Page 32 of The Good Duke (The Licentious Lords #1)

T he Duke of Greystoke’s lavish dining room had been readied for the Formal Dinner Party of the Season—as The Times declared the intimate event between society’s most coveted bachelor and sought-after Diamond. The finest crystal, silver, and porcelain plates had all been set in their respective places upon the mahogany, triple-pillar dining table.

There were seven white Italian lace tablecloths—one for every course, to be removed after the completion of each portion of the meal. After all, every respectable lady who knew anything about throwing a party greater than eight guests, and given the nature of this evening’s grand event, required no less than seven courses served à la russe.

Only, Persephone wasn’t the hostess of the event written about in all the gossip columns. She was merely the organizer.

Because all the arrangements Persephone had made were as that of social secretary and not as lady of the household.

Having already seen to all those important preparations and dressed in an exquisite blue sapphire dress for the big event, Persephone had snuck off to find a moment for herself in Simon’s gardens—enjoying a calm before the storm.

Are you really enjoying it? Or are you just sitting here, miserable, bracing for the moment Simon’s betrothal to the kind, graceful, gracious, and breathtakingly beautiful Lady Isabelle is officially announced?

Only, she already knew the answer. God, she knew.

A half-laugh, half-sob built in her chest. She fought to keep that misery in—and failed. For, staring at the dense Dicentra plants, those pale pink heart-shaped flowers that resembled a broken heart, the irony wasn’t lost on Persephone.

Since this afternoon, she’d gone over and over again her exchange with Silas.

“ To my very core, I loathe the idea of you living with Greystoke. Since I saw you together with him at the flower shop, I’ve been haunted. I love you, Persephone. I never stopped… ”

Those words he’d spoken had stunned her.

“ …whatever Greystoke is or isn’t to you? It doesn’t matter, because I intend to woo you and marry you and bring you all the happiness you deserve… ”

His vow had shocked her.

What had stunned Persephone more, however, was how…unmoved she’d been by Silas’s avowal.

She’d stood before her former lover, who’d vowed to woo her and declared his love, all these years after his betrayal, and Persephone had felt absolutely nothing.

Not resentment. Not hurt.

Not… anything .

Not for him.

Not for what they’d shared.

Because face to face with Silas in the courtyard at Madam Colette’s, Persephone hadn’t thought about what’d happened between her and Silas in the past. She hadn’t even cared about a scandal and the very likely possibility society would discover Persephone’s past.

No, in that minute, all she’d cared about was preserving the match Simon had wanted from the start. Lady Isabelle represented everything he desired in a wife, and Persephone loved Simon so much that his happiness mattered much more than even Persephone’s own, and she’d suffer a broken heart for Simon to have the woman he truly wished.

Oh, he’d insisted enough that he didn’t wish to proceed with his courtship of Lady Isabelle. The problem was Simon only began expressing reservations after he’d learned about how Lord Silas had hurt Persephone.

She knew Simon better than she knew herself.

Where every other gentleman only thought of their own desires, Simon possessed an unwavering devotion to those he called friend. For him, his loyalty to another superseded his greatest wants and needs.

In this case, the greatest want being Lady Isabelle.

Tears burned Persephone’s eyes, and here, in the privacy of the gardens and away from the world waiting on the other side of the crystal paneled doors, she let them fall.

A low, sonorous murmuring cut across her sorrow. “I’ve been looking for you, Seph.”

Oh, bloody hell. Can’t a lady have but one minute to wallow in her misery?

Persephone made a show of stealing a peek over her shoulder.

“Simon!” she greeted with false cheer, relieved when her voice didn’t quaver.

She climbed slowly to her feet. Persephone discreetly dabbed at her eyes, and, praying the night sky offered enough cover to conceal the tears, she faced Simon.

The sight of him, however, brought her up short and stole all the breath from her lungs and the prepared jovial words about the dinner party from her lips.

Persephone didn’t even try to stop herself from drinking in the sight of him. For when she left, and that day was coming soon, she wanted to commit Simon to her memory as he was now and carry the remembrance of him with her always.

Attired in black, from his finely-cut wool evening coat to his cravat, and the fitted trousers that hugged his magnificently formed thighs, and on down to his buckled shoes, Simon had the look of Adonis resurrected by the gods to live in the now.

With his hands clasped behind him, Simon flashed a bemused half-grin that sent warmth throughout her entire being.

“A pound for your thoughts?” he murmured.

“Penny,” she automatically corrected.

“Ah.” He moved his gaze slowly over her face. “But your thoughts are worth so much more to me than that, Seph.” He locked his eyes with hers. “They always were.”

Her heart, that organ which would always beat for him, trembled.

His heart, however, belonged with another.

“You said you were looking for me.” Persephone gripped the sides of her skirts. “Was there something you needed me to see to, Simon?”

“I also said I wished to know what you are thinking, and yet here I am still awaiting an answer as to what has you all alone outside, lost in your thoughts,” he said wryly.

“I’m just…” Mourning what cannot be. Envying another woman. Wallowing in grief with the potency she’d only ever known once: at her father’s death.

Simon peered more intently at her, and she did something she’d sworn never to do to him—she lied.

“I’m just taking a moment in the quiet to go through, one more time, the details for tonight’s dinner party, Simon.”

His opaque gaze revealed nothing of what he thought, or whether he believed or didn’t believe that fib.

“I wanted to speak to you before the guests arrive.”

“Which should be soon,” she pointed out, heading toward him.

“Which doesn’t matter, Seph.”

The quiet but firm insistence in his voice reached Persephone.

She stepped closer and, when only a pace separated them, she stopped.

Wordlessly, Simon reached behind him and held out a thick envelope and an even thicker folio.

Puzzling her brow, Persephone glanced from Simon to the items in his hand and then back again to Simon.

“What is this?” she asked.

Only, he’d folded his now empty palms behind him once more and gave all his attention to the smattering of stars that twinkled overhead.

“Do you know, Seph”—as he spoke, Simon didn’t take his eyes from the sky—“when I left London, I didn’t miss this great city at all. With every place I traveled to, and the ships I sailed on, I noticed things I likely wouldn’t have had I let myself be trapped in London.”

Trapped.

Her stomach muscles seized.

With his pensive musings about the sights he’d seen and his longing to leave England, they’d come full circle. That yearning, after all, was the very reason he’d sought a suitable duchess in the first place.

Persephone’s love for him made it possible to ask questions which would only further hurt.

“What did you discover?”

Blinking like he’d been oblivious to her presence until now, Simon glanced at Persephone.

“I realized, Seph,” he murmured, “how beautiful it was to stare up at a star-filled sky and view the moon in all its bright glory, radiating light upon the earth.”

He took a step and eliminated the rest of the distance between them. “When I returned to London, all I wanted was to leave as quickly as possible.”

“I know,” she said softly. “I want you to have whatever you—”

Simon touched a finger to her lips. “But then, with you here, you opened my eyes to the fact that everything I loved, the pure skies and the green hills, were here in England after all. Not here in London, but with you in the English countryside, Seph.”

Her breath caught and, with her heart and mind racing at a dizzying speed, she tried to make sense of what he was saying.

Simon palmed either side of her cheeks. “What I’m saying, Persephone,” he said, his tender gaze locked with hers, “is that I want you . I love you.”

I love you.

Frozen in the garden where Persephone consecrated her love for Simon, the echo of his vow lingered in the nighttime still.

She’d loved him longer than she’d ever even acknowledged to herself.

I love you.

She’d loved him forever.

I love you.

She loved him so much she’d been willing to help him find the woman he wished to marry.

I love you.

Only to stand before Simon now and have him profess his love when he was but moments away from entering the dinner party she’d organized, so he could make clear to the ton his intentions for Lady Isabelle.

Joy melded with wonderment and…an absolute sense of rightness .

He loves me.

Tears made it impossible for Persephone to swallow or speak.

The truth of Simon’s declaration lived in his beautiful blue eyes—those eyes now locked and unblinking on Persephone.

The weight and wealth of the emotion there brought Persephone’s eyes sliding shut.

The other truth, however, remained just as strong.

If he did not move forward with a formal offer for Lady Isabelle—which was expected by all—it’d be the scandal of the ages. The world would believe the Duke of Greystoke strung along the Diamond of the Season—which, in a way, he had inadvertently done.

He’d be reviled.

Lady Isabelle, the sought-after debutante, would become a castoff.

Simon’s rejection of the young lady would have devastating implications for the girl’s future prospects.

It’d be all society spoke about. It’d be the only on dit the papers would write about.

And Simon, a man who valued people’s opinions and despised being an object of scorn, would become just that.

Oh, God.

Her heart seized up.

She hated that for Simon—her oldest and greatest and only friend. But she hated herself more because if she loved him as he deserved to be loved, the ugly fate which awaited him were he to sever his connection with Lady Isabelle should matter most.

In the greatest contradiction, Persephone’s heart was nearly full to bursting and breaking all at the same time.

Simon spoke and shattered her careening thoughts.

“You haven’t said anything,” he said, his always sonorous baritone toneless.

Persephone took in a deep, unsteady breath.

“Simon,” she began.

Reflexively, she curled her fingers around the thick folio he’d handed her.

“I love you, Seph,” he cut her off. “Maybe you think I want Lady Isabelle because she fits with some image I had in my mind before I fell in love with you all over again.”

Before I fell in love with you all over again…

Her heart kicked up its beat.

“Or perhaps it has nothing to do with me.” Simon slashed his hand about as he spoke. “Maybe your heart still belongs and only ever belonged to Bute, and you want to be with him.”

As though mortally wounded at the prospect, Simon’s sharp, sun-browned features contorted into a paroxysm of grief that cut Persephone all the way through.

“Either way,” he said, his voice ragged, “I want you to have that, so whatever decision you arrive at is uncoerced…so that it is your decision alone.”

Puzzling her brow, Persephone at last peeked inside and sifted through the contents.

“They are references,” he explained.

“Yes, I see that.”

“And funds. Ten thousand pounds for you to do whatever you will or would with it. Just so that you have a choice. Even if Bute is the choice, I want you to have all of this, so you always have it for you.” A fresh wave of grief contorted his beautiful face.

Simon’s pain was her own. That’d always been the way though. They’d always hurt for one another and laughed because of each other.

With her spare hand, Persephone took one of Simon’s gloved palms in her own. She twined their fingers until they were joined like ivy.

“Simon,” she murmured. “Lord Bute was part of my past. I do not love him.”

He stilled.

Hope blazed to life in every cherished plane of his face.

“You don’t?” his voice emerged on a whisper.

Persephone shook her head.

She loved Simon. He was her friend and now the keeper of her heart. As such, she couldn’t lie to him. “I did love him,” she admitted. “When we met, I was so innocent and he was the epitome of a rogue: dashing, charming, exciting, forbidden.”

As she spoke, Simon shifted his gaze over the top of Persephone’s head.

“But Simon,” she said softly and waited until he met her gaze once more, “when I saw the marquess in the flower shop that day, I felt… nothing . At least, not for him. My heart didn’t jump. My soul didn’t sing. In that instant and in the days that followed, all I could think about was protecting you—from me, from my past.”

“Seph—” he said hoarsely.

“No, Simon.” Persephone gave her head a harder shake. “It is my turn. I’ve kept enough from you. We’ve both let so much go unsaid. I’ll finish this.” Each word fell from her lips faster and faster. “Even as it would have gutted me to leave you, I was determined to do so because I could never come between you and what you really wanted. I knew I’d never forgive myself.” Her shoulders sagged. “But I realized something, Simon,” she whispered. “I’m not as honorable or good as I’d b-believed.” Her voice caught. “And I’m certainly not as good as you deserve.”

An anguished groan escaped Simon.

“You are far better than I deserve, Seph. That you can actually think you are somehow unworthy of me ?” A half-laugh, half-sob ripped from his lips. “The fact you can even utter it, after how I’ve treated you and how bloody good and loving and supportive you’ve been to me, is farcical.”

Persephone waggled her eyebrows. “Oh, I don’t disagree with the fact there were plenty of times you were a vexing, arrogant dunderhead.”

The corners of Simon’s hard lips twitched in the grin she’d intended.

“What I’d wanted to say, if you’d let me finish, Simon…” Persephone forced a smile that, even to her, felt sad. “I’m not as honorable or good as I’d believed, and I’m certainly not as good as you deserve, because the truth remains, I want you anyway. Even loving you—”

“You love me?” he whispered.

Reverent awe, hope, and disbelief were all entangled within his question.

Tears clogged her throat. “I love you, Simon, but knowing there’ll be a scandal and you’ll be hurt and—”

Annoyance flashed in his eyes. “Do you think I care about a scandal?”

“No,” Persephone murmured.

Resting her free hand upon his chest, she slowly stroked him. “I know you will care about hurting Lady Isabelle and that you pride yourself on being good and honorable, and you are and will always be those things. I’m selfish, Simon,” she said. Her throat bobbed. “Because I want you in my life in any way I can have you—”

A low, animalistic growl reverberated from his chest.

“In any way?” His eyes flashed fire. “Persephone, do you truly believe what I’m offering you here and now is anything other than my whole heart and name.”

Holding her gaze, Simon sank to a knee.

She dimly registered the envelope filled with references and funds slipping through her fingers.

The packet hit the grass with a faint thump.

“What are you…?” she whispered.

“Marry me, Persephone. Be not only my friend and lover but my partner in life. Allow me to fill your days with the same laughter and joy you have always brought to mine.”

Her breath caught.

With an aching tenderness, he clasped Persephone’s hands in his and gave a light squeeze. “I hate that I was not there when your life was hardest because I want all of you, Persephone. I want the days that are wonderful and. just as much, I want to be there for you and with you when life seems impossible.”

Tears filled her eyes and blurred his beautiful visage. She blinked furiously to clear those drops, to bring Simon into clearer focus, wanting to commit to memory everything about him and this moment.

He brushed his thumb over her cheek and dusted away the moisture that had already fallen. “But life won’t be impossible,” he vowed, “as long as we have one another.”

A sob escaped her, and she buried that sound in her fist. “Yes.”

His eyes flared. “Yes,” he repeated dumbly.

Simultaneously laughing and crying, Persephone nodded. “Y-Yes.”

Joining in with Persephone, Simon hauled her into his arms and covered her mouth with his.

She instantly melted against him and surrendered herself completely to his embrace.

Since she’d found Simon here in London, she’d fought her feelings. She’d told herself he’d changed—which he had—but they both had. And she’d done so because she couldn’t imagine a world in which she could have him in all the ways she wanted him.

Suddenly, in one effortless movement, Simon broke the embrace and jumped to his feet.

As he positioned himself in front of her, Persephone stood dazed.

What…?

“My apologies, Your Grace,” a servant called over from several yards away. “The guests have all arrived and were escorted to the Blue Parlor…to wait.”

The guests?

Just like that, from the dream she’d just allowed herself, Persephone came rushing back to reality, and the world came crashing in.

The Dinner Party of the Season as the papers had written of the intimate affair.

Lady Isabelle.

The Marquess of Bute.

All the joy of before faded and a sick feeling formed in Persephone’s stomach.

As if from down a long hall, Simon’s voice moved in and out of focus as he spoke with the liveried servant.

In the moment between Simon’s profession of love and offer of marriage, it’d been all too easy to pretend their love could conquer all and that she and Simon’s love mattered more than anything.

Now, with the repercussions staring down at them were they to damn the world and do what they wanted, the impossibility of it all filled Persephone with a hollow emptiness.

“Persephone.”

I cannot do this. No matter how much I want him.

This time, Simon’s sharp, crisp tones slashed into her misery. “ Persephone. ” He took her hard by the shoulders.

At some point, the servant had taken his leave.

Vacuously, she stared at this man she loved more than she’d ever loved or would ever love anyone again.

Tears built in her throat.

“Simon,” she began all over again; this time, to deliver the right words—even as they would succeed in finally breaking her. “I love you and I always will—”

Simon glared at her. “Just stop.”

“Simon,” she implored. “ Please , don’t do this. Don’t make this any harder than it already—”

“You’re not wrong, Persephone,” he said, ignoring her pleas. “There will be a scandal, and it will be bloody miserable for you and Lady Isabelle.”

“And you , Simon,” she interrupted, compelled to point out the part he wouldn’t say. “However bad it will be for me, it will be a thousandfold worse for you and Lady Isabelle.”

He scoffed. “As though I c—”

“Care how it reflects upon you ?” Persephone finished. She didn’t allow him a word edgewise. “Simon,” she said calmly, “either you’re lying to me, yourself, or both of us. Or maybe you actually believe what you’re saying, but I know you.”

For too much of his life, he’d been unfairly brutalized by society, and the same way Persephone knew her own face was the same way she knew how badly their ill-treatment had hurt him.

With a growl, Simon slammed a fist against his chest. “I’d rather cut my own heart out than live in a world where you are not my wife.” His eyes blazed with a rabid ferocity. “Given that, I assure you, the misery of a fleeting scandal is a far preferable fate.”

They were at an impasse.

Must we be… Why can you not trust him and in him and in you and him together?

Feeling herself weakening, Persephone hugged her arms around her middle and cast a desperate glance about.

“Persephone,” he murmured.

His tone soft brought her gaze back to him once more.

Simon drew her into his arms and touched his lips to her temple. “Do you trust me?” he asked gently.

“Of course.” Her answer was born from the automaticity of truth.

“It will be all right,” he promised. “Marry me, Persephone. Let us face whatever it is life has to throw at us, together.”

Together.

Persephone briefly closed her eyes.

Trust you two will be all right.

Some of the pressure in her chest eased, and Persephone opened her eyes. “I will, Simon.”

Then like one who feared she might change her mind if they lingered outside any longer, Simon held out his elbow. “Come, love. The world awaits us.”

When he said that with all the confidence and strength he did, Persephone believed him.

She placed her fingertips upon Simon’s sleeve and allowed him to escort her from the gardens.

Persephone knew it wasn’t the world she and Simon would first be facing, but rather a mere handful of Society’s most eminent peers.

That knowledge, however, did absolutely nothing to ease the dread twisting away at her insides.