Page 11 of The Good Duke (The Licentious Lords #1)

T he following morning, seated at the mahogany desk he’d had shipped from Italy and with the morning sun streaming through the east windows overlooking the gardens below, Simon found—and relished—the first glorious silence he’d found in which he could write since he’d become duke.

Since that fateful—and hated—day, there’d been a sea of new responsibilities for Simon to attend. It’d required him to set aside his one passion and only great love—his literary work. There’d been the matter of closing out his affairs in France and extensive briefs on the state of the title and properties he’d newly inherited.

Simon might not give a shite about inheriting a new title, but that did not mean he wasn’t aware the late duke had left behind lands and, more importantly, people upon them, villagers now reliant upon Simon. It’d required he return from his travels. He’d been determined to set up a capable man-of-affairs—or woman-of-affairs—in Lord Pruitt’s sister and find a woman who’d be his duchess; a lady who’d oversee Simon’s affairs here in London.

That tedious courtship process, however, would take time. That had been the true noose hanging above his head.

But what Pruitt had proposed? Simon grinned. It represented the ultimate solution. He marveled once more at the brilliance of Lord Pruitt’s plan for Persephone Forsyth.

To think Simon had been horrified at the prospect of a grown Persephone remaining here in London, under the same roof.

Now, he acknowledged how unfair it had been to see only the troublesome child she’d been, one whom he’d followed along whatever mischievous path she’d led him down.

Simon flicked his coattails back behind him. Then he opened a brand-new, leather notebook with crisp, empty pages he fairly itched to fill. Simon flexed his fingers, picked up one of the neatly lined up graphite pencils, and settled into write.

Leaning over his book, he brought his pencil to the page and waited for inspiration to strike.

And waited.

And…he continued waiting.

Because this was his creative process. He’d sit with only the company of his own thoughts and an empty sheet. From there, the ideas for his stories and poems and plays would flow forth. There was never just…nothing.

Not like there was now.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a fluttering from the westerly side of the bay windows and looked to the Common Blue butterfly flitting in an uneven pattern from crystal pane to crystal pane.

Simon followed its zig-zag flight—up and then down, down and then up, higher, before hovering there. Its vibrant wings moved in an infinitesimal undulation that kept the creature afloat. The Common Blue remained that way, so motionless Simon found himself transfixed, his gaze frozen, locked on the exquisite, winged insect.

That butterfly shifted in and out of focus in his mind and merged with one from a time long ago, as a memory of Simon and Persephone when she rushed up to meet him. Of him and her stretched out, side by side, on a blanket that overlooked the valley below.

“ See that fellow there, Simon?” Persephone pointed, and Simon followed her finger to the Common Blue flitting past.

“ Lovely, isn’t he? I attended a lecture on them, Simon. The female butterflies are more regal and do not have to rely on flashy color as the all-blue males do…and do you know why? Hmm? Because the males, like males of all species, have tiny minds and need to have something to snag some lady butterfly’s notice… ”

Simon eyed a solemn Persephone. “The lecturer did not say that, Seph. ”

“ No,” she conceded. An impish grin curled slowly on her lips. “But only because he didn’t need to, as it’s a truth universally known that men have small minds. Present company excluded, of course. ”

“ Of course,” he drawled. Shooting a hand out, he lightly prodded the right side of her waist, that most ticklish of her many ticklish spots.

Persephone exploded with laughter, and she squirmed and wiggled in an attempt to escape out from under Simon’s torturings.

Simon blinked. Funny, how he’d not thought of Persephone but on and off over the years, and yet with her now back in his life, all those old remembrances came back as fresh as if they’d happened yesterday.

Simon gave his head a hard shake and tried once more to get back to his writing.

With a frown, he tapped the tip of his pencil upon his desk in a quiet little staccato.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Simon scowled.

How ironic. Persephone was the person who freed him to write, but whose presence alone also distracted him from—

He stilled.

And just like that, the creative spark flickered somewhere deep inside, and then like a fire he’d once witnessed overcome a small copse in the hills of Italy, it became a conflagration.

Simon bent his head, and this time he let his pen fly across the page.

An old friend, resurrected,

From the ashes of oldmemories,

Each word fueled him.

Old laughter, an echo in themind,

It kindles remembrances of—

Each verse liberated him from the chains of his new ducal responsibilities.

His pulse pounded hard; the excitement and joy he’d only ever found in poetry breathed to life by the free verse now flowing from Simon.

“There you are!”

Simon’s pencil skidded clear off the page and scraped across the desk, leaving a charcoal mark upon the previously immaculate marble top surface.

He looked up slowly to the killer of his fledgling creative thoughts…even as he didn’t have to look to know the responsible party. For he well knew the voice and identity, all five feet, four inches of beaming, ceaselessly chattering lady.

The sight of her now, however, knocked him off-balance.

She’d always been lovely. He’d secretly thought so and only grudgingly told her when the village boys bullied her.

Time had since leant a maturity to her features. Her once girlish features had given way to a sharp, prominent bone structure the Greeks had lauded in their greatest works of art. The high planes of her cheeks, which could have otherwise been leveled too perfect, were softened by those deep dimples that’d always been a part of her smile.

Persephone spoke, effectively shattering that very temporary moment of madness.

“Is this one of those competitions we’d engage in?” she said on a comically loud whisper. “You know…the one where we’d see who could be silent longest.”

“The one you unfailingly lost?”

She burst out laughing like he’d told the grandest jest and not the actual truth.

Simon thinned his eyelashes into small slits. “Is there something you require?”

Sure enough, that black scowl had absolutely no effect on her sunny disposition.

Balancing, with her spare hand, an old-looking leather journal against one shoulder, Persephone sauntered all the way over.

“Shame on me, Simon.” Shame on her indeed. “I was so sure you were avoiding me.”

“I was,” he said under his breath.

She puzzled her brow, and the book she still carried in her arms slipped. “What was that?”

“Was there something you wanted, Miss Forsyth?”

“Persephone,” she insisted. “If I’m to be your beloved goddaughter—”

“My late parents’ goddaughter.” Good God, just like her, he now found himself obsessing over irrelevant details.

Persephone cleared her throat. “Yes, well, as I was saying, given our ruse, we should at least refer to one another by our given names.”

Simon silently agreed that going forward, she’d simply be Persephone for no other reason than because it would put an end to any and all talk about names and titles and how they’d once spoken to one another.

He wiped a weary hand across his forehead. “ This is what you’ve come to discuss?”

She shook her head and smiled serenely back.

Serene? Now, that was a new expression for her. Simon was instantly suspicious.

“What have you come to discuss, Persephone ?” he asked, making no attempt to mask his annoyance.

She gave a happy clap of her hands. “ Persephone! ”

If possible, Persephone brightened all the more, with a glow to rival the sun streaming through the window and enough to knock him briefly off-balance.

She patted him on the shoulder. “Now, that wasn’t so difficult. Was it?”

“Persephone,” he repeated, adding a layer of warning to those four syllables that made up her name.

“Oh, yes, of course.” She motioned to a nearby seat. “May I sit?”

“I’m afraid I’m bu—”

The stalwart minx had already made her way to the chair, and while Simon stared bemusedly on, she dragged a bulky, baroque upholstered seat to the other side of his desk.

Persephone positioned herself squarely between Simon and his view out those wide bay windows.

“Please do,” he finished dryly, even as he knew sarcasm was hopeless on this one.

“As I was saying, I woke early so we might begin our work, only to learn you’d already broken your fast, gone on your morning ride, and returned.” She wrinkled her nose. “And when asked, the servants did not prove helpful in locating you.”

Because he’d given specific instructions that servants were not to report to Persephone on Simon’s whereabouts.

He’d give the lot of them a raise for their loyalty.

“I went around and around.” Persephone whirled a finger in the air, and he followed those dizzying movements before registering what he did and made himself stop. “From room to room. And finally found you, already hard at work making a list.”

“A list,” he echoed.

Apparently, no reply was required on Simon’s part, for Persephone had bowed her head and began flipping page after page in her notebook. “Ahh,” she said to herself. “Here it is.” She looked briefly up. “We were of a like mind this day.”

They’d once been of a like mind…but it’d been a lifetime ago, and he’d wager whatever time the good Lord had slated for Simon to write that they’d never again have thoughts that moved in any form of harmony.

“Now,” Persephone said, having already redirected her attention downwards, “might I suggest we compare notes… so as to see how far we are from one another?”

Good God, what was she on about?

“How far we are from one another on what, Seph ?” he asked, making no attempt to disguise his bafflement.

She darted the tip of her tongue out, and Simon stilled and stared, absolutely riveted by the sight of that pink flesh as she touched it to the tip of her index finger—an act so innocuous and yet, at the same time, seductive as hell.

It shouldn’t be. Not for a man of his age and experience, and yet he couldn’t stop the flood of wanton musings that filled his mind. Thoughts of Persephone and that bold mouth of hers silenced as she took his length in her mouth. His body went hard and his blood hot.

“Simon? Simon? ”

The sound of his name spoken from those lips he’d been lusting after jolted Simon out of his erotic haze; a flush climbed his neck and burned a path all the way up to his cheeks.

“Hmm?” he said quickly, shifting in his seat in a bid to ease the massive erection wrought by nothing more than the thought of this woman’s mouth.

Persephone eyed him peculiarly. “Are you attending me?”

“Of course.” He hadn’t been. At least, not in the way she meant.

“Let us see, then. How far apart and how close together are we on the expectations, hopes, and dreams of your future bride?”

His expectations, hopes, and dreams.

She suspected he’d been toiling over his marital prospects and prospective bride.

Just as he’d expected earlier.

There was absolutely no harmony between their thoughts.

Persephone stared expectantly at him. “Well?”

And before he knew what she was about, she slid her notebook across his desk and helped herself to his.

Oh, hell.

Simon made a grab for his—too late.

She’d always been a quick thing. She’d beat him in foot races and horse races and apple-eating contests.

Persephone skimmed the handful of lines; she mouthed them aloud as she did.

An old friend, resurrected,

From the ashes of oldmemories,

With every silent word she uttered, Simon sank further and further into his leather winged chair.

Old laughter, an echo in themind,

It kindles—

Persephone whipped her head up. “Simon.” Shock filled her always-revealing eyes. “What is this?” she whispered.

Oh, bloody hell. Simon fought the urge to yank at his cravat.

Here he’d thought himself incapable of the level of mortification and shame he’d known prior to leaving London.

Wrong. He’d been wrong.

Persephone had caught Simon not only ruminating but also penning a verse about her reappearance in his life.

Let me sink straight into the folds of my seat, melt onto the floor, and disappear forever through the mahogany slats. Anything to avoid this humiliating exchange.

Persephone slapped Simon’s book down, jolting him back. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Simon thought a moment and then chose the coward’s path—he opted to take her query as a rhetorical one.

At his silence, she glared blackly at him.

Simon squirmed in his chair. He’d expected Persephone’s ageless curiosity and questions. But her anger ? That was most decidedly a peculiar and unexpected reaction.

Persephone pushed herself to the edge of her seat. “I’ve been focusing on your future wife and duchess, and you are penning verse, Simon?”

Her query penetrated his embarrassment.

He stilled. Wait? That was the reason for Persephone’s reaction? Upset with Simon for not taking seriously enough the search for his bride, and not shock at the fact he’d penned those words which were verses so very clearly about her.

Profound relief swept over him.

He laughed—and instantly regretted that involuntary explosion of lightness.

Persephone’s thick, long lashes swept low. She fixed him with a withering look, one he’d venture she’d perfected in the years she’d spent as a finishing school instructor.

“Do. You. Find. This. Amusing?”

The hell he did. Far from it. “No?”

She narrowed her eyes all the more so that her irises were almost completely concealed by her eyelashes. “Is that a question, Your Grace ?”

Uh-oh. Now, she’d voluntarily Your Graced him and placed that slight emphasis upon those two syllables, a sure sign Simon found himself skating on thin ice.

“No,” he repeated, this time with the proper solemnity she evidently sought. “Mine wasn’t a question but rather…” Me woolgathering about you.

Clearly—and fortunately —misunderstanding the reason for that pause, Persephone gave Simon a long, warning look that made him feel like a lad in short pants.

Simon made a clearing noise with his throat. “Mine wasn’t a question but rather an anxious laugh.” After all, admitting to nervosity proved far more face-saving than revealing she’d stumbled upon Simon penning verses about her.

“You expect me to believe you’re uneasy around me ?” Persephone snorted. “That would be a first.”

Yes, it would, and it also was.

Taking the unknowing on her part out, Simon rested his palms on the arms of his chair. “Persephone, I’ve hired you as my matchmaker and entrusted you with the ch—” Chore .

He immediately caught himself from making another dangerous misstep. “ Responsibility of finding my duchess. Given that, what should I be focusing my attentions on?” He added a gentleness to that inquiry—a gentleness she met with another icy look.

“Let me see if I have this correct, Your Grace —”

“I thought we’d agreed we should call one another by—”

“You hired me to help you find your duchess,” she cut him off, “and thought I’d oversee that very important role without any input from you and that you’d simply carry on with your carousing.”

Actually, that was precisely what he’d not only hoped she’d do but expected as well. Not the carousing part. But rather that she’d free him from the task so that he could freely live his life without these newest and latest encumbrances passed on by a distant relative.

At his silence, Persephone gave her head a disgusted little shake and stood.

She’d made it three steps towards the door before he registered she intended to go without so much as a parting.

Simon sighed. “Where are you going, Persephone?” he called after her retreating form.

“I am leaving.”

Splendid. That’d been the most welcome part of this exchange.

For the first time since Persephone had barged in and stolen Simon’s quiet interlude, he relaxed back in his chair.

“I’ll have my belongings packed and be on my way shortly, Your Grace.”

Given she’d directed that pronouncement as she continued on her forward path, it was a moment before Simon realized what she’d said: I’ll have my belongings packed.

She’d be on her way?

Simon stormed to his feet with an alacrity that sent his chair scraping noisily upon the hardwood floor. “You’re l-leaving !” Dread leant a stutter to his now usually steady speech.

“Didn’t I say as much, Your Grace?” Persephone returned with a bored drawl, made all the more dismissive by the fact she delivered it at the door she now marched towards.

Simon flew across the room. He managed to reach her side just as she clasped the ornate door handle.

He slapped a palm against the panel and kept it shut. More importantly, he kept her here.

Persephone cast a side-eyed glance his way. “Are you kidnapping me, Your Grace ?” The fiery glitter in her eyes dared him to try it.

“Of course n-not!”

And he wouldn’t. He’d learned long ago not to cross Persephone Forsyth. Though neither had he ever been on the receiving end of her wrath.

When he made no attempt to remove his hand from the door, Persephone glared in that foreboding way of hers. Ever so slowly, she folded her arms at her chest.

That deliberate crossing of her olive-hued limbs also brought Simon’s gaze down a fraction to the plumped orbs. Those magnificent, still high but now fuller breasts beckoned. He ached with a hungering to fill his palms with that tantalizing flesh and discover for himself if they were as pillowy soft to touch.

A nagging, dangerous, and increasingly familiar lust bolted through him.

I’m not a greenhead anymore.

Only… Perhaps it was the bold, self-possessed woman she’d become and her absolute apathy towards his new title of duke when, since his return to London, he’d been met by everyone else with a fawning obsequiousness. But he found himself gripped by, and possessed of, an inexplicable hungering for this all-grown-up Persephone.

She moved her gaze over Simon’s face. The anger melted from her delicate features, and, as if suddenly dazed, she blinked slowly.

Her big, expressive eyes locked with his.

Something shifted in the air, a charged, volatile energy that crackled like the earth just after a lightning strike.

Simon shifted so that he leaned an elbow against the carved oak panel, and his arm framed the side of her head.

The long, graceful column of her neck moved wildly in a telltale sign he’d gleaned from years of experience with former lovers bespoke desire.

Close as he and Persephone were, the scent of her—lemon and apple blossoms—filled the air around him.

Simon drew a deep breath and inhaled the innocent fragrance that clung to Persephone’s person; the blend of sweet and tart proved an unanticipated temptation.

Did she dab that perfume behind the shells of her ears? Or…was she more wicked and bold and placed a dash between the deep crevice between her breasts?

Simon dusted a finger along the curve of her cheek and stopped his light caress at the small freckle she’d formed at some point from the sun near the corner of her jaw.

“Tell me, Persephone,” he said huskily, “what is it you want of me? Tell me and I’ll do it to keep you here.” In this moment; in this room.

Her lashes fluttered in a whispery soft dance.

With a grin born of pure male satisfaction, Simon lowered his mouth, wanting to lay claim to hers, needing to possess her lips so he could know, once and for all, the taste and feel of Persephone and the woman she’d become.

Then, and only then, would he be able to put these forbidden thoughts of her from his mind.