Seeking Persephone

by Sarah M. Eden

  “Perhaps not.” Adam didn’t take his eyes from his task. “But a husband is charged with keeping his wife in sickness, is he not?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” The maid sounded more confused than anything else.

  “Then I would venture that tending to my wife is perfectly seemly.”

  Lud, her ankle was terribly swollen, and tender, if her continued grimace were any indication.

  “It is highly unusual.”

  “And when has the Duke of Kielder cared what was usual?”

  The bones didn’t feel out of place. If anything, there might be a small crack. Persephone was fortunate in that, at least.

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  The abigail quit her lecture after that, contenting herself with retrieving needles and tweezers to help Adam clean the debris from Persephone’s wound and providing fresh cloths until a second maid arrived with the next can of water from the kitchen. In silence the two of them worked, Adam cleaning gashes and washing Persephone’s leg and foot, the abigail tending to her bleeding head and swollen eye.

  Persephone didn’t say a word.

  Adam personally cleaned every drop of blood off Persephone’s leg, from knee to toe. He counted four deep gashes, each measuring several inches in length, some two dozen more superficial wounds. Her ankle worried him most, especially as he knew he could do nothing about it.

  Two footmen were enlisted to hold Persephone still while Adam poured nearly an entire bottle of brandy over the cuts in her leg. She broke her silence for the first time in over thirty minutes. No words escaped her tongue, only a heart-wrenching cry of agony.

  By the time he’d finished cleaning her wounds, Adam was spent. Hearing her obvious suffering and knowing he’d caused it—no matter how necessary the infliction—proved nearly too much for him. He placed his hands, shoulder length apart on the bed, hunched over, and hung his head. He could not continue. He hadn’t the willpower.

  “I will stitch up her leg, Your Grace.” For the first time in the months since she had been employed, Persephone’s abigail spoke to Adam with entirely unfeigned kindness and respect. Before, she’d seemed more awed and impressed by his title and, perhaps, his reputation. In that moment, she seemed most impressed with Adam himself. It was an unprecedented experience for him.

  Adam turned his head enough to look at her. She offered a small smile, something he might once have disapproved of from a servant. But Adam only nodded and moved away enough to allow her to finish tending to Persephone.

  An upstairs maid, the same who’d assisted their ministrations, cleared away a large pile of wet, bloodied linens. She, too, smiled empathetically at him. Adam couldn’t remember ever being the recipient of so many smiles. It was unnerving.

  “She’s lookin’ better, a’ready,” the maid said. “Not quite so pale.”

  Adam glanced at Persephone and knew in an instant it wasn’t true. She had grown paler than before the brandy, more still and quiet. Lies, however white or well-meaning, had never been permissible in his mind. Until that moment. He needed the lies.

  The little maid, one he’d seen around the castle dozens of times, was offering him comfort. She generally bobbed a nervous curtsy then scurried away. All the staff did. But there she stood, unafraid, unquaking, offering him what reassurance she could.

  “Thank you,” Adam muttered.

  She held a clean cloth out to him. “’Tis fresh water.” She nodded toward the basin. “So you can wash your hands clean.”

  Adam looked at his hands then. Every inch was stained, the shade varying from pink to nearly black. He could do nothing but stare at them.

  “You’ll feel better cleanin’ it off, Your Grace,” the maid told him gently. “’Twould ache any man’s heart to have to see his wife’s blood that way.”

  He nodded, mutely crossing to the washbasin. Adam thrust his hands into the warm, still water. Wisps of red began to swirl and cloud the clearness. The water alone wouldn’t be enough. Adam took the cloth—the only clean one left in the entire house, he’d guess—and began to scrub.

  ’Twould ache any man’s heart. Adam couldn’t imagine the sensation being described in any other way. He had escaped their ordeal physically unscathed, and yet he was in pain—an internal, aching pain.

  Adam glanced at Persephone. She wore a look of utter anguish on her face. Tiny moans of pain escaped her throat as her abigail painstakingly sewed closed her wounds. Adam remembered that pain, the feeling of being sewn together. It was pain added onto pain. He hadn’t allowed himself to think of those times in years, of the brutal surgeries and long, difficult recoveries.

  Adam rinsed and scrubbed, again and again, until his hands were no longer red from blood but from scrubbing. Still, every crease, every wrinkle remained unnaturally darkened and residue remained under his fingernails. It would take time to clear the remainder away entirely, although Adam didn’t believe he would ever get the images of the last few hours out of his mind.

  “Adam” reached him as a choked whimper.

  He quickly dried his hands and abandoned the basin of salmon-colored water. He sat beside Persephone and wrapped his fingers around hers. A tear trickled down the length of Persephone’s nose. Adam gently brushed it away.

  “Is she almost done?” Persephone struggled to get the words out.

  “Very nearly,” Adam whispered.

  She looked relieved, if only a little. Adam didn’t imagine she could see very much through her badly swollen eye. Her pain must have been nearly unbearable.

  “Adam?”

  “Yes, dear?” Dear? Adam sat stunned for a moment that such a word had come so naturally to his lips.

  “Please stay with me,” Persephone whispered.

  He didn’t know what brought on the impulse, but he leaned over and kissed her lightly on the forehead, lingering a moment longer than necessary. “If you will stay with me,” he answered silently.

  He remained at her side until the abigail tied off the last stitch and Persephone’s leg was wrapped in clean strips of linen.

  A few minutes later, he sat on the bench at the foot of her bed, Persephone curled up beside him, leaning against the side of his chest, his arm wrapped around her. The maids were changing the linens on her bed, those that had been there having been destroyed by blood, water, and brandy. She could just as easily have lain on the settee in her sitting room, but Adam had insisted. In the short few minutes he’d held her, Persephone had fallen asleep

  Watching her sleep had become a hobby of his over the past two months. But never had he watched her with the level of intensity he did just then.

  She was pale and bruised and in such obvious pain. Until the surgeon in Hawick or the apothecary in Sifton arrived, they could not know if her ankle was broken. Only time would bring down the swelling in her face.

  Suppose her leg became infected? Wounds could turn septic quickly.

  No, Adam shook his head. He’d used enough brandy to cleanse the wounds of an entire army regiment.

  But would it be enough? He was not a medical man.

  “Your Grace?”

  He looked up at the abigail.

  “Her Grace really ought to be changed into a fresh nightdress.”

  “Of course.” Adam leaned toward his wife. “Persephone.” A slight nudge and she roused. “Persephone?”

  She looked up at him, exhaustion and confusion clouding her eyes.

  “Your ladies’ maid is going to change you now. It would help if you were awake.”

  She nodded but still seemed distant, half asleep.

  Adam glanced at his blood- and mud-splattered clothing. “I should change as well.”

  Persephone sat up a little more and offered a shaky smile. Obviously her pain lingered. Adam touched her gently on the cheek.

  “We’ll take care of her, Your Grace,” the abigail said. Adam caught the other maids nodding out of the corner of his eye.

  “You’ll send for me if she needs anything?”

 
“Of course,” was the reply.

  The maids were all looking at him with that look one gives a calfling who is quite unmistakably enamored: overly emotive eyes and sentimental smiles. Adam grew suddenly terribly uncomfortable.

  “Try to rest,” he said to Persephone, watching the other women with a wary eye, then he left as quickly as his dignity would allow.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The Falstone steward, Mr. Hayworth, was in Adam’s book room when he arrived there minutes after changing his bloody clothing. Barton had told him the steward wished to speak to him.

  “I hope you have some information for me regarding the pack.” Adam didn’t bother with a greeting but crossed directly to his desk.

  Hayworth nodded, hat clutched in his hands. He took a seat when Adam indicated he should. “My boy and I have been riding through Falstone Forest the past few days. There are signs of poaching, Your Grace. A lot of poaching.”

  “Then the pack is having trouble finding game?”

  “Expanding their hunting grounds,” Hayworth confirmed.

  “Even in the worst of winters, they haven’t attacked riders nor approached the castle gates,” Adam said. “They did both today.”

  Hayworth repeated his signature nod. It didn’t always mean “yes”; generally he meant simply to acknowledge a statement. “Bein’ more aggressive, ’specially toward people, ain’t a good sign in wild animals.”

  “Believe me, Hayworth, I am acutely aware of that.”

  “I have a suggestion, Your Grace, for pushing the pack back into the forest.”

  “Make your suggestion.”

  “First we have to cut back the poaching. Guards along the road would help and might keep the pack from the gates.”

  “Unless the pack simply devours the guards,” Adam said.

  “A few lures would pull ’em back into the forest. There’s more game on the north end. Once the pack realizes that, they’ll stay there.”

  “How do we make the pack discover as much?”

  “Smell,” Hayworth answered. “Wolves have keen noses.”

  The idea had merit. Hound dogs were trained using scent.

  “It is worth an attempt, at least,” Adam said. “There are, of course, two tenant cottages as well as your own in Falstone Forest. Find a path that bypasses those.”

  “Of course, Your Grace.”

  “John Handly, Your Grace,” Barton announced from the door.

  Adam looked up. John looked deucedly uncomfortable. He’d outrun a pack of attacking wolves while leading a lame horse without so much as paling, but place him inside one of the family rooms of the castle, and he looked ready to faint.

  “Come in, John.” Adam used a tone that required obedience.

  He entered a step or two but stood, head lowered, as near the door as possible.

  “What is it?” Adam asked.

  John would not have come to the castle nor allowed himself to be shown inside—neither would Barton have led him to the book room—if his message were not urgent.

  “Atlas, Yer Grace,” John muttered.

  “What about Atlas?” Had the horse’s injuries proven fatal already? Persephone would be heartbroken. Adam felt something of an ache in his own chest. He’d seen Atlas defend Persephone in that forest. He no doubt had saved her life.

  “I think I know . . . I have an idea why the pack attacked him.”

  “Other than his being in the forest in the dead of winter?”

  John nodded.

  “What have you discovered?”

  “We was cleaning his wounds and couldn’t help noticing a strange smell, Yer Grace.”

  “Smell?” That was odd.

  “Rather like, well, like a cut of bacon.”

  “Bacon?” Hayworth echoed Adam’s response.

  “Yes, Yer Grace. And I’m wondering if that might be why the wolves attacked Atlas. They didn’t bother with me and my horse, neither you and Zeus. Not really, considering how intent they was on Atlas. Her Grace might have picked up some of that smell, and that’d be why the pack seemed interested in her, but not as much as Atlas.”

  “You spoke of smells, Hayworth.” Adam looked at his steward. “Would bacon be a luring smell?”

  Hayworth nodded in confirmation.

  “How does a horse come to smell like a cut of meat?” Adam asked John.

  “All I can think is one of the stable boys didn’t wash up good after breakfast or was holdin’ on to a piece of bacon in his pocket or sommat, wantin’ to eat it later and got the smell on the horse or saddle or sommat like ’at.” John’s accent always grew cruder when he was upset. Slovenliness among his staff would be upsetting to the man who prided himself on his stable.

  “That might account for a slight smell. You seemed to indicate it was stronger than that.”

  John raised his hands in a gesture of frustrated confusion. He was obviously at a loss to fully explain it.

  “Did the pack ever enter the walls?” Adam asked.

  “No, Yer Grace,” John said. “They stayed just outside the gate for a while but then went back into the forest.”

  “That is a good sign, Your Grace,” Hayworth said. “They haven’t grown more aggressive, it would seem. They were just too tempted to resist.”

  “Talk with your staff,” Adam instructed John. “Find out how this happened. If it had anything to do with the attack, I do not want the same mistake to occur again.”

  “Yes, Yer Grace.” John bowed and quit the room in an enormous hurry.

  Hayworth took his leave next, promising to report to Adam in a day’s time with a specific plan for dealing with the pack.

  Adam propped his elbows on the desk and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. Could something as simple as poor washing after breakfast have led to such a grueling ordeal? It hardly seemed possible. How many times had Adam gone for a ride after having kidneys or ham at breakfast? There was no guarantee he had been thorough enough in his ablutions to completely eradicate any lingering aroma. Yet the pack had never attacked him.

  He interlaced his fingers and rested his chin on his clasped hands, thinking. John had been right on one count: the pack had been decidedly more interested in Atlas than any of the others. Even Persephone, who had been in the midst of the fray, had sustained more injuries from her fall than from the pack, though that had been an instant from changing when Adam arrived.

  The pack had returned to the forest. Adam remembered this information quite suddenly. He got instantly to his feet and crossed to the book room doors. He made his way to the first-floor landing. Either Barton or a footman would be positioned at the front door.

  A footman.

  Adam thought a moment before recalling the man’s name. “Joseph.”

  He looked up.

  “Inform Barton that I wish him to send for Mr. Johns in Sifton.” If the pack no longer posed a threat, the apothecary ought to be brought in.

  Joseph, the footman, offered a bow and left to deliver the message.

  “Adam?” That was Mother’s voice, oddly choked and broken.

  He turned around to see her standing just outside the doors of the informal drawing room, balled-up handkerchief in her hands and actual tears on her face. Tears? Adam had never seen his mother cry. Not once in all his life.

  “What is it?” Anxiety touched his tone.

  “Could I speak with you? Please?” Where was the pitying tone? She addressed him almost as if he were a grown man.

  Adam was decidedly uneasy. He moved warily into the drawing room, keeping one eye trained on Mother. She was acting strange: fidgety, nervous.

  “Perhaps you should sit down,” Adam suggested.

  “I am so sorry, Adam. I know you wished me to help with Persephone.” She seemed to pale a little further. “I am sure I let you down. You must be so disappointed . . .” Her voice broke. Mother took several gulps of air.

  “Sit down, Mother.” Adam cupped her elbow with his hand and guided her to a seat.


  She smiled shakily at him. “Sometimes you are so like your father,” she said, her eyes misted, “the dear man.”

  Adam’s eyes must have grown to twice their size. Mother had never compared him to his father. He would not have been able, until that moment, to guess whether she would consider a likeness a positive or a negative trait.

  “Are you quite well, Mother?” Adam watched her with increasing alarm.

  “Oh.” She waved a hand, though her face was a study in overset emotions. “I had hoped you would never discover my most mortifying flaw.”

  “Flaw?”

  “I have always been . . . been horrible in the sickroom. Horrible, Adam!” She wiped at her eyes. “Even as a child, one of my siblings would come down with a cold, and I would fret our poor nurse into a fit of nerves. My mother always told me it would be different when I was a mother—that some maternal instinct would take over.”

  Adam was completely lost. Mother quite obviously needed soothing. “There was a great deal of blood, earlier, with Persephone. I do not blame you for not being up to the task.”

  “But I am certain I only made the situation worse.” Mother rose to her feet once more and began pacing as she wiped and dabbed with a shaking hand. “I always did.”

  “Did?” Adam could hardly believe what he was seeing. Mother was ever calm and collected, undisturbed by anything. The poor woman looked on the verge of collapse.

  Poor woman. Adam shook his head.

  “The second surgeon actually sent me to the vicarage for two days,” Mother said, a sob making the last few words difficult to discern. “Banished from my own home. From my poor boy.”

  “Wait.” Adam froze. “Banished? The second surgeon?”

  “I am certain I made it worse. I was so nervous, so concerned through the first one—”

  “The first surgery?” Adam pressed.

  She nodded and continued. “And I didn’t get better. Worse, in fact. The second surgeon sent me away. The next few insisted I be gone before they even arrived. And . . . and . . .” She very nearly wailed. “I was grateful to go. Happy to. What kind of an unnatural mother wishes to leave her child at such a time?”

  Mother dropped onto a sofa, crying loudly.