“I suggested the spring or summer,” Persephone said.
Adam didn’t answer beyond a “hmm.” Not very promising. Perhaps Artemis’s plans to explore the Falstone towers had been doomed from the beginning.
“Of course, nothing has actually been planned.” Persephone tried to keep the disappointment from her voice. She would see her family in Town, she reminded herself. And that was only five months away.
Five months.
Persephone bit back a sigh. How could she possibly last nearly half a year as lonely as she was?
Chapter Twenty
“What is that infernal noise?” Adam grumbled, standing on the first-floor landing.
“I believe that would be described as lively conversation, Your Grace,” Barton answered quite straight-faced. But Adam hadn’t missed the irony in his tone. Barton had never before broken the slightest bit from his proper butler’s demeanor.
“And who,” Adam answered quite severely, “is responsible for all of this ‘lively conversation?’”
A twitter of a laugh rang through the entrance hall.Thatwas a sound with which he was unaccustomed. Adam raised an eyebrow.
Barton cleared his throat, sounding almost as if he barely held back a laugh of his own. “Mrs. Pointer.” He managed an almost serious tone.
“No doubt the vicar is here as well,” Adam said.
“No doubt.” Again he detected a hint of dry humor in the butler’s tone. What had gotten into the man?
“Are you feeling quite yourself today, Barton?” Adam genuinely wondered if perhaps Barton was a little touched in the upper works. The man had to be at least sixty. He’d been a footman at Falstone when Adam was a boy, elevated to butler while Adam was away at Harrow.
“I assure you I feel better than I have in years, Your Grace.” Something in Barton’s expression marked it as a significant statement.
Another twitter echoed up from below. “It sounds as though Falstone is infested with birds,” Adam muttered.
Just then Mrs. Smithson, the housekeeper, followed by a footman and trailed by two maids, reached the doors of the drawing room below. The footman bore a large silver tray, laden with every type of finger sandwich and sweet cake imaginable. Mrs. Smithson bore the silver tea service.
“A full tea?” Adam felt rather shocked, not having seen such a thing at Falstone since the days before his mother had relegated herself to the ranks of guest at the family seat. “For the Pointers?” It seemed a little overdone for only two guests.
“I believe Cook was exceptionally excited at the prospect of preparing a tea tray once more,” Barton answered. “It has been a while, Your Grace.”
His words held censure. But Barton knew how Falstone was supposed to be run.
“How is it that the vicar and his wife came to be in the drawing room?” Adam used the tone his mother had often called his “duke voice.” He’d perfected it some time around seven years of age, and it had never failed him, except with Harry, but Harry was the exception to most rules. “I do not recall altering my requirement that all guests be informed I am ‘not at home.’”
“The vicar quite specifically asked forHerGrace.” Most of the cheek had left Barton’s voice, though he certainly wasn’t quivering with concern. Adam had always liked that about Barton—he knew precisely how to act, but he had backbone. “When I presented Her Grace with Mr. Pointer’s card, I thought she would actually run down the stairs, she was so pleased to have callers.”
Adam felt a momentary prick of guilt at that. If Barton had been turning away callers, then Persephone hadn’t had any company, either.Shemight actually wish to see people. A picture of the Falstone drawing room filled to overflowing with the neighborhood elite, curious and barely tolerable, flashed through Adam’s mind. That would never do.
“How long have the Pointers been here?” Adam asked Barton, who still hovered nearby, as he walked slowly down the staircase.
“Only a few minutes, Your Grace.”
“A few minutes is more than most get,” Adam reminded no one in particular. Falstone was his home, where he determined the rules. He had long ago declared that there were to be no visitors, no callers, no formal teas for neighbors pretending politeness for the chance to gape and stare and slake their thirst for gossip fodder.
“Cream, yes.” Mr. Pointer’s voice reached the drawing room door as Adam stepped inside.
Persephone filled the vicar’s teacup and handed it to him. Mr. Pointer noticed Adam’s entrance and smiled at him. Only Mr. Pointer, and perhaps Harry, would dare smile when he knew he’d broken one of Adam’s cardinal rules. Adam gave him a pointed look of warning, which had no visible effect whatsoever.
“Would you like a cup of tea, Adam?” Persephone asked, apparently seeing him enter.
Adam turned to face her. “No,” he answered, unable to completely keep the exasperation from his voice.
