am afraid I overslept.” She’d tiptoed back to her room at first light, determined to leave before Adam realized she’d been there.
“And how is your head this morning?” Adam still stood in the breakfast room doorway, his eyes slightly diverted, looking out the windows behind her.
“My head?”
“You said last night that your head hurts after you’ve been crying.”
He’d remembered that? “It does ache a little,” she admitted, surprised but not unpleasantly.
“There is an apothecary in Sifton,” Adam said. “I could send one of the grooms for some powders.”
Too shocked by his unforeseen offer to verbalize a reply, Persephone shook her head.
Adam hovered a moment longer, as if trying to decide on his next course of action. When had she ever seen Adam appear uncertain? The answer came in the form of a memory of the two of them sitting on a bench in her garden the day Adam had given her the riding habit. He’d seemed remarkably uncertain then and uncomfortable. Very much like he appeared standing just then in the doorway.
“Do you use this apothecary often?” Persephone asked the first question that came to her mind.
“I am seldom ill.” He made the declaration as if it were a matter of pride, a tremendous accomplishment. “But he is utilized when someone on the staff is unwell.”
“Sifton is nearby, then?” Persephone asked, pursuing the topic in the hope that Adam would fully enter the room, perhaps come sit by her. She was still unaccustomed to eating her meals alone. And, she had to admit, he intrigued her. He’d been autocratic and strictly civil the night before in the garden. At that moment he seemed very nearly human.
“Sifton is almost an hour’s ride,” Adam said. “Kielder Village is closer but has no apothecary, nor a physician, for that matter.”
“How far away is the nearest physician?”
Adam still hovered, still avoided looking at her.
“There is a surgeon living in Hawick.” His reply was characteristically short. “The town of Sifton has a physician, but he is useless.”
Another person evaluated, judged, and dismissed by Adam. The physician probably wasn’tentirelyuseless. Persephone had come to realize in the month she’d spent at Falstone that, while often harsher than necessary, Adam’s evaluations of others held more than a grain of truth.
He’d described Harry as a friend who took too many liberties. That, to a degree, was accurate. Harry was his friend. And, compared with every other person Adam knew, Harry was familiar and comfortable with him in the extreme. Adam didn’t seem to understand that Harry’s behavior was normal and acceptable for afriend.
Persephone had heard Adam describe Mr. Hewitt as a “spineless idiot.” Again, the label proved harsher than warranted. But, she had to admit, when compared to Harry, Mr. Hewitt did come across as too easily intimidated. And, when compared with Adam, who Persephone had begun to realize was remarkably sharp, Mr. Hewitt didn’t impress one as overly intelligent.
“John, at the stables, indicated that Atlas can be saddled whenever you would like to have your riding lesson,” Adam said after the silence had stretched on. “Though it does look like Falstone will shortly have rain—snow if the temperature continues to drop.”
“I am not sure I am up for a ride today, anyway.”
“Are you certain you do not wish for some powders?” For a moment, his eyes darted to her face. He actually looked concerned.
