Page 4 of The Good Duke (The Licentious Lords #1)

London, England

P ersephone had known everything there was to know about Simon Broadbent, the Earl of Primly.

Every Season, he spent in London amongst the illustrious members of the ton. Without fail, he took his seat in Parliament, put his support behind merchants, and welcomed political participation from those outside the aristocracy.

Every winter, he journeyed to some respectable family’s house party; he never visited the same family.

Every summer, he retired to one of his many country estates.

Nor was there anything suspicious in Persephone’s very specific knowledge about the Earl of Primly. Rather, she knew him because she’d known him so very well as a child and then as a very young man…and he’d been prodigiously committed to living the life that was expected of an earl.

That was until he quit England to travel the world. That marked the end of what she’d learned about Simon’s goings-on.

Both his predictability and his absence from London was why Persephone had endured the long, arduous journey by mail coach from Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School.

And it was why she, even now, found herself in a dark, narrow alleyway between Simon’s Mayfair townhouse and…some other stranger’s stucco one. Hurrying along the narrow passageway, Persephone couldn’t determine whether she would have wished for a clear, moonlit night to light the way for her or the current inky black, cloud-filled sky overhead.

She stole a peek at the well-lit manse neighboring Simon’s. Nay, any additional light would be disastrous. No doubt, the owner of that other residence would be a good deal less forgiving if he or she or one of their many servants were to find Persephone lurking outside their residence.

With that reminder knocking around her brain, Persephone quickened her steps.

Alas, for Persephone, a thirty-six-year-old woman, options and references were remarkably short. So, just then, lurking outside this residence posed the least risk. At least in entering this household, she didn’t have to worry about being hanged for entering. And so, really, it was the only course, the only option. That is, assuming if she was caught, the remaining servants even bothered to contact their employer about the intruder. The greater likelihood was that they’d simply turn her over to the constable…

“Enough,” she mouthed. Never more had she resented that working for Mrs. Belden had made her so very logical.

Persephone stopped halfway down the alley and dropped her worn satchel, and it landed with a damning thwack.

She went absolutely motionless, bracing for someone to come running…and her eventual discovery.

After an interminable amount of time later, when it appeared discovery was not imminent, she released the breath she’d been holding.

No, thievery was certainly not within her skillset.

Not that she wanted to live a life of crime. Just the opposite, really.

Now, there was the matter of sorting through her employment—or lack thereof—situation.

Pushing her hood back a fraction, Persephone did an up-and-down assessment of the space from the ground to the earl’s window facing the alley.

Six and a half feet…and a few inches.

Nearly five feet, six inches herself, it wasn’t really that much distance for her to close, and as a girl who’d jumped nearly twenty inches, she’d surpassed most of the boys.

She sprung forward, up, and stretched for the large flat ledge.

Her fingers brushed the windowsill.

She cursed as she missed that ledge.

She jumped up once more.

Persephone landed on her feet.

She made several more attempts and this time managed to clasp the ledge.

Victory!

Her triumph proved short-lived.

Her grip slackened, and she lost her precarious hold.

Persephone came down hard.

Bloody hell.

She was about fifteen years out of practice.

Puffing and out of breath from her exertions, she eyed the distance once more.

Who would have imagined that something which had come so easy to her as a child should prove so blasted impossible now?

Throwing her cloak over her shoulders, she stretched her arms back and forth several times.

Then, squatting, Persephone propelled herself up.

Her fingers caught the broad stone sill.

Satisfaction filled her as she dangled several feet from the alley floor.

How much easier this whole climbing thing had been as a girl…and even as a young woman. She’d scaled trees and windows and balustrades. Wood ones. Stone ones. Metal ones.

Alas, she was twenty years out of any and all climbing practice.

Balancing her weight over her right shoulder, she used her left to wrestle the immense east window up.

She’d done it!

A long, gleeful grin brought her lips up in their first smile in longer than she could recall.

Persephone peeked over her shoulder to the ground below, where her bag still rested against the base of the earl’s townhouse. She puzzled her brow.

Well, mayhap, not done it quite yet.

Shimmying her body up, she drew herself up and over.

In a tangle of skirts, Persephone gasped as she lost her balance and tumbled headfirst. She managed to roll just in time, so her shoulder collided with the monstrously hard oak floor.

And Mrs. Belden had believed the penis rendering bad. If the old dragon could see Persephone now, with her skirts rucked about her waist, and in the midst of breaking into a distinguished lord’s household at that.

Laying sprawled on the floor and breathless, Persephone stared dizzily up at the trompe-l’?il mural overhead and waited for the rush of servants…

Who did not come.

Persephone pushed herself up onto her feet. The moment she stood, she reflexively shoved her rumpled hems back into their proper place and instantly regretted that movement. The muscles of her right arm, sore from her fall, instantly tightened in protest.

Sinking her teeth into her lower lip to repress another groan, Persephone tiptoed back over to the window and distractedly rubbed her tight muscles as she went.

She ducked her head out.

Her small, dark brown leather valise stared forlornly back from its lonely place upon the pavement. The moon’s rays glinted off the rusted buckles that no longer buckled and served more as an antique embellishment than a functional clasp.

“I’ll return for you,” she whispered to her bag.

Just then, the sound of heavy footsteps in the hall reached Persephone’s ears.

“ …I told you, I heard… ”

Silently cursing, she dropped onto her knees at the same time the door opened.

“You are hearing things.”

“I’m the new head footman.” That voice came rich with exasperation.

“And that means what exactly, Jordan?” the other person drawled as those footfalls moved about the darkened parlor.

Persephone’s heart pounded hard in her breast as she gathered her cloak and inched around the sofa, away from the pair’s approach.

“It means , Warren, I want to ensure the household is operating efficiently and—”

The pair stopped on the other end of the high-backed upholstered sofa. “And you take it we’re being besieged by intruders?” There came a quiet laugh, followed by an indignant sniff.

Her back pressed against the arm of the high-backed Hepplewhite sofa, Persephone remained crouched.

She stole a peek around at the quarreling pair of servants. Each tall, slender, uniformed, and bewigged, the men may as well have been twins. They were alike in every way. That was, with the exception of the sizeable black mole on the corner of one fellow’s nose, which managed to set the two apart.

“…You find that so very hard to believe? What, with the master’s change in circumstances…”

She furrowed her brow. The master’s change in circumstances?

Suddenly, Persephone registered an abrupt silence.

The mole-less man—Jordan—froze, and she went motionless along with him.

Jordan’s pale eyebrows climbed to the tip of his white powdered wig. “What is this ?” he cried.

And as he proceeded to stomp her way, a sickening dread threatened to swallow Persephone right up.

Oh, hell, she’d been discovered.