Page 21 of The Good Duke (The Licentious Lords #1)

S ince departing the hothouse, Simon and Persephone had not spoken a word the entire carriage ride back from Covent Market.

She was in a temper.

She’d never been in such a state while in Simon’s presence. But he’d witnessed it enough in action against other unfortunate boys to recognize her current state.

She sat with her left shoulder angled at Simon and her gaze turned out the window at the passing London scene—just as she’d been since they climbed inside a short while before. The crystal panes reflected her tensed features, unblinking eyes, and the troubled glimmer within them.

Shifting on the bench, Simon draped a leg across his opposite knee. “I would say the afternoon has been a success,” he drawled.

“Hmm?” Persephone didn’t so much as take her fraught gaze from that window.

Simon studied her with greater curiosity.

“ Or , I should say by your measures and very purpose in being here with me, I’d believe you would classify the day as a success.”

At last, Persephone shifted on the bench. She looked at Simon as if she’d only just recalled his presence.

A cynical glimmer he’d not witnessed in all the years he’d known her glittered in her eyes.

“Yes,” she said. Bitterness dripped from that single syllable. “It was the greatest of successes.”

And never before had he detected such acrimony from her.

Simon scowled.

What in blazes?

Here Simon had taken his leave of Lady Isabelle and her elder brother, the Marquess of Bute, believing Persephone would wear her always generous smile at the day’s triumph. At the very least , he’d expected she’d have said something or felt some way about the grand unfolding of the day.

Relief at an almost scandalous situation turning into a possibly very advantageous one.

Pride at how easily Simon had—without effort—conversed with the Diamond of the Season. A feat that, in the past, had been agonizingly painful for him and also invariably a failure.

Why, he was even expecting some amour propre and I-told-you-so words and looks at her having been proven right about Simon’s success this time around on the Marriage Mart.

After his public exchange with Lady Isabelle and her brother, Simon’s reasons for being in London were undoubtedly spreading like wildfire even now.

He peered intently at Persephone.

No, Persephone should be thrilled at today’s turn of events. Not that he’d found a bride and future duchess, but that he and Persephone were one step closer to him doing so. Given that, she should be positively elated .

As soon as Simon shored up his future, Persephone could be free of him, and he could be free…of her.

Simon stilled.

In the triumph of the moment and the morning, he’d not given thought…to that part of it. There’d been any number of times when he’d silently acknowledged he was one step closer to fulfilling his obligations to both the dukedom and Persephone.

But this time was different. The inevitability of their parting ways was real now in a way it hadn’t been before. Perhaps that realization also accounted for Persephone’s upset? Perhaps for the first time, she too had been confronted with the sobering reality that their time together was at an end.

Simon, in an attempt to look at her so he could make something out of what was going on in her mind, angled his head.

Persephone stiffened.

She refused to look his way. That telltale tensing of her spine, however, indicated she felt his eyes upon her.

She would. They’d perfected that sixth sense as children in church, sending glances across their respective pews.

“What is it?” he asked quietly.

“I didn’t say anything, Your Grace.”

She didn’t have to say a word for him to have known as much. “You’re miffed with me,” he hazarded.

At last, she turned a nebulous stare on Simon. “Why would I be miffed ?”

God, he hated that look she gave him. He’d only just met it but would be all too content for this to be the last he saw of that opaque nothingness.

“You are ‘ Your Gracing ’ me, Seph.”

She held his gaze, and for a terrifying moment, he’d a taste of what her charges who’d earned the lady’s displeasure had felt like.

“You ordered me to refer to you thusly, Your Grace.”

He scowled. “Yes, but that was before.”

Persephone stared at him for a long moment. When he gave no further clarification, she prodded him. “Before what , Your Grace?”

“I…” He couldn’t recall. Why had he been such a bastard as to suggest that formality between them?

You know why. You couldn’t stop lusting after her. You couldn’t keep your hands off her. Even now, you still want to drag her in your arms and across your lap and do the most depraved things to her.

Yes, in sharing a roof and wanting Persephone as he did, Simon had attempted to erect whatever walls he could between them.

When he didn’t respond, Persephone gave that window all the attention Simon wanted.

The tension remained heavy between them, thick enough that only a broadsword could break through.

Discomfited, Simon tugged at his cravat. “I trust you’re disappointed I lost hold of Astrid and nearly created a scandal.” He flashed her a grin meant to disarm. “But given the help she provided this day, I expect you might be willing to overlook the preceding chaos of the Covent Garden flower shops.”

Of course, in order to be disarmed, she’d have to be looking at Simon.

Persephone turned her attention back to Simon. “She isn’t on your list.” Her full lips remained compressed in a grim line.

Simon shook his head confusedly.

“Your Lady Issy-Isabelle.” Persephone tripped over the young lady’s name.

That brought him up short. So… this was the reason for her frosty demeanor? Because he’d deviated from his list?

“She can be?”

Persephone sharpened her gaze on him, and for the first time since they’d entered the carriage, there flashed a glint of actual emotion in her eyes. “Are you asking me, Your Grace?”

“No.” Simon was trying to sort out how to account for this icy reception that’d met him since they left the flower shop.

He gave Persephone another playful grin. “I thought you would be happy I’ve not held steadfast to that list you hated in the first place, Seph,” he said gently, using that childhood moniker in the hope of shaking her from whatever it was he’d done to displease her.

Persephone stared at Simon, her gaze wounded.

And then, suddenly, as if formerly under a trance, she blinked furiously. “I am very happy about that .”

Which implied she was dis pleased with something else.

Simon held her eyes. “What is it, Seph?” Simon spoke in the same soft tones he’d used when tending a wounded deer he and Persephone had discovered on one of their jaunts across the country.

And this time, as they’d always been, Persephone’s big brown irises formed a window into her soul. Within their depths bled so much pain, fear, and frustration it hit Simon like a poison dart to the heart.

The usually excitable dog, quiet until now, yapped loudly and scrambled from the bench and onto Simon’s lap.

The moment was shattered.

Persephone glanced away first, casting her focus to the floor, and then when she lifted it once more, they remained frustratingly vague.

All business, Persephone reached for her leather satchel that rested on the bench beside her.

Simon made a show of petting Astrid.

All the while, he watched Persephone. She withdrew that same bloody book that’d infuriated him—her work journal dedicated to her charges and clients—the latter column of which Simon fell neatly into—and flipped it open on her lap.

She darted the tip of her tongue out and licked the corner of her index finger.

So attuned to even the most subtle of this woman’s movements, Simon’s gaze tunneled on the sight of that trace of delicate, pink flesh.

Persephone turned page after page, then gave that digit another tiny lick.

God, he envied that finger.

Simon’s lashes grew heavy.

And as he’d proven himself caddish time and time again since Persephone exploded back into his life, Simon let himself imagine her running her tongue up and down his aching shaft. She’d know just what to do. She’d trace him from tip to base, and then, after she’d driven him nearly mad with those tiny, teasing licks, she’d take him all the way into her mouth so that he touched the back of her throat.

His breathing grew shallower.

His cock ached.

Simon gritted his teeth.

He needed to fist himself. Nay , he wanted to undo the fall of his trousers and take Persephone’s long, nimble fingers in his and wrap them around his length.

Simon briefly closed his eyes.

“Splendid!” Persephone exclaimed, her voice hoarse.

Yes, it would be splendid; he’d felt her satiny soft but solid grip before, and he hungered for those skillful ministrations now. And that throaty quality of her low contralto he recognized all too well as the unmistakable husk that coated her voice when he’d made her speak her wicked yearnings aloud.

“Now, perhaps we may begin by sharing whether or not you have any prior history with Lord Si—The Marquess of Bute…and his sister.”

That matter-of-factness of both Persephone’s voice and question barely penetrated the dense wall of his desire.

He stared dumbly at her, who stared so very clearheadedly back.

Astrid whimpered, and he glanced doltishly down at the small pup. With a little yelp, she hopped off his lap and onto the opposite seat, joining Persephone instead.

Smart pup. He’d have liked to do the same.

This was an auspicious start to a possible courtship, he thought wryly. He sat contemplating marriage to one woman, while all the while drowning in lust for another.

Tap-tap-tap.

Persephone rapped the tip of her pencil on her page.

“The Marquess of Bute and Lady Isabelle,” she repeated like he’d not heard the first time.

In fairness, he hadn’t.

“What do you know of her, Your Grace?”

“Uh…” Simon shifted on his bench and attempted to get himself caught up. “The lady has two brothers.” He paused. “Obviously, you know that.”

Persephone blanched.

Oh, hell. At every turn, he made a blunder. You’ll make her feel inferior, believing she should know the family.

“In terms of Lady Isabelle,” he quickly continued, lest Persephone feel any more self-conscious about the station difference, “given the lady’s age, we’ve not met before today.”

While Persephone scratched away at the page with her pencil, Simon did a swift tabulation. Lady Isabelle would have been in the nursery when he’d been in university.

He grimaced.

Good God.

Granted, that was the way of society. Older fellows who’d sowed their oats and tired of carousing went on to marry, and when they did, the brides to be chosen from happened to be ladies a score of years younger.

With her daintily nipped waist, pert breasts, and delicately flared hips, Lady Isabelle possessed an otherworldly golden beauty that would’ve roused envy and anger in the gods.

His eyes went back to the lady across from him.

It was just…so very easy to appreciate the bold confidence, sophisticated humor, and keen wit Persephone possessed as a mature woman—all those traits he’d never find in a simpering, doe-eyed debutante.

He stared at her bent head while she wrote.

Had life been different, had they not lost each other and their way, she would have made him the wife he’d once longed for and dreamed of.

But that boy was no more. A man had taken his place; a man who traveled and wrote and wanted to continue to see the world, and whomever he wed would need to be left behind to oversee that which Simon wouldn’t in his absence.

He wasn’t the man Seph deserved. He hadn’t been that in a long, long time. No man was worthy of her. But certainly not Simon, who wasn’t long for England and couldn’t make her the star of his universe.

Nay, that was why Simon must select a woman such as Lady Isabelle…or one just like her. There couldn’t be emotions involved; no hearts engaged; no feelings intertwined. Someone would only get hurt and he’d sooner cut his own heart out than intentionally wound Persephone Forsyth.

Regret had a taste, and it was unpleasant and acrid, and it would be with him always.

It was a moment before he registered Persephone’s fingers had ceased flying across the page and that her eyes were on him the same way his were on hers.

Even as the carriage swayed and dipped, the rest of the whole world may have ceased moving; Simon and Persephone remained locked in a transfixed frozen state.

“And?” she asked softly.

And…

“What else do you know about the family, Your Grace?” she clarified in a hushed, murmured way, so calm and so at odds with the tumult in his head and heart.

The family?

Lady Isabelle.

Of course.

“In addition to the marquess, the lady has another older brother.”

He clenched his jaw, and his teeth ground painfully together, and just like that, the visceral rage that had compelled him, the insatiable hungering for revenge against those who’d wronged him, roared to life.

All the old remembered indignity and shame swamped his maudlin thoughts of before and swallowed them whole until Simon was left with a greater resolve and reminder of what he wanted—and what he would achieve.

“Lord Lysander.”

As locked in as Simon was on the seductive thoughts of avengement, it was a moment before he registered Persephone had spoken that name aloud.

Lord Lysander, as in Lord Silas’s younger brother.

Simon gave his head a tight nod. “Lord Lysander,” he repeated for good measure. Just a year or so younger than Simon, during their university years, the other fellow had quite the time of it with the older boys making Simon miserable.

…S-S-Stuttering S-S-Simon…S-stupid, s-stammering S-S-Simon…

The echo of Lord Lysander’s harsh laugh pealed around his mind.

“You knew him well?” she asked gently, drawing Simon back from the brink of those abhorrent memories.

“I did.” A muscle rippled along his jawline. “He’s a year or so younger than me. He was a hateful boy—”

“Given to mischief.”

A harsh laugh ripped from Simon. “ Torture is more like.”

“The family,” she said, with a curiously imploring quality to her tone, “did not appear on your original list.”

“I’d focused on the noblemen who’d wronged me.” He firmed his jaw. “I’d not given thought to the lesser ones who were mere younger sons.”

Persephone recoiled. She looked at him like he was a monster come to life before her.

The corner of his right eye ticked with annoyance. She’s angry with me ? Where was her loyalty?

“Say what it is you’d say, Miss Forsyth,” he said coolly.

Anyone else would have balked at those frosty ducal tones.

Persephone, on the other hand, spoke without hesitation. “Lesser ones who were mere younger sons?” she repeated. “You were never like this, Simon.” Her tone ached like she hurt.

He’d not let her disappointment knot him up inside.

“What would you have me say, Seph?” He scoffed. “The man was a bastard.”

And that he had to defend himself in this to Persephone grated. She, of all people, should be on his side in this.

“Lord Lysander may have been a bastard—”

“He was one,” he snapped. The smug knave had been that and some.

“But the shameful manner in which he treated you is what makes him lesser. Not the fact that he was born second behind Lord Silas, Simon.”

“He shoved my head in a dirty chamber pot.”

She winced.

Good. Let her defend Lord Lysander now.

“Simon,” she entreated.

His frayed patience snapped. “Enough, Seph. I’ve no need for some lecture on morals and honor from you. You’re not my goddamned governess. You’re my blasted matchmaker, so…be matchmaking,” he finished.

Pale, she inclined her head. “As you wish, Your Grace.”

That was another thing. “And I command you to refer to me as Simon when we are alone with one another.”

“You cannot compel me to do anything, Your Grace,” she seethed, her eyes sparking fire.

Instead of repulsion, a feverish hunger blazed to life in her eyes. That unbridled passion put him in mind of Persephone when he’d had her pinned to the wall and his hand between her legs.

His body hardened.

“We know that is untrue, Persephone,” he whispered. “I can and, if I so wish it, I will.”

Persephone knew of what he spoke. He saw it in the desperate little way she bit at her lower lip. And he knew with a savage instinct that she was absolutely dripping between her legs for him.

Give me a look. Give me just one utterance, and I will pull you astride my body and give you what you are silently crying out for.

Persephone looked away first.

She dropped her gaze to her notebook and fiddled with her pencil. “And what of the marquess?” she asked thickly. “What do you know of him ?”

A clearer message couldn’t have been sent by the lady had she fired a gun to announce it—the playful banter, the easy exchanges, the passionate embraces…were at an end.

It was all business between him and Persephone.

And you’d do well to remember that. No more of those fanciful musings about what could have been or would have been.

This is all there was.

“Lord Bute is slightly older than me. We were not overly friendly, but he was always a good chap. At school, he’d put a stop to his brother’s antics whenever he happened upon Lord Lysander making my life hell.”

Simon had been too ashamed and embarrassed at needing the older boy to intervene on his behalf.

“What an honorable man Lord Bute is.”

It was a moment before he registered Persephone’s acerbic response.

Quizzically, he looked over at her. “Seph?”

The carriage slowed and then rocked to a gradual stop. Simon drew the curtain back and peered outside.

They’d arrived.

As his driver clamored from the bench, Simon returned his attention to Persephone.

“I extended a dinner invitation to Lord Bute and Lady Isabelle,” he added before he forgot.

Persephone scrambled to the edge of her bench; her notebook and pencil fell with a thump upon the carriage floor. “ What? ”

“Not this evening, and not just the gentleman and his sister,” he said as a footman drew the lacquer door open. Simon handed Astrid off to the young servant. “Rather a dozen or so guests. In a week’s time. Lady Isabelle’s brother suggested a walk in Hyde Park in the interim. He encouraged me to bring along my social secretary as a chaperone to his sister.”

All the blood seeped from Persephone’s cheeks. She opened and closed her mouth several times, but no words came out.

Simon jumped down and reached a hand back to help Persephone. She glared at his fingertips, and, with a look he’d become increasingly familiar with, snatched his hand.

The moment he set her on her feet, Persephone stalked off.

Frowning, he stared after her rapidly retreating frame.

He cupped his hands around his mouth. “I thought you’d be pleased with me,” he called after her.

“I’m not,” she shouted back, not even breaking stride.

The imperturbable Miss Persephone Forsyth reduced to yelling.

A grin played at his lips and Simon set off after her. Even with the impressive pace she’d struck, Simon easily caught her.

The moment they entered the foyer, his butler, along with three footmen, rushed forward: one each to collect Simon and Persephone’s cloaks and the other to rescue Astrid.

“What is it, Seph?” he asked, and the servants went scurrying off. For that matter, Persephone did too. She made a beeline right for the staircase. “Where are you off to?”

“Given you’ll have me coordinate a dinner party in a week’s time, I have work to do.”

“So, you are angry.”

“I’m not miffed . I’m not angry . I am annoyed that you don’t understand the work it entails to organize such an undertaking with this little bit of time,” she said tersely. “There is a list of guests to draft and invitations to be drawn up and sent out. There is the matter of a dinner menu, and that is only half of it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Your Grace.”

With that, Persephone went tramping off, leaving Simon staring bemusedly after her.