“You’re welcome.” With that, she returned to the table.
He was as foolish as his father had been, reaching out to a woman who wanted nothing to do with him. But Adam would not make the same mistakes. He wanted her to stay—that much he couldn’t help—but he swore to himself that he wouldn’t allow himself to care about her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“It is one o’clock in the morning, Persephone.”
She turned toward the door of the nursery. She truly hadn’t expected Adam to come looking for her. He’d been quiet and distant during their dinner in his book room. She’d hoped to reach out to him, as a friend would. But her attempt to be supportive and comforting hadn’t seemed to work.
Persephone closed her eyes as the memory of his feather-light touch on her fingertips flashed painfully through her mind. If he were fond of her—if theirs were the type of marriage Persephone had always wanted—that touch might have felt affectionate. Instead, it had been excruciating, almost torturous. She’d wanted, in that moment, to hold his hand, but she knew that doing so would only open her up further to feelings that would hurt her in the end.
“I cannot help but think that Linus would not be happy in here.” Persephone kept her warring emotions out of her voice. “I have been trying to determine what I ought to do about it.”
“You would place a midshipman of the Royal Navy in the nursery?” Adam asked.
“He is only a child.” She crossed the room toward the door, running her fingers over a tabletop as she passed.
“A thirteen-year-old is not precisely a child,” Adam said. “Especially after two years in the navy.”
She didn’t want to hear that. In her mind Linus was still her little boy, the affectionate child whom she’d taught to read and write, the brother who had retaught her to play spillikins. She wasn’t ready to accept that he had changed so much. She felt unaccountably nervous at the thought of seeing her little Linus again. How much had he changed?
“I should select a different room for him, then?” Persephone tried to sound less affected than she was.
Adam stepped aside to allow Persephone to pass through the doorway. “There are plenty of rooms in the family wing,” he said.
“Within Harry’s sphere of influence?” Persephone smiled, walking down the corridor.
“Perhaps a room on our end of the wing would be best,” Adam said.
Persephone wondered if he was smiling, even a little. He walked behind her, so she couldn’t say for sure. She pulled her dressing gown more firmly around herself as the chill of the corridor began to penetrate her nightdress. “It is hard to imagine Linus grown up.”
“How long has it been since you last saw him?” Adam followed her down the stairs to the family wing.
“Fifteen months.” She did not even have to think or calculate. She knew precisely how long she’d gone without seeing her brothers.
“You’ve missed him.”
“I have missed all of them,” she replied.
A sudden lump formed in her throat. Good heavens, she missed her family. She had once been a central part of all their lives, but now she no longer felt part of anything.
“Mr. Pointer has volunteered to bring Linus back from Newcastle,” Adam said as they stepped inside her sitting room. “He will be there on personal business on that day, as it is.”
Persephone turned swiftly toward him. “I wanted to meet theTriumphantmyself.”
“There is a ball to plan, Persephone,” Adam argued. He stepped past her.
“Mrs. Smithson can certainly do without me for a day or so,” Persephone insisted. “And your mother would be more than happy to take over while I am gone.”
Watching Adam cross the room into her bedchamber, Persephone could see him tense. “You will not be going. So there is no need for either of them to take charge of the preparations.”
She followed him in. “But he is my brother.”
“And he will be arriving with Mr. Pointer.”
“A stranger.” Persephone did not like it at all.
“After more than two years in the navy, I doubt Linus will be reduced to childish tears by a sixty-year-old vicar.” He employed that dry, sarcastic tone that always seemed to cut at her.
