“So am I.” She still hadn’t stepped away. Adam could picture her just on the other side of the wall.
“Are you planning to ride this morning?” he asked, closing his eyes.
“I am.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” he said.
“But—”
“I would rather you didn’t.” He forced his tone to become stern, unyielding, then all but held his breath as he awaited her reply.
“I won’t if that is what you wish.” An obvious question mark lingered at the end of her response.
It was a completely irrational request made in response to nothing more than a dream, albeit it an extremely vivid one. Yet, he felt palpable relief at her acquiescence. He actually started breathing again.
“I’m losing my bloody mind,” Adam grumbled and walked away from the door.
Chapter Nineteen
Persephone stood in front of the full-length cheval mirror in Harry’s room. She’d come to check on him, only to find him quite soundly sleeping. She tipped her head to one side, carefully scrutinizing her reflection, searching for the fatal flaw.
It was the black dress, perhaps. Her eyes were brown when she wore black. But, she thought, her eyes had been brown before, and it hadn’t seemed so horrible then. Maybe her eyes weren’t the problem.
She leaned closer to the mirror, tilting and turning her head. Her nosewasa little too small. “Cute as a button,” her mama used to describe it. But duchesses weren’t supposed to have button noses.
Then there were the freckles. No home remedies had entirely cured her of those. Persephone supposed she was a trifle on the short side, though she’d never thought that so great a flaw that it couldn’t be overlooked.
She let out a breath of frustration. Flaws were easy to find when one was looking. Or perhaps she simply had more of them than most people. That thought brought a grimace to her face.
“I get that look a lot.” The weak, raspy voice came from behind her.
She turned around. “Harry?”
He appeared to be improving but still looked pale and ill. He attempted a smile. The miserable failure of that expression told Persephone volumes about the state of his health.
“We’ve been worried about you.” She crossed closer to him, tugging the bell-pull as she passed it. His valet would appreciate knowing Harry had awoken.
“It’s all been a ploy to get attention,” Harry rasped, sitting up a little. A cough cut off any further comment.
Persephone poured him a glass of water from the pitcher on a bedside table, handing it to him and waiting as he took a sip.
“Why were you so displeased?” Harry asked after a sip. He took another then added, “When you were looking in the mirror?”
She took the glass from him and helped him lie back down. “It was nothing.” She shook her head and set the glass back on the table.
“That wasn’t nothing,” he whispered.
Bless Harry. Even when he was terribly ill, he tried to be helpful. “Do you think I’m ridiculous?” She’d asked the question before she could stop herself.
“Ah, lard buckets.” Harry breathed out the homegrown curse on a chuckled whisper that quickly turned into a cough. His valet came into the room in time to hear the latter and began immediately fussing over Harry. From around the ministration of his servant, Harry managed to say, “Adam once described St. James’s Palace as ‘ridiculous.’ It’s his favorite word.”
“You need your rest,” Persephone said. To Harry’s valet, she added, “If there is anything at all that he needs, do not hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
It’s his favorite word.Persephone thought about that as she made her way downstairs to the sitting room.
She’d never seen St. James’s but doubted the royal palace could be described as “ridiculous” by anyone other than Adam. Yet she didn’t doubt that he had, indeed, found the probably impressive structure entirely unsatisfactory.
