Seeking Persephone

by Sarah M. Eden

  He crossed to the door, which, conveniently enough, led to his own chambers, but he stopped with his hand on the knob. It was entirely too chilly for her to sleep without at least a blanket to provide warmth.

  “Now I’ve become a lady’s maid,” Adam muttered, crossing back to the bed.

  He grabbed the coverlet on the side of the bed opposite Persephone. With a tug he pulled it loose then draped it across her where she slept.

  Tomorrow night, he told himself, she’d simply have to remember to get under the blankets, as he had no intention of playing nursemaid again.

  Chapter Seven

  Persephone had decided on a few things. First, that she would shed no more tears for her former life. It was excusable, she had allowed, to feel some sense of loss, to shed some tears over the abrupt change in her situation. But the time had come to look to the future and not the past.

  She’d washed her face quite thoroughly that morning, wishing her eyes weren’t puffy from a day of crying. She donned a simple but flattering morning dress in a lovely shade of blue, deciding she would prefer to have blue eyes, her eyes being that unusual shade of hazel that became whatever color she was wearing. She had always felt more confident with blue eyes. When they were green, she felt more cast down, no doubt due to the reminder of her emerald-eyed mother. And brown eyes did absolutely nothing for her whatsoever.

  Today would be blue.

  Blue and puffy, Persephone sighed. She’d tried, anyway.

  Second on her list of absolutely necessary undertakings was that of learning to be the Duchess of Kielder. She would be the mistress of Falstone Castle, responsible for the staff, the menu, the household expenses, and she knew not what all. Persephone had absolutely no idea how to go on. Managing a small household was one thing. Undertaking the management of a four-hundred-year-old castle and a staff the size of a small village was quite another.

  Nothing would do but to seek out the only other lady on earth who could tell her precisely what was expected of her: the Dowager Duchess of Kielder.

  Her stomach turning as she descended the stairs, Persephone made her way to the breakfast room. She did not relish the coming minutes. No new bride enjoys confessing to her mother-in-law that she is incompetent. But, if this life Persephone had chosen for herself was to be anything but a dismal failure, confess she must.

  Right after she figured out where she was.

  Persephone glanced around. She stood in a long, narrow passageway, surrounded by stone walls hung with the occasional tapestry. Recalling what she’d seen of the castle thus far, Persephone knew she could be just about anywhere. It was not the capable beginning she’d imagined when she woke that morning.

  Persephone retraced her steps, only to find herself in another passageway, or perhaps the same one—she couldn’t tell. Perhaps after a few more days, she would know the castle better. Two passageways later, or twice in the same one, Persephone amended her prediction to a few more years.

  “Oh!” came a startled exclamation.

  Persephone spun around. Standing with eyes wide in shock was a young maid, probably no more than thirteen or fourteen years old.

  “Thank heavens,” Persephone breathed.

  “Forgive me, Your Grace!” She bobbed a curtsy. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your . . . your . . .”

  “I was attempting to find the breakfast room.”

  “But you’re halfway to the north tower,” the girl answered in obvious disbelief.

  Persephone tried to shrug off her embarrassment.

  An understanding smile tugged at the maid’s mouth. “I got lost a few times when I first came,” she said. “Falstone Castle is awful big.”

  Persephone nodded.

  “I can show you where the breakfast room is,” the maid offered.

  “I don’t want to keep you from your duties . . . ur . . . I am afraid I don’t know your name.”

  “Fanny, Your Grace.” She bobbed again. “An’ you won’t be keeping me from my work. Not if I’m doing what you asked me to do. You being the mistress of the house, and all.”

  “True.” Persephone smiled a touch ironically.

  “This way, Your Grace,” Fanny said, and turned on her heels to walk back the way she’d apparently come.

  Persephone followed at a close distance. After a minute or two, the passageway opened into a larger corridor. “This looks vaguely familiar,” Persephone said, mostly to herself, eyeing the paneled walls and pointed-arch windows.

  The corridor spilled onto the first-floor landing, the wide staircase leading down to the entrance hall and its fan-vaulted ceiling. A long, crimson banner hung just above the double front doors displaying what Persephone had decided upon arriving two days earlier was the family coat of arms.

  The Lancasters had no family crest or motto or any of the hundreds of other things that set families like the Boyces so far above the rest of society. The Boyces had history. They belonged to hundreds of years of their own existence. No doubt there were Boyces long before the Domesday Book. The Lancasters weren’t known to have walked the earth more than four or five generations back.

  “I’m an intruder here,” Persephone whispered to herself.

  “Just this way, Your Grace,” Fanny said, leading the way across the landing.

  They passed the doors to the dining room where the wedding breakfast had been served, and Fanny stopped at the next door, motioning for Persephone to enter.

  “The breakfast room,” she said quietly, as if passing on a secret.

  “Thank you, Fanny.”

  The girl bobbed a curtsy then quickly disappeared back down the corridor. Persephone took a deep, fortifying breath and stepped inside.

  “Explain to Harry before you leave that you are not going because I forced you to do so,” Adam’s voice reached Persephone as she stepped into the room.

  She looked up at the sound, finding him seated at the round breakfast table, obviously addressing his mother, who sat across from him and watched him with obvious motherly concern. Adam spoke over the top of a newspaper, lowered to reveal only the left half of his face. Persephone thought of the brief glimpse she’d had of Adam the morning they were married and the scars that marked the right side of his face. She wondered if he purposely hid it.

  Adam continued addressing his mother. “Harry seems to think I drive every person who ever comes here away with a scythe in one hand and a flaming torch in the other.”

  “A regular one-person bloodthirsty mob—that’s what you are.” Harry’s reply drew Persephone’s eyes to where he sat, a few places removed from Adam. “You really ought to think about employing pitchforks when you—”

  Harry looked up at that moment and spotted Persephone. He rose abruptly to his feet, acknowledging her entrance. Persephone let her eyes wander back to Adam. He had risen as well but did not look in her direction. Adam seemed mesmerized by something just outside the windows.

  “Persephone!” the dowager duchess exclaimed, hurrying to the doorway where Persephone stood. Adam’s mother had taken to Christian names early on, though Persephone could not bring herself to so much as think of the duchess as Harriet. “Are you feeling better this morning?”

  Persephone nodded, color staining her cheeks as she remembered running into her mother-in-law when she was certain she looked less than presentable: red-rimmed eyes, mud-stained dress, wrinkles from bodice to hem.

  “Come break your fast, dear,” the dowager instructed. “Eggs? Kidneys?”

  “Yes, please.” She hadn’t eaten a thing since breakfast the morning before and was ravenously hungry.

  “Harry, will you please—”

  “I will prepare a plate for her, Mother,” Adam interrupted, sounding none too happy about it.

  “I can—” Persephone began to protest.

  But Adam had already turned to the sideboard and was placing eggs on a plate.

  Persephone sat at the first empty seat she came to. A delicate china plate was placed in front of her.
“Thank you, Adam,” Persephone said on something near a whisper.

  He picked up his paper, lying on the table near Persephone’s left arm. Apparently, she’d chosen the chair next to his. Persephone looked up at him with a smile, unsure if she ought to be apologizing or looking pleased with the arrangement. The newspaper in Adam’s hand crumpled under the tension in his fist. He was facing away from her, but Persephone could see the disapproval written all over his face.

  “I’m sorry,” Persephone said, rising. “I’ll sit somewhere else.”

  “Sit,” Adam instructed without looking at her.

  Persephone obeyed immediately.

  “Perhaps you should move to the other side, dear,” the dowager suggested.

  His right side! Persephone could have kicked herself. She’d suspected before that Adam was self-conscious about his scars. He would not appreciate having her seated at his right.

  Persephone stood again, picking up her plate.

  “Sit,” Adam said again, a touch impatiently.

  Persephone began to sit but stopped when the dowager spoke again.

  “I am certain she wouldn’t mind,” she said to her son. “It isn’t so very much to ask, poor—”

  “I will move.” Adam snatched his own plate and walked around the table to the seat furthest from the one he had occupied.

  Persephone tucked into her breakfast, thinking furiously. She hadn’t done well, thus far, on the goals she’d set for herself. She doubted Adam had even noticed her blue dress or her new coiffure. Not that she’d expected him to spout sonnets at her appearance. But a smile would have been nice.

  She took a sip of tea. From then on, Persephone vowed she would take care never to sit on Adam’s right. It was a shame, really, that he was so conscious of his scars. They truly didn’t bother her. She wondered about them, how he’d come to have such extensive injuries. And she wondered if those scars were the only reason Adam had been so unhappy with her seated so near.

  A knot formed instantly in her stomach at the thought that she alone had sent him to the far end of the table. Suddenly, Persephone didn’t feel very hungry.

  “Will you be coming to Town at Christmastime?” the dowager asked, her eyes turned to Adam.

  “Of course not,” Adam answered, his paper raised once more. “I never go to Town until absolutely necessary.”

  The dowager turned her attention to Persephone. “You must convince the poor boy to go about more in society. I would so love to have the two of you with me in London.”

  “I have never been to London.”

  The look of shock that followed what Persephone had intended to be a conversational comment instantly silenced any further words she might have produced. That hadn’t been the right response to the dowager’s invitation.

  “Well, then,” Persephone’s mother-in-law recovered herself quickly, “in that case you absolutely must come.” Her smile broadened to an entirely sincere grin. “I will positively love taking you around Town and introducing you to just everyone! Do come, Adam. We could all go. I am certain you could pack quickly. I could delay my departure by a day or so and we could all—”

  “No, Mother,” was the implacable response. “I will be forced to take her in the spring as it is.”

  “Forced?” the dowager replied with obvious disapproval at Adam’s word choice. “The Season is such fun. How can you say ‘forced’?”

  “I despise London,” Adam answered. “But the Queen will be put out if Persephone is not presented. And that is one bother I could do without. Thus, I shall be forced to Town.”

  Upsetting the queen qualified as little more than a bother to Adam? Persephone felt her less-exalted birth keenly in that moment.

  “Do not let him burden you with even the tiniest amount of guilt, Your Grace,” Harry said to Persephone. “He will be eager to go to London come March or April. By then he will have gone at least nine months without insulting the members of the Cabinet nor any of the Royal family and will be itching for the opportunity. He will, we can now be quite certain, blame the trip on you.”

  “I am not to believe that reason, then?” Persephone asked. Harry had an easy smile—one that had almost instantly brought an answering smile to her own lips. She’d needed someone to stand as reassurer.

  “It seems, with Mother Harriet haring off to Town, there will be no one to explain to the new duchess how to interpret her husband’s frequently misleading moods,” Harry said as if deep in thought.

  Persephone took a sip of tea to hide her smile.

  “I suppose, as a good friend of the family, I ought to remain behind and offer my insight. Seeing as how I no longer fear the threat of your pistols, and you have assured me that you do not, in fact, brandish farm weaponry in ridding yourself of guests who overstay their welcomes.” Harry rose from his seat. “I feel entirely secure in remaining at Falstone Castle indefinitely.”

  “Do not be surprised if you are thrown from the south parapet,” Adam warned, not so much as lowering his paper.

  “I am beginning to suspect, Adam, that you do not like me very much. Your Grace.” Harry bowed to the dowager. “Your Grace.” Then to Persephone. With a grin, he bowed to Adam. “Your Grace.”

  “Clod-head,” Adam grumbled.

  “This could get confusing,” Harry said as he walked to the door. “We really ought to think of names for the three of you.”

  Persephone smiled. She hoped Harry did stay for a while. His optimism was infectious, and she needed every drop she could come by.

  “Do not leave without saying good-bye, Mother Harriet,” Harry requested.

  “Of course not, Harry.” The dowager smiled at him.

  “Are you really leaving?” Persephone asked after Harry had gone.

  “Later this morning,” was the confirmation.

  “Oh.” That upset her plans. She had hoped for a few weeks of instruction.

  “It is sweet of you to look so downcast at my departure, my dear.” The dowager smiled kindly. “But it really is for the best. I am more comfortable in Town. And I think every newly wedded couple appreciates the absence of any and all of their parents.” She smiled at Adam as she passed him and floated out the door with all the dignity and grace a duchess ought to possess.

  Persephone managed to bite back her sigh of frustration. Her plans for the day had just, essentially, gone up in flames. Her duchess-tutor was hying herself to London. Persephone’s attempts at improving her appearance had not even been noted. And Adam was sitting as far away from her as possible without actually leaving the room. He also seemed to be completely oblivious to her presence.

  “Now what?” Persephone silently asked herself. And the trouble was, she had no answer.

  Chapter Eight

  “Haven’t you any relatives willing to endure the sight of you for a few days?” Adam asked as he and Harry rode back through the outer gate of Falstone after a particularly bruising mid-morning ride.

  “Is that a not-so-subtle hint that my indefinite visit is coming to a rather definite end? Or are you simply curious about the state of my relatives’ affection for me?”

  “I have no doubt your relatives are as heartily sick of you as I am. They, however, are far less likely than I am to draw and quarter you. Probably only because they do not have a conveniently located dungeon as I have.”

  “It amazes me, Adam,” Harry said, keeping pace with him as they passed under the arch of Falstone’s inner wall and brought their mounts to a halt at the front steps of the castle, “how you can feign such dislike for me. I am generally considered a very likable fellow.”

  Adam dismounted, handing Zeus’s reins to one of the stable lads who’d met them there in order to take their mounts back to the stables.

  “You don’t think I’m all the crack?” Harry asked, with a laugh, as they ascended the stone steps leading to the solid front doors of Adam’s home.

  “Using cant, Harry?” Adam despised slang. “You sound more like those idiotic young
London fops every day.”

  “And you sound more like my grandfather every day.”

  “I knew your grandfather,” Adam reminded him.

  Harry laughed. “In other words, I’ve offended you.”

  “I doubt I remind you of your rapscallion grandfather in any way.” Adam handed his gloves and hat to Barton and continued across the entry hall.

  “Certainly not in your choice of wife,” Harry said.

  Adam followed Harry’s suddenly fixed gaze up the stairwell to the first-floor landing, where Persephone stood with her back to them and her head bent over as if studying something in her hands.

  “My grandmother was something of a dragon,” Harry went on. “Never left a fellow bellows to mend, I’d wager.”

  “It is generally not a good idea to tell a short-tempered man that his wife has left you breathless,” Adam warned, Harry’s observation inexplicably raising his hackles.

  “He might shoot me in my sleep?” Harry hazarded the guess with a barely held-back laugh.

  “He might shoot you where you’re standing,” Adam answered with a growl.

  “Hmm.” It was far too ponderous a sound for Adam’s tastes. Without acknowledging Harry’s apparent evaluation of the situation, Adam began moving up the staircase, bound for his book room.

  Persephone, apparently, heard his approach. She spun around to face the gentlemen, hastily slipping something behind her back and smiling a little nervously. What was she hiding?

  “Persephone,” Adam acknowledged with a slight bow.

  “Hello, Adam. Mr. Windover.”

  “We are practically brother and sister,” Harry said, the slightest scold in his tone. “You really ought to call me Harry.”

  Adam noticed Persephone’s eyes drift toward himself, as if uncertain.

  “You are afraid Adam, here, will inflict some dire punishment on me for such a liberty?” Harry guessed. Persephone seemed to smile the tiniest bit. “Do not fret. I know several highly secretive passages out of the dungeons.”