But when Persephone rewarded his lunacy with a bright smile, Adam felt nearly glad he’d slipped from his usual approach to life.
“I thought no one wanted to meet me.” Persephone kept her voice to a whisper, obviously going to lengths to keep their conversation too low for the vicar and his wife to overhear. “Bridal visits are expected. But there hadn’t been any callers. I didn’t realize they were being turned away.”
She could just as easily have sounded accusatory. Instead, she seemed relieved.
“They probably never came in the first place.” Adam surprised himself by so willingly discussing the situation. What did he care how Persephone felt about the rules? But that rang entirely false. He wanted her to understand, wanted her to know thatshehadn’t been rejected. It was an odd impulse for him, but he kept on. “Every family in the surrounding area knows Falstone is closed to visitors.”
Persephone shot another look in the Pointers’ direction before saying, quietly, “But I could go visit the neighbors.”
Adam’s stomach clenched on the instant. “No. They would be expected to return the visit.”
“But I—”
“I will not have Falstone overrun by people.”
Persephone hesitated, a war of emotions in her eyes: confusion, indecision, frustration. In the end, she managed to look neutral. “Of course not. Thank you for allowing the Pointers to remain. I have been enjoying their visit.”
Adam felt like an ogre. The law gave him the right to dictate everything in his home. But his conscience began to decree otherwise. Persephone’s acquiescence had obviously been reluctantly given.
And why shouldn’t she wish for visitors, for society? She had nothing to fear at their hands, no reason to reject the company of virtual strangers. He, on the other hand, knew precisely how it felt to be stared at, whispered about. The animals at the Tower of London’s Royal Menagerie had nothing on Adam when it came to being a spectacle for the callous and curious.
“You, of course, owe Mrs. Pointer a visit,” Adam conceded, still unsure why he found himself so easily undone by the downcast look in her eyes, why he even discussed this in the same room as the Pointers. Such conversations belonged behind closed doors without witnesses. “I understand she entertains half the county on a regular basis.”
“I could meet our neighbors that way, then.” Persephone’s tone remained hesitant and cautious, almost as if she were asking a question rather than stating a fact.
“If you want to.” Adam shrugged. He’d met the neighborhood and wasn’t particularly impressed.
The smile returned to her face. Adam had to force back an answering one. He knew his face looked particularly disfigured when he smiled, the asymmetry made painfully obvious.
By the time the Pointers departed, Adam had no more desire to grin. They’d quickly settled in, looking completely at ease. If they were entertaining any thoughts of returning, they would be sorely disappointed.
Mrs. Pointer filled Persephone’s ears with news of the neighborhood. Mrs. Somebody-or-Other was rumored to be Increasing again, and Mrs. So-and-So was said to be redoing her drawing room in the French style and wasn’t that terribly unpatriotic. Adam was bored to tears.
Her parting comment, however, left Adam wincing. “I do hope you will attend the assemblies, Your Grace.” Mrs. Pointer smiled at Persephone. “Once you have passed your deepest mourning, of course.” The vicar’s wife acknowledged Persephone’s black dress with a nod of empathy. “I understand there hasn’t been a Duke and Duchess of Kielder at our local assembly in thirty years.”
Adam nearly tossed the woman into her carriage himself at that point. He’d bent enough to allow the Pointers to visit. But he didnotdance.
Chapter Twenty-One
“And Mrs. Adcock grew up in Shropshire as well,” Persephone told Harry as they sat in the sitting room after dinner a week after the Pointers’ visit to Falstone. Harry, though still not entirely his usual energetic self, had recovered sufficiently to join her and Adam for meals and wander from his room during the day.
“You’ve met Mrs. Adcock?” Adam jumped into the conversation. He didn’t sound pleased.
“At the vicarage.” She’d made the three-mile journey twice in the past week. A handful of ladies from the area had been present on her first visit. More than a dozen had greeted her upon her arrival that afternoon. “She extended an invitation to us to take supper with them.”
Adam looked thunderous on the instant.
“She seemed to be expecting me to turn the invitation down,” Persephone quickly added. “So I had little difficulty in doing so.”
He relaxed a trifle.
Persephone tried to keep her disappointment buried. The Lancasters had ofttimes dined with the families in their neighborhood. She missed that interaction, missed knowing that she had friends nearby.
“Who else was at the vicarage?” Harry asked.
Thankful for the approval she heard in his tone, Persephone took up the conversation again. “Mrs. Milston and her daughter. Lady Hettersham.” Adam mumbled something unintelligible at that. At least he was listening, Persephone told herself. “Miss Greenburrough.”
The sitting room door opened, cutting off the list Persephone had only begun to relate. Barton entered with his familiar silver salver bearing a rather thick letter.
