Seeking Persephone (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Persephone was far more at ease in society than Adam, despite his prestigious position and her years spent confined to the wilds of Shropshire. He watched her from the moment the first guests arrived.

Mother had ever been an anxious and energetic hostess. She held a great many events in Town, and Adam always felt obliged to at least put in an appearance. Her intensity penetrated her gatherings, giving them a feeling of barely leashed energy.

Persephone was completely different. She exuded calm and reassurance. The guests, almost without exception, arrived at Falstone noticeably worried and concerned. Persephone set them immediately at ease, not with soothing words but by her own tranquil demeanor.

She looked beautiful, despite her bruises. In honor of the evening, Mother had convinced her that half-mourning would be appropriate. Her lavender gown lent her eyes a hint of blue. Vitality lit in her face once more. She smiled as she introduced her brother to the guests. Her eyes twinkled as she greeted each arrival. Persephone never wanted for company—the entire assembly seemed drawn to her.

Adam appeared to be the only one not enjoying himself. For once, it was not the looks and whispers that bothered him, though he certainly endured a great deal of both. The memory of Persephone’s expression the night before still unsettled him. He’d asked about her family, and she had all but dissolved in front of him. She was unhappy at Falstone. She missed her family, and nothing he did seemed to relieve that longing.

She had seemed genuinely pleased by the decorations in the great hall. Sheer white fabric draped the ceiling and dropped like waterfalls down the walls. The floor had been chalked in elaborate white flowers and pale green leaves. Bundles of flowers from the succession house filled the corners and niches of the expansive room. It looked just like winter brought indoors.

“Beautiful,” Persephone had whispered as she looked over the preparations in the moments before their guests arrived. “Simply beautiful.”

Still a look of longing hovered in the back of her eyes.

Adam stood on a deserted end of the terrace leading off the great hall. He had hoped the ball would bring a change to Persephone, that she would show by a look, a word, a gesture that she could be happy at Falstone. She seemed to be enjoying the evening, but her happiness was noticeably incomplete.

“The evening seems a success.” In the twenty-four hours Linus had been at Falstone, Adam had learned to recognize his voice as quickly as that of his closest associates.

“Indeed,” he answered noncommittally.

Linus, quite impressive in his deep-blue naval uniform, leaned against the terrace railing, his gaze focused somewhere between straight ahead and Adam’s face. “Persephone seems to be wondering where you are.”

“Has she asked after me?” Why had that question come out sounding desperate?

Linus shook his head. “Just a look in her face. We could always tell growing up when she was worrying about one of us.”

“Your family?” Adam knew the answer already.

“Persephone was always the glue in our family,” Linus said. The seasoned seaman seemed to melt away, and Adam found himself faced with the thirteen-year-old boy, a look in his eyes so like Persephone’s: concerned, reminiscent, and yet hopeful. “After Mama died, Persephone became the mother, the nursemaid, the governess. She took over the accounts—Papa never had the attention span for things like ledgers and bills. Persephone took it all on.”

“How old was she?”

“Twelve.” Linus sounded as though he truly felt the disproportionate nature of that burden compared with her age. “She lost her chance to be a schoolgirl, to be a child for a few years more.”

“You did not have that opportunity, yourself,” Adam said.

“I think that is why Persephone tried to prevent our leaving as long as she possibly could.” Linus’s brow creased with the difficult memories.

Adam had experienced more than his own share of difficult times he did not like to relive.

“She kept the family afloat for years by ingenuity and sacrifice,” Linus continued. “By reducing the staff, she extended our finances, but it meant she, personally, did more work.”

Adam had the sudden image of Persephone as a young girl scrubbing a floor, tired and worn. He closed his eyes. She ought to have been spared that.

“Eventually there simply wasn’t enough. Papa couldn’t be counted on to devise a solution, so Persephone wrote to our grandfather, who was able to call in enough favors to find Evander and me positions aboard the
Triumphant
.”

Linus seemed to need to talk about these things, so Adam let him.

“It was necessary—the only way for the family to survive—but Persephone hated it. I think if she could have, she would have gone to sea in our place. Her life these past eight years has been one unending sacrifice for the sake of the family.”

“Including her marriage?”

Linus didn’t answer.

They stood on the terrace in the cold air, neither breaking the silence between them. In the background, music floated from the great-hall-turned-ballroom, voices mingling among the notes. They were sounds of happiness and lighthearted frivolity. None penetrated the tension on the terrace.

“Do you know why my papa named Persephone as he did?” Linus asked unexpectedly.

“Obsession with all things Greek?” he ventured dryly, still smarting from the sting of Linus’s failure to contradict Adam’s earlier insinuation.

“Other than that,” Linus answered with a hint of a laugh.

Adam offered no reply.

“The story of Persephone is his favorite,” Linus said.

“Persephone seems likewise fond of it.” Adam remembered her speaking of the myth. “A testament to the love of family, I believe she described it.
Ironic,
I suppose.”

“That is not why Papa likes the legend.” Linus paused. “Persephone was abducted by Hades, who wished for a wife to rule the underworld at his side, but because of the general fear connected with him, he could not obtain a bride by any means other than trickery.”

Adam shifted uncomfortably. Did Linus have any idea how close to home his retelling hit?

“So Hades stole Persephone and carried her off to his kingdom.” Linus, the sailor, had returned once more, almost as though he were a man of twenty, rather than a child of thirteen. “Her mother, as the legend goes, was so distraught at the loss of her daughter that she, the goddess of the earth, cursed the world with famine. The suffering was so great that Zeus found himself forced to intervene. All the gods knew Persephone was with Hades, but Hades refused to allow her to leave. He was known, you see, for never permitting anyone to leave his kingdom.”

“And Persephone was no doubt miserable in her marriage,” Adam said, trying to shrug off the pain Linus’s words inflicted. The message came through clear. He, Adam Boyce, was Hades—Falstone, the underworld. He was destroying Persephone just as Hades had in the myth. “Married to the devil as she was,” Adam added.

“Do not let Papa hear you refer to Hades as the devil.” Linus seemed to chuckle. “He is quite adamant that the two are very different. Hades ruled the land of the dead but was not evil. He was only feared because of his association with death and because he was known to be unyielding and tempestuous. But he was also just and fair.”

This conversation was proving uncomfortable in the extreme. “So how did it end?” Adam asked, wishing to speed up the retelling. He knew perfectly well how the story concluded, and it did not speak highly of Hades, Adam’s apparent role in their current situation.

“Hades was forced to relinquish his bride, for the sake of her family and mankind,” Linus said.

“And Perspehone’s happiness, no doubt,” Adam added.

“Her family could not come to the underworld, and Persephone could not leave. I imagine she was anxious to see her loved ones again. But Hades was not willing to give her up entirely.”

“So he tricked her again with the pomegranate seeds.” Adam repeated what he’d learned during those long days of mythology at Harrow. Adam found he had a great deal in common with Hades and did not like the implications of that observation. How many methods had he employed in his attempt to keep Persephone at Falstone?

“Papa belongs to a different school of thought on that,” Linus said. “There are those among scholars of the classics who believe that Hades did not trick Persephone at all, but that they, together, devised the scheme by which she would be assured the right to return to him. The gods forced her release, and, for the good of her family, Persephone cooperated. But by eating the seeds Hades provided for her, Persephone could not be prevented from returning to him. Not even by Zeus.”

“Why would she wish to return?” Adam felt his frustration bubbling. He couldn’t imagine any woman desiring to return to a veritable prison and a husband known for his temper and isolationism. “She was free.”

“To comfort her family, Persephone was willing to leave,” Linus repeated. “But it was the reason for her return that endeared the goddess to my father.”

“The seeds?” That made little sense.

“The seeds were symbolic, Your Grace,” Linus answered, a chuckle in the back of his words.

“Symbolic of what?”

Linus smiled at him, popped his tricorn on his head once more, and made his way back into the ballroom. Adam felt absolutely certain that he had just been bested philosophically by a thirteen-year-old. That, he supposed, was what he deserved for marrying into a family of scholars.

Harry joined Adam only moments after Linus disappeared inside. He could not seem to find a moment’s peace at his own home. This was the very reason he avoided hosting social events.

Harry slapped him on the back in an overly familiar gesture Adam had come to expect from the man who had never been one for keeping an emotional distance. “I know disappearing at balls is one of your particular talents, but it does not reflect well on your wife. You really ought to go sit beside her.”

Harry had a point, but Adam didn’t appreciate having his social shortcomings pointed out to him. “What I really ought to do is hang you out your bedchamber windows by a bedsheet tied around your ankles until you agree to take yourself off permanently.”

“Welcome back, old friend.” Harry laughed. “You’ve gone soft lately.”

“Shut up, Harry.” Adam walked away from him toward the doors that led to the people and noise he disliked so much.

The fact that Persephone’s face lit up when he arrived at her side proved something of a comfort. A simpering pup of a gentleman occupied the seat next to her, a situation resolved by a single look from Adam.

“Taking a breath of fresh air?” she asked with a smile as he sat in the quickly vacated seat.

“Several breaths, in fact.” Adam attempted to make himself comfortable in the most uncomfortable of situations: a place of scrutiny in a crowded ballroom.

“You haven’t been too miserable, have you?” Persephone looked rather closely at him.

Adam averted his eyes, her scrutiny making him uncomfortable. Did she see Hades when she looked at him? “The evening has gone well, I think,” he said, hoping to divert her attention.

“It has.” A smile of satisfaction crept across her face. Why did she never look like that when just the two of them were together?

A country dance began, and every couple within shouting distance of them, it seemed, eagerly joined the sets forming. Persephone watched as the guests worked out their starting positions and negotiated partners and places. She really did seem happy.

“What do the pomegranate seeds symbolize?” Adam asked quite suddenly, quite without forethought.

“What?” Persephone asked, obviously taken aback.

“In the Persephone myth.” Adam was unexpectedly determined to have the answer. He would understand at least one mystery. “Linus said the seeds are symbols.”

“Has he been waxing philosophical?” Persephone smiled. “That is the one trait he inherited from Papa.”

“What do they symbolize?” Adam persisted.

Persephone looked at him, confused, intrigued. She finally relented, though her expression didn’t clear, “According to Papa, the seeds are symbolic of love.”

“Love?” Adam hadn’t been expecting that.

“Hades’s love for Persephone and her love for him.”

“How could she love someone who kept her prisoner?”

“Papa always believed that she came to know him beyond his fearsome demeanor and came to love him.” She still looked entirely bewildered. “Hades fell in love with Persephone as well. She was his match. Eating some of the seeds allowed her to return.”

“Then why not eat all of the seeds?” Adam watched her closely. “If they were so in love, why did she leave at all? If she had eaten all he offered her, she would have stayed forever.”

“Papa always believed that Hades did not force her to remain always because of her family’s grief.”

That didn’t sound right. “Linus said Hades never allowed anyone to leave his realm.”

“But Hades
loved
Persephone,” she said.

“He let her go because he loved her?”

Persephone nodded. “And she returned because she loved him.”

* * *

Adam had sat beside her for hours. Persephone smiled at the memory. She couldn’t have been more content had she danced with a hundred gentlemen. Her husband had been attentive and kind and had endured what must have been a very miserable evening for her sake. At one point he’d even held her hand. She would cherish that memory for all her life.

He’d mentally been far away—she’d seen it in his face. Their unexpected conversation about mythology had been quite odd. Perhaps he had simply been bored out of his mind, seeking entertainment where he could find it.

Still, it had been progress. They had spent the evening much as two longtime friends would, sitting in companionable silence, sharing observations of their fellow man, talking of the little nothings that filled the conversations of the well-acquainted. She decided weeks ago that she wished for his friendship.

Now she wanted more.

She felt certain she merely needed time to come to know him better, to understand his moods and thoughts. On more than one occasion in the past week, Persephone thought Adam had been moments from kissing her, from reaching out to her. In time, he would stop fighting those instincts, she assured herself. She held out hope that he would, that she might even be able to resurrect a few of her now-dead dreams of love and happy ever after.