“I have never been so embarrassed in all my life.” Persephone turned away from him. “I was so sure you were asleep.”
Adam picked the blanket up again and wrapped it around her.Lavender.Adam stepped back. Distance, he reminded himself.
“You must think I am an absolute coward,” Persephone whispered. “And presumptuous. And . . . and . . .”
Adam held his hand out to her. She stood there, silently, just looking at his hand. Adam let it drop. Obviously, she didn’t want his company any more than his own mother had, any more than every other person he’d ever known.
Adam walked away, moving to the door. He should never have come in. The Duke of Kielder begged favors of no one. He’d learned to force himself to sleep once—he could do it again. And he didn’t care!
“Adam?”
He stopped on the spot.
“Do I really make noises in my sleep?”
He nodded.
“Loud noises?” She sounded uncomfortable.
“No.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown. “Like . . . like a puppy. Little noises.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?” She wore the blanket wrapped around her precisely the way she had every night for weeks.
“I’ve grown used to it.” He found himself too uncomfortable with the conversation to continue looking at her.
“I don’t want to bother you.” She sounded closer.
“You won’t.”
“All right.”
“All right?” Adam looked over his shoulder at her.
“The wolves don’t bother me as much in your bedchamber.” Persephone even smiled a little. She passed through the connecting door.
“Are they quieter in there?” Adam followed her through the door.
“No,” she replied. “The way I’ve figured it, if the pack ever actually makes it into the castle, they’ll eat you first.”
Adam was grateful he walked behind her. That comment brought a smile to his face before he could stop it. One look at his disfigured smile, and they’d be right back to “I’m sorry” and “my poor boy.”
A minute later they’d returned to the established routine. Persephone lay curled in a ball, securely wrapped in her blankets. Adam could feel himself growing tired already.
How was it that in only a few weeks he’d come to depend on her for something as vital as sleep? Adam had promised himself after Mother had left twenty years ago, he would never depend on anyone.
“People depend on dukes. Dukes do not depend on people,” Father used to say. He’d never said that before Mother moved to Town.
“Good night, Adam,” Persephone said from the ball of blankets.
Nurse Robbie used to say that:Good night, little Adam.No one else ever had. Adam closed his eyes. He could almost picture her rocking beside his bed. Why were memories of his one-time nurse suddenly flooding back? In twenty years he hadn’t thought of her once, and in the past month those memories wouldn’t stop.
“Good night, Persephone,” Adam muttered in reply.
What was happening to him? He’d made a fool of himself over Persephone’s fall earlier. He ought to have stayed calm and detached.
He was chasing down his wife, practically begging for her company. He needed her nearby just to sleep.
Now he had turned mawkish over a childhood memory.
