Seeking Persephone

by Sarah M. Eden

  No one had ever mentioned that resemblance, either. But then he and Mother were rarely seen together. He doubted many people even noticed his nose when presented with the rest of him.

  “Are you like him in other ways?” Persephone looked once more at the painting.

  “Like my father?”

  She nodded.

  “I hope so,” Adam answered more quietly than he’d intended. When Persephone took that response as her cue to turn those scrutinizing brown eyes—why hadn’t he noticed before that they were brown?—on him, Adam shifted topics. “You wanted to speak to me about something?”

  He walked abruptly away. The distance, he found, didn’t help. He was every bit as aware of her presence as he’d been standing next to her.

  “Yes.” Enthusiasm colored her voice again. “I have a letter from Athena.”

  Athena. She was the oldest of Persephone’s sisters. Seventeen or eighteen, if Adam remembered correctly.

  “They have received word that the Triumphant will make port the last week of November and that Linus will be granted three weeks’ shore leave. Isn’t that wonderful?” She smiled broadly, her eyes sparkling in a way they hadn’t since she’d married him. Her face lit up when she spoke of her family. He began to truly wonder if she was at all happy at Falstone. “The Triumphant is docking at Newcastle. If Linus sends word when they arrive, I could be there to see him before he has to go to Shropshire.”

  “Be there? In Newcastle?” Adam tensed.

  “It isn’t so very far.”

  Newcastle is not far, my poor boy.

  “I wouldn’t be gone more than a day or two.”

  I will be back before you even have time to miss me.

  “Of course, I would want to see him off as well, which would mean going back when the Triumphant set out again.”

  I know I was just there, but Mother has so many things to do when she is away.

  “You can’t go.” Even as he spoke, Adam could hear his own childhood voice echoing the same words in his memory.

  Then he saw Persephone pale, her smile disappearing in an instant. There was no disbelief, no shock, only disappointment. “Please, Adam,” she pleaded with him. “It would only be a few days.”

  He felt like an ogre. He knew how devastating the past few weeks had been for Persephone, how she’d grieved the loss of one brother and feared for the loss of the other. How could he deny her the opportunity to see for herself that the lad was well?

  But what if she left and never came back? Mother had found hundreds of reasons to prolong her stays in Newcastle over the years. The same had been true of London. Eventually she simply hadn’t returned.

  “It could be years before I see him again.” Persephone’s voice broke a little as she spoke.

  “Bring him here,” Adam blurted.

  “But you don’t allow visitors.”

  Adam shrugged off her extremely logical argument. He didn’t allow visitors. So why had he just invited one? “It makes far more sense than your going to Newcastle. Linus can come here before going to see your family.”

  “Do you mean it?” Persephone sounded entirely shocked.

  She obviously had not expected a simple kindness from her husband. It was a wonder she hadn’t left him as society claimed.

  “I don’t say anything I don’t mean.”

  “And it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition?”

  “I’d rather like to meet the boy myself.”

  “Really?” Persephone allowed the tiniest of smiles.

  “Linus might make a good page.” Adam shrugged, surprising himself with his own attempt at humor. “Hewitt will probably faint dead away at the first battle cry. It would be wise to have a backup.”

  Persephone’s smile grew. For just a moment she looked as though she would reach out to him. The look passed quickly, however, as if she’d reminded herself not to. Adam wondered why that was. Why, when she had kissed him only days before—twice in twenty-four hours—was she suddenly keeping a civil distance between them?

  “Thank you, Adam,” she said, making her way to the book room door.

  Adam waved off the gratitude. He hadn’t made the offer in order to be thanked. He’d done so for entirely selfish reasons—so she wouldn’t leave and so he wouldn’t have to miss her.

  Trouble was, there would be other opportunities, other reasons for her to leave. He couldn’t prevent them all. He knew there wouldn’t always be an argument to keep her at Falstone, and he wasn’t about to become her prison keeper.

  He needed to see to it that she wanted to stay. But how did he go about seeing that his wife was happily settled at home, was contented enough to not need to wander the country? Adam had no idea. Nothing about the home he’d grown up in had enticed his mother to remain.

  “Persephone seemed in good spirits.”

  He didn’t need to look over to see who had spoken. “Come in, Harry.”

  If anyone knew about not leaving, Harry did. And Adam needed some expert advice.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “You’re not going to tell me to go pack my bags?” Harry dropped into his usual chair. “Are you feeling well, Adam?”

  “Why don’t you ever leave?” Adam jumped right into the topic.

  “I knew it was too good to be true.” Harry sighed and rose from his seat, a spark of laughter in his eyes.

  “Sit down and answer the question, Harry.”

  “Is this a pointed interrogation or more of an intellectual discussion?” Harry regained his seat.

  “Intellectual discussion.”

  “Why don’t I ever leave? Honestly?”

  “Yes, honestly.”

  Harry shrugged. “Because I like Falstone.”

  “Why?”

  “Free food.”

  “I said honestly, Harry.” Adam was having second thoughts.

  “The food is nothing to disregard, Adam. Cook is a miracle worker. Aside from that, Falstone is, I don’t know, familiar. Comfortable.”

  Familiar. Comfortable. Adam doubted Persephone would describe Falstone that way.

  “And do you feel the same way about the house in London? You spend a lot of time there as well. And you’ve gone with me to Kent a few times. And on the yacht—”

  “This is a pointed interrogation, isn’t it?” Harry speared him with a look. “If you’re trying to tell me to make myself scarce now that you’re married, I completely understand, Adam.”

  “It’s not that at all.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I just want to know why you’ve stayed around all these years.” Adam paced back to the French doors. Why couldn’t Harry ever just answer a question?

  “We’re friends, Adam.” Harry spoke as if that ought to have been obvious. “Friends don’t jump ship.”

  “I think your answer about the food was more honest.”

  “Did it ever occur to you, Adam, that I honestly consider you a friend? My best friend, in fact.”

  “Because of Harrow?” Adam stared out the French doors. He hated to think that Harry had spent twenty years at his side because of some overblown sense of obligation.

  “It may have started that way,” Harry confessed. “You saved my skin, so I sort of worshiped you for a while, like an idol who could ward off evil spirits, I suppose.”

  Adam smiled a little at that. Harry had come across almost as a religious zealot those first few months of their friendship. Friendship. Adam repeated the word to himself. It felt right describing it that way. Adam had never really thought of himself as the sort of person who had friends.

  Father hadn’t had many. It had felt like Mother had too many. She was always away visiting one or more of them.

  “But then you landed me a facer for something stupid I did or said—”

  Adam remembered that fight well, though he no longer had any idea what they’d been scuffling over. They were eight at the time. The two-boy brawl had been ferocious. It was as if something inside Adam had sna
pped. He couldn’t have been fiercer if he’d been actually fighting to save his life.

  Harry had fought back, hard. By the time the scuffle was broken up—by the headmaster, of all people—they were both bloody and exhausted. And, he remembered with some unnameable emotion, he had been crying. Sobbing, really. And had been unable to stop.

  No one but Harry and the headmaster had witnessed his breakdown. Neither one had ever mentioned it to him afterward.

  “—and we were sent down,” Harry continued. “My parents were away on holiday so we both came here. In those two weeks of our expulsion I met Adam Boyce. The Duke of Kielder still scared the guts out of me. But Adam Boyce was just a boy like me.”

  That was when Harry had started calling him Adam. Until those two weeks of punishment, which had actually been the happiest days of his life since his father had died, Harry, like everyone else, had referred to Adam as Kielder or Your Grace or the Duke—he being the only duke at Harrow. But during that time he’d become Adam. He’d never before understood what had brought about the change.

  “I remember Jeb Handly teaching me the finer points of fisticuffs on the back courtyard so you wouldn’t beat me so thoroughly the next time.”

  “Finer points?” Adam replied dryly. “He taught you to fight dirty.”

  Harry grinned at that. “Just like you. I suppose, though, when one’s lessons are given in the shadow of a well-used gibbet, dirty is the only option.”

  “I thought you would faint like a schoolgirl when you first caught sight of the gibbet.” Adam chuckled at the memory.

  “At least you didn’t make me sleep in the Orange Chamber.”

  They’d spent the two weeks in the nursery. “Do you remember Nurse Robbie?”

  “The one who used to sing that song?” A smile was obvious in his voice. “The one about the boy who was small as a dandelion or something.”

  “It was a thistle.”

  Just then a movement down below caught his attention. Persephone was walking in her garden. Why did she wear that old, brown coat? Certainly she had the pin money to buy herself a new one. She ought to be wearing something warm but fashionable, the way the ladies in London dressed. The black of her day dress peeked out beneath the long coat, a perpetual reminder of her grief.

  Had she retreated to the garden for another bout of weeping? Adam watched her more closely, hoping she hadn’t.

  “So why this sudden interest in our colorful childhoods?” Harry asked, moving to Adam’s side.

  Adam shrugged, watching Persephone make her way slowly along the hedge. He could see her breath condensing in the cold, even from so far away. She had to be freezing. He ought to send word to the kitchen to have a pot of tea or chocolate ready for her when she returned.

  “Looks bloody cold out there, doesn’t it?” Harry said.

  “It does.”

  “She must really like that garden to stay out there when it is so much warmer inside,” Harry said.

  “Why does she stay?” Adam muttered to himself, not particularly thinking of the garden.

  “If there is one thing I will never understand, Adam, it’s women. Why does she walk through the garden in the freezing cold? I don’t know. There must be something about it she likes, something worth being out there for.”

  What, Adam asked himself, made the hedge garden so appealing to Persephone? She went out there every day. Adam had watched her wandering about when he ought to have been seeing to estate business. Something drew her back day after day. If Adam could just figure out what that was and implement it elsewhere around Falstone, then Persephone would never want to leave.

  “What is it that women love about gardens?” Harry could have been reading Adam’s thoughts.

  “I have no idea.”

  “My mother spent hours in her garden whenever my father was away from home.” Harry shook his head. “One would think if she was lonely, she would have visited the neighbors instead of the shrubbery.”

  “The garden kept her company?” Adam asked doubtfully.

  “Like I said, there is very little about women that I even remotely understand.” Harry moved away from the French doors. “Persephone looks cold, Adam,” he said as he made his way across the room. “You should go keep her warm.”

  “Keep her—?”

  “The fact that my suggestion confuses you does not bode well, my friend,” was Harry’s parting shot.

  “Didn’t confuse me,” Adam muttered, turning back to watch Persephone. He simply couldn’t imagine her wishing for the sort of attention Harry had suggested.

  She did look cold. What kept her out there? Harry’s mother had been lonely. Could that be Persephone’s reason as well?

  Adam thought back on the vicar’s visit. She’d been so disappointed when she thought Adam would bring the call to a premature close. She made the trip to the Pointers’ twice a week to visit with the local ladies. He’d seen her face light up whenever Barton delivered another letter from her family.

  “She is lonely,” Adam said with bleak resignation. He watched Persephone turn another corner of the garden, walking alone. Isolation was heaven for Adam. It seemed quite the opposite for Persephone.

  I require people, Joseph, Mother had said so many times to Father, though Adam hadn’t thought about those conversations in years. There are more people in one neighborhood of London than in all of Falstone.

  So Father had hosted countless balls and dinners. Mother had been “at home” to callers every day for hours on end. Still, she’d left dozens of times, and always when Adam had needed her most. She hadn’t even been at Falstone when Adam and Harry had been sent down. Jeb Handly and Nurse Robbie had looked after them.

  Adam turned his head and looked up into the frozen face of his father. “The balls didn’t work,” he said, as if his father hadn’t noticed that the endless diversion he’d provided for Mother hadn’t kept her at home. “I—” The words stuck, but Adam pushed them out. He could always talk to his father. “I don’t want Persephone to leave me.”

  Admitting it out loud somehow drove home how true the words were. The thought of Persephone disappearing the way Mother had made his stomach knot. The thought of hundreds of people prowling around Falstone Castle—be it a ball, a dinner, or a neighborhood invasion—made him feel ill.

  “Blast it!” Adam crossed to the fireplace, throwing himself into a chair. Being married wasn’t supposed to be this complicated.

  A wolf howled outside. Howling during the day wasn’t entirely unheard of. The noises of the household generally drowned out their cries. But that howl had been uncommonly close to the castle.

  Persephone! She would be insane with fear. Adam jumped to his feet again and crossed back to the French doors. He didn’t see her in her garden. A second howl sounded.

  Adam spotted her running back toward the castle. She was hysterical, he realized.

  He moved swiftly across the room and out into the corridor. A moment later he reached the first-floor landing and watched as Persephone flew through the front door. Barton stood in obvious confusion, but Persephone didn’t seem to notice.

  Adam met her halfway up the stairs. Persephone nearly knocked him over. She wrapped her arms around his middle and buried her face into his lapel. She was trembling. So was he, but probably for entirely different reasons.

  “I heard them, Adam!” Her words cracked with fear. “The wolves are inside Falstone!”

  “No, Persephone.” Adam held her a little closer. She was cold, he told himself.

  “I don’t know how, but they must be inside.” Her voice rose in alarm. “They were so loud.”

  “They aren’t inside the castle walls, Persephone.”

  “Are you certain?” She buried her head more deeply against him.

  “Positive.” Adam spotted Barton near the door watching the exchange rather too closely for Adam’s tastes. “Barton, will you send tea up to my book room?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” That took care of the butler.r />
  Adam kept one arm around Persephone and led her up the stairs.

  “The wolves sounded so close,” she whispered.

  “I will have my steward check on the pack,” Adam assured her. “They always give the castle a wide berth.”

  Adam walked her directly to the book room’s most comfortable chair, grateful it sat so near the fire. She’d been out in the cold too long. “Tea should come soon.”

  “Thank you, Adam.” Persephone smiled up at him as she sat, but she still looked worried.

  “Persephone?”

  “Yes, Adam?”

  “I think . . . I think we should have a ball.”

  “A ball?” She couldn’t possibly have sounded more shocked. Adam was a little surprised, too.

  “Unless you don’t want to.” Adam shot a look at Father’s portrait. He should have known the ball wasn’t a good idea.

  “I assumed you wouldn’t want to,” Persephone said. “It would mean a lot of people in the castle.”

  “Every bride should have a ball,” Adam muttered.

  “We are still in mourning.” She spoke uncertainly.

  “I think a wedding ball would be permissible.” Anything he did was considered permissible by society. No one dared contradict him.

  “Really?” The hint of hope in her voice tugged a smile from Adam’s lips.

  “Really.” He allowed the smile to remain, small as it was.

  Again a look crossed Persephone’s face, one that seemed to hint that she held something back, a word or a gesture. In the end, she simply smiled. “I think a ball would be nice.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Harry actually had to sit down. “Adam suggested it?” He shook his head almost convulsively. “Adam? The Adam I know?”

  “I don’t understand it, either,” Persephone admitted. “I never would have thought that Adam was capable of suggesting a ball at Falstone Castle.”

  “He didn’t mention this at dinner last night.” Harry continued his head shaking. “When did he propose this scheme?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. I fully expect to hear he has changed his mind.”