Chapter Twenty-Eight

Daphne was doing her best to live her life as though nothing devastating had happened. She did not insist upon taking her meals on a tray in her room, neither did she seclude herself and refuse the company of her family. If she could pretend a degree of normalcy, eventually she might feel it.

She stepped into Adam’s book room at the usual hour for their afternoon appointment a mere four days after the disastrous picnic. He had been occupied at Lords the previous two days, but he was home today.

Over the past six years, these near-daily meetings had served as a healing balm. Adam had shown her personal, tender regard at times when she’d desperately needed it. Now, with her heart fractured and her soul heavy, she needed his loving kindness more than ever.

“Good afternoon,” she said from the doorway.

He glanced up from his desk. “Daphne.”

She stepped inside. Some of the tension she’d carried these last four days dissipated. Here she would find comfort, if only she could keep him to safe topics. “What shall we discuss today?” she asked as she crossed to the sofa. “Parliament? Society? The weather?”

Adam’s head turned toward the clock. “Is it that time again?” His was not the tone of enthusiasm she would have preferred.

“Yes. And you were not needed in Lords today.”

He had not risen from his desk, nor set aside his paperwork. Still, he sometimes spent their afternoon together working on business matters while she read. She would not object to that today.

“I can select a book,” she offered.

His next breath was loud and a touch impatient. “I don’t truly have time for this today, Daphne. I am meant to meet with a man about refurbishing the nursery here after we’ve left for Northumberland. I wish it to be finished and ready by the time we return.”

“You told me yesterday that you would set aside this time specifically for our afternoon together because it was the one day you didn’t have to be at Lords.”

He wrote something on the topmost paper on the stack before speaking again. “I cannot delay the start of this. The nursery is not at all ready for an infant. I will not risk having it unfinished when it is needed.”

She searched about for a means of reconciling the conflicting needs. “Do you have to meet with him just now? Cannot you delay even an hour?”

“He will be here any moment,” Adam said. “I thought, in fact, that he had arrived when you stepped in.”

He had, it seemed, forgotten about her. She pushed that aside, telling herself there was a different, less discouraging explanation. “I can sit in the corner with my book while you have your interview. I won’t disturb you.”

He set his forearms on the desk, interweaving his fingers. “We’ll have our afternoon discussion another day, Daphne. I need to see to the nursery. I have a responsibility to my child.” He spoke the final word with the same tone and expression of anxious awe he’d had anytime Persephone’s condition had been discussed the past few days.

“Of course. I would never ask you to neglect your obligations.” She moved in the direction of the door once more. “Tomorrow, perhaps?”

“Persephone and I intend to begin interviewing nursemaids.”

She pushed back her disappointment. “The day after?”

“I don’t know.” He offered a brief, apologetic smile.

“Another time, then.”

He nodded, even as his attention returned to his pile of papers.

Daphne stepped out into the corridor, telling herself not to be selfish or maudlin. This was hardly the first time Adam had needed to cancel an afternoon with her, but it stung more acutely than it had in the past. He had sent her away when she needed him so much.

Though she felt sorely tempted to tuck herself away in her bedchamber, she knew if she gave in to the impulse, she might never convince herself to come back out. She made her way instead to the family sitting room and stepped inside with head held high.

Linus stood beside Artemis at the mirror. The two looked shockingly alike, even to Daphne, who had long-since grown used to the green eyes and golden curls of three of her siblings.

Artemis adjusted the bow on the bonnet she wore.

“The milliner told me it was a fashionable bonnet.” Linus obviously wasn’t entirely certain he’d been told correctly.

“Fashionable, yes.” Artemis gave him a look of exasperation. “But is it devastating?”

“Devastating to whom?” The look of utter confusion on Linus’s face brought a smile to Daphne’s lips.

“To simply everyone.” Artemis tipped her head slightly in one direction, then the other. “A bonnet is supposed to turn heads.”

“It seems to be turning yours quite effortlessly,” he observed.

She spun toward him, fists propped on her hips. “Would you stop being a brother, please?”

“But if I am not your brother, I cannot in all propriety purchase you a bonnet.” He tsked and shook a finger at Artemis, his voice pitched precisely at the level a scolding dowager would use with a recalcitrant young lady. “A proper young lady would never allow a gentleman to purchase something so very personal for her unless he is a relative. Shameful, I say. Absolutely shameful! I shall simply have to toss it to the wolves.”

“You are impossible.” Artemis turned back to the mirror, obviously still deciding just how much she liked her brother’s offering.

“I daresay you don’t know a thing about bonnets.” Artemis clearly intended the observation to be a sore slight on her brother’s intelligence.

Linus chuckled lightly, earning a momentary glare from Artemis. “I am afraid I missed most of the bonnet classes onboard ship these past few years. I chose embroidery instead. Marvelous pastime.”

“What do you think, Daphne?” Artemis turned to face her.

“I am not particularly fond of embroidery, myself.” Daphne sat in a nearby chair. “Though Linus may very well be enamored of it.”

“I meant the bonnet.” Artemis shook her head. “This is far more enjoyable when Athena is here. She has absolutely impeccable taste.”

Linus gave her a stern look, something he didn’t often do. “Athena’s taste in headgear may be second to none, but my manners are generally considered beyond reproach, and I will tell you that debating the merits of a bonnet your brother has given you out of the goodness of his heart while that brother is standing next to you, no less, is horribly rude.”

Daphne could have predicted with remarkable accuracy what happened next. Artemis’s lip began to quiver. Tears formed immediately. Her feelings had ever been easily wounded.

“Time to begin a very careful dance, brother,” Daphne warned. “Artemis will be inconsolable otherwise.”

Linus patted Artemis’s hand. “I know you take bonnets very seriously, so I will take no offense at your very thorough evaluation of my offering.”

Artemis sniffled but nodded what was likely meant to be an indication of forgiveness. Still, she glided toward the windows and settled herself in a posture of suffering and sorrow.

“Inconsolable over a scolding?” Linus shook his head. “Artemis weeps for being gently corrected, and you have not shed a single tear even though—”

“Did you not bring me a frilly present?” Daphne would not listen to yet another retelling of her dashed hopes and blighted future. Her spirits were low enough already. “I should have my opportunity to primp and preen in front of a looking glass as well.”

Linus was undeterred. “Persephone said—”

“Only Artemis receives gifts now?” Daphne managed a sigh her sister would have been proud of. “You are a cruel brother indeed.”

Linus studied her a moment, wearing the same expression she’d seen on all her family’s faces again and again since she had fully retreated from the social whirl. Worry mingled with a sad kind of pity. Oh, how she wanted things back the way they had been. No one had expected her to be a raging success, but no one had seen her as an utter failure either.

“Your present is not frilly.” Linus, it seemed, meant to not press the issue. He pulled a small box from the pocket of his coat and gave it to her. “I think you will like it just the same.”

She couldn’t begin to guess what it might be. The box was too small to hold a book. The only other thing she might have hoped for was herbs. But no one ever thought to give her that.

Daphne opened the package, curiosity displacing her momentary resurgence of heartache. In time, she hoped she would not need such constant distraction.

“Oh, Linus. It is lovely.” She pulled a dainty hair comb from the box. The thin tines and body of the comb were made of a dark, lacquered wood. Ornamental leaves carved of a deep-green stone adorned the comb. She knew the leaves on sight. “Laurel.”

“I know you have not always been fond of laurels, yet I can’t help but think of you anytime I see them.” He looked almost apologetic. “Father’s love of mythology rubbed off on me, I daresay.”

Daphne ran her thumb over the smooth stone leaves. Her namesake’s myth had ever seemed a tragic one to her: an innocent girl pursued by one whose affections were not entirely honest transformed into a laurel tree to save her from her insincere suitor. What had once struck her as merely sad now seemed painfully fitting. Heavens, she was living her own myth.

“You don’t like it.” Linus’s disappointment pricked her heart.

“I love it,” she insisted. “It is so beautiful and unlike anything I’ve seen. Where did you find it? I’ve not come across anything like it in London.”

Relief touched his features. “I saw it in a market in Africa.”

“Africa?” That brought her gaze back to the comb.

“Yes, but the stone is jade, which comes from the Orient. The laurel motif, however, suggests it was carved in the Mediterranean.”

She looked up at him once more. “Quite the world traveler, isn’t it?”

He nodded and smiled at her. “The leaves made me think of you, but more than that even, I thought the bold colors would look very fine in your dark hair. Neither Artemis nor Athena could do justice to it.”

The praise touched her, likely more than he realized. “It is not often I compare favorably to those two.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “I think you’d be surprised.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. The ever-teasing, often-neglectful Linus seemed to disappear a little more every time she saw him. He was growing into a fine man, one she often felt she did not know at all. “I will cherish this,” she said, meaning more than just the comb. “Thank you.”

“You can thank me by wearing it and thinking of me when you do.”

“I will think of you even when I am not wearing it. And I will miss you.” Even if he resigned his commission and went to live in Shropshire, he would still be away, and she would be left behind. Loneliness had ever been her greatest struggle. She began to suspect it always would be.

She had pleaded with her father once, promising to be good and not disturb him if only he would allow her to sit with him in her office as he had once done. She had explained that she wished only to spend the day with him because she loved him. The sadness that had clouded his eyes hadn’t lifted as he’d told her to go make herself useful to her sister. She had been only nine years old that last time she’d asked to be granted his company. Years of being told to go had finally convinced her she wasn’t wanted. It was a feeling she continued to battle even now.

Persephone came in the room in the next moment. She’d been out making morning calls. Though she generally returned from her visits serene and rejuvenated, she looked just a touch harried. Her sweeping gaze took in the room and its occupants quickly and assessingly, a skill she’d perfected in her years as sole caregiver for her siblings. “That is a very fetching bonnet, Artemis,” she said.

Artemis dropped into a chair, a look of utter despondency cast at them.

Linus grinned. To Persephone, he explained. “She had hoped the bonnet would be ‘devastating.’”

Persephone looked her sister over once more before returning her attention to their brother. “She looks devastated, so I suppose that is a success.”

“Not exactly how I’d envisioned my gift being received, but I’ll take what I can.”

“Have any of you seen Adam?”

Persephone’s urgent tone fully captured Daphne’s attention. “Last I saw him he was in his book room,” she answered. “He was awaiting an important meeting with a tradesman.”

Persephone crossed directly to the bell pull and tugged. Locating her husband seemed no unimportant thing.

“Is something the matter?” Daphne asked.

“Quite possibly.”

Daphne felt the blood drain from her face. Had something happened? Had a complication arisen with Persephone’s condition? Linus’s thoughts must have traveled along the same path. He crossed directly to their oldest sister and took her arm in his, leading her to a nearby chair.

Persephone actually rolled her eyes. “There is nothing the matter with me.”

But the entire family had known her too long and too well to feel at all confident in that declaration. She had always put herself and her own needs last.

A footman stepped inside.

“Will you please take a message to His Grace in the book room and ask him to step in here a moment?” Persephone asked.

She received a deep bow of agreement.

An awkward and heavy silence descended on the room. Persephone was clearly lost in her own thoughts. Daphne kept a close eye on her, evaluating everything she saw. Her color seemed fine, if a touch high. The warmth of the day could account for that. Persephone had thinned some in the last few weeks, owing, no doubt, to her lost appetite. That, Daphne’s readings had assured her, would resolve itself in the weeks and months to come.

She exchanged looks with Linus. He appeared as confused and unsure of what to do as she was.

Several long minutes passed before Adam stepped into the room. His eyes fell on his wife, and the unmistakable look of love he always wore when first they found each other in a room slid across his face once more. But with it was a great deal of concern.

“What has happened?” he asked, sitting on the sofa beside her. “Are you unwell?”

Persephone shook her head. “Is everyone going to assume that for the next months?”

“Absolutely.” How very unrepentant Adam sounded.

“Lovely,” Persephone answered, her tone as dry as Adam’s often was. “This has nothing to do with me.”

“Then what is it?” Hopefully Adam would succeed in getting that question answered when no one else in the room had managed.

Persephone turned her head toward the windows. “Artemis, go put your bonnet away.”

Artemis’s mouth dropped open, her eyes wide with shocked horror. “Go put my bonnet away? Why can I not stay for your monumental confession? I want to know what the crisis is.”

“There is no crisis,” Persephone said. Then, cutting off the objections so clear on Artemis’s face, Persephone added, “And neither is there anything to discuss that has the slightest bit to do with you. So, please, go put your bonnet away.”

Artemis stood, jutting her chin out ominously, and pouted her way out of the room.

“Best of luck with that one, Adam,” Linus muttered.

“I plan to auction her off at Tattersall’s.” His eyes hadn’t left Persephone. “You, on the other hand, have me worried.”

She brushed her fingertips along the deep scars on his face. “I am perfectly well. My health is fine.” She lowered her a voice a bit. “This child seems perfectly fine as well.”

Adam kissed her fingers. “Then tell me what has upset you.”

“I had a very interesting visit with the Duchess of Hartley.”

“She upset you?”

Daphne didn’t believe that for a moment. The two duchesses got along famously.

“No,” Persephone said. “And, before you ask, the duke is also not the reason I am upset. At least not directly.” She took a breath, then squared a look at Adam. “His Grace has acquired a new secretary.”

That earned her confused looks all around. Why did the duke’s employee warrant such obvious displeasure on Persephone’s part?

“I will move forward on the assumption there is more,” Adam said.

“This new secretary just so happens to be a member of the aristocracy, one who by lucky chance met up with His Grace at their club yesterday afternoon.” Persephone gave Adam a very pointed look. That look was exchanged by Adam and Linus next. It seemed everyone knew precisely who this mysterious gentleman was but Daphne. “He struck up a conversation with the young lordling, and upon hearing he is in need of an income, His Grace hired him on. Their Graces even went so far as to invite him to stay with them, owing to his current state of pennilessness. It seems he is quite the hardest working, least complaining, most grateful person Their Graces have ever encountered.”

“Sounds . . . ideal,” Adam muttered.

Persephone hmphed. “It was all I could do not to demand to know his reason for coming within fifty yards of this family. Milworth House is but two doors down from here, you know. And he is now living there.”

Suddenly it all grew clear. James Tilburn was at the Duke of Hartley’s London home. They might easily run into one another without even meaning to. Daphne slowly, mindlessly lowered herself into a nearby chair. Confusion jumbled her every thought.

“I fully intend to storm Milworth House,” Persephone said in tones of utmost sincerity. “Broadswords, battle axes, crossbows, whichever weapon is nearest at hand. There will be bloodshed, Adam, and I will enjoy it.”

“I have never been more attracted to you than I am in this moment.” Adam’s eyes fairly danced with excitement. “Nevertheless, I will not have you going on a holy crusade in your condition.” Adam turned his attention to Linus. “Seems we underestimated the little termite.”

Despite all James had done to her, hearing him belittled and mocked that way upset her. Daphne hated that he yet had such a hold on her sensibilities.

Linus’s shoulders set in the determined and capable posture of a career navy man. “I will stand as your second, Adam, if that is what you mean to do.”

Daphne found her voice on the instant. “You promised me, Adam. You promised no challenges would be issued.” She’d pulled that promise from him within hours of her disappointment.

Adam assumed his ducal air. “I promised not to seek him out and demand satisfaction. He has come here, within sight of my home and my family. I made no promises on that score.”

She ought to have encouraged the idea. Having James suffer even a fraction of what she had should have been cathartic. Yet the thought of anyone hurting James brought her no satisfaction. “I only wish the entire ordeal forgotten. The two of you breaking down the doors of the Duke of Hartley’s home will be whispered all about Town. It would only further fuel the gossip and whispers.”

“Really?” Linus sounded disappointed. “I’ve seen enough floggings during my career to know how to administer one.”

Daphne had heard of the severity of floggings, of the horrific pain inflicted that way. She shook her head. “No floggings, no challenges. Both of you, please, just let it be.”

She rose, making certain they saw in her determined expression that the subject was closed for discussion. No one objected until she’d reached the doorway.

“Can’t we at least have a few of the Falstone wolves brought here to nibble on him a little?” Linus asked.

For that she could give him a small smile. “I will take it into consideration.”

Once in the corridor, she stopped and leaned a moment against the wall, trying to regain her equilibrium. James was only two doors away. But why? Why would he abandon his own lodgings? His family home? And what was this about his needing employment, about his being penniless? Perhaps he had been in need of her dowry after all.

The others’ voices continued in the sitting room, loud enough for Daphne to hear their words.

“She is too blasted calm about all this,” Adam grumbled.

“A battle tactic you taught her, dear. And though I have not always agreed with you on that, the ability has served her well before. She has not crumbled when faced with Society, nor whispering gossips, and neither will she crumble now.”

I will not crumble now. She was becoming quite adept at pushing away the sting of rejection and disappointment. She simply refused to allow thoughts to creep in, dismissed every surge of painful emotions, suppressed every feeling, and was learning to fiercely guard every vulnerability. In time, nothing would hurt her again.