Page 5 of The Good Duke (The Licentious Lords #1)

O ne wrong step gets a girl caught…

Persephone braced for the hue and cry to follow that would bring constables crashing down on Simon’s townhouse.

Through the clamor of panic in her brain, she had but one thought—did they hang a woman before talking to the master of the household? Or did they save that messy business until after the crime had been reported?

The duteous servant continued sailing right past Persephone and her hiding spot.

“The window is open.”

There came the heavy slap of fabric.

Relief brought Persephone’s eyes sliding shut. She’d, of course, feel vastly more relieved were the two servants to find another part of the household to attend to. Simon would have outrageously attentive servants, even when the household was closed up.

Click.

“There, you are assured there are no intruders and can safely retire for the evening,” Warren said on another laugh as the pair headed back for the front of the room.

“A footman’s work is never done.”

“…actually it is…and that is when the second-butler steps in, which is my…”

As the disputatious pair quit the room and their voices grew more faded in the hall, Persephone remained locked to her spot on the floor.

Hunched and afraid to move, Persephone kept her awkwardly dipped gaze on the bronze ormolu mantel clock. She followed that slow-moving handle until eleven minutes had passed and then scooted out from her cramped position.

Every part of her ached. Parts of her she didn’t even know could hurt, hurt . Those muscles which hadn’t already been strained from her miserable journey from Mrs. Belden’s and her recent fall joined in a symphony of suffering.

Persephone stretched out on the thin Aubusson carpet and splayed her arms wide, welcoming the feel of the solid floor under her back.

She closed her eyes.

That felt deliciously wonderful enough that she lay there, unable to bring herself to care if Warren or Jordan—or anyone else for that matter—made another appearance.

Alas, Persephone made herself climb to her feet for a second time since her break-in. After all, she didn’t want to be caught sneaking about. That would make for some deuced uncomfortable explaining to the constable and then, worse, to Simon Broadbent, the Earl of Primly.

Tiptoeing to the front of the room, Persephone ducked her head out, strained her ears, and listened for more of the earl’s servants.

She’d been in the late earl’s London home just once, and only when she’d been a girl of nine. As such, her recollection of the layout of the enormous townhouse were small. But she did remember all the hidden areas Simon had showed her. The palatial residence, with its sprawling parks, had space enough for her to avoid any overeager staff, especially with the master away.

The ring of silence proved the only sound in the corridor.

Collecting the hem of her cloak and skirts, Persephone headed down the hall and for the main staircase. As she moved quickly up two flights of stairs, she hung close to the gilded wrought-iron handrail. She searched her gaze as she went for signs of more servants to hide from.

Dutiful staff, however, would never dare travel along anything but a servant’s stairway. And having heard the servants’ exchange, there could be no doubting Simon kept a tightly run household.

Which was also very in keeping with the earl.

The earl.

It was…an odd way to think of him.

The last time she’d seen Lord Primly, he’d simply been…Simon—her friend. They’d still been teenagers. Their families’ feud had been built that day, destroying the friendship their fathers—and she and Simon—had enjoyed.

And all because of the penis…

Simon’s penis, to be perfectly precise.

She never had properly thanked him for risking his and her father’s wrath in the name of her art.

At last, Persephone reached the guest suites. Some of the tension she’d been carrying in her shoulders since her official sacking back at Mrs. Belden’s, and then for the duration of her journey by mail coach, slipped from her tired frame.

Triumph filled her, and she released the close hold she had on her skirts, letting them fall in a noisy whir about her ankles. Stark white sheets hung over mirrors and paintings. Those protective coverings which prevented dust also spared staff from having to work in this closed wing of the household.

With still-careful strides, she counted the doorways to find the chambers she’d used a lifetime ago, back when she’d been a guest and not the intruder she’d become this night. Pressing the handle, she let herself in.

The well-greased hinges so perfectly oiled didn’t emit so much as a squeak of an announcement of her presence.

Persephone pushed the door quietly shut behind her and turned the lock.

Several sconces had been left lit. However, an inky darkness still hung over the room, and she blinked her eyes to adjust to the dimness.

“So much for attentive servants,” she muttered as she stretched up and blew out first one candle and then the next one. Leaving candles lit? His maids and footmen would burn the place down. Little clouds of white smoke filtered, and she waved her hands to waft about that tell-tale smell of sulfur in the event a servant did come searching.

Loosening the clasp at her throat, Persephone started across the darkened bedchamber and stopped.

A large copper claw-foot bath sat in the middle of the hardwood floor.

Her stomach lurched.

Not just a bath. Not an empty one, that was.

A tub filled with the tall, distinguishable form of—

Persephone flared her eyes.

Oh saints in heaven and spawns in hell.

Simon?

“What are you doing here?” she exclaimed.

“I believe that should be fairly obvious.” The gentleman in question glanced down pointedly, drawing her gaze to the cloudy water that made the thinnest curtain over his bare body.

Given she’d seen the most intimate part of him, she should be nonplussed. Grown Simon, however, was altogether different than boy Simon from long ago.

Swallowing loudly, she looked up.

He grinned.

Only, this wasn’t a boy’s smile. This was a rogue’s grin. The tip of a lip that made a woman’s heart race and sent all worries about reputations tumbling into a dustbin.

“Alas, I believe you have the wrong room, sweet.”

Sweet?

That slowly spoken, husky endearment slashed across that brief moment of insanity around his smile.

“Forgive me,” she said stiffly, all too mindful of the fact that she conversed freely with a naked Simon. “I was searching for the guest suites.”

“You are off by a floor.”

She frowned. “Surely not.” Granted, it’d been twenty-plus years since she and her father had visited the earl’s residence.

“I assure you, I’m well aware of the layout of my residence,” he drawled.

Now, this sounded like Simon. Simon who’d stammered, but whose speech had almost always been steady with her.

At that familiar glimpse of her friend from long ago, her horror receded.

How had she failed to realize just how massive his property was?

“The third floor is the guest quarters,” he volunteered when she said nothing more.

“Off by a damned floor,” she muttered.

He let out a bark of laughter.

She’d always been useless with directions. It was a wonder she’d found her way to London without incident.

Though in fairness, one wouldn’t necessarily call stumbling upon Simon while he was naked in a tub without incident.

Which brought her back to the fact that she, even now, stood speaking with a naked Simon. Simon with a broad, soap-covered chest, and whose legs hung over the opposite end of the tub.

Only…they weren’t really Simon’s legs. Simon’s legs had been shorter. Thinner. Scrawnier.

Reflexively, she glanced down once more to study him.

These limbs were ever more muscular and long. They were that too. They were very much a man’s limbs. Much had changed physically about Simon Broadbent in the time since she’d last seen him—and seen him in a vastly similar state—naked. Though, at that point, he’d only been partially naked, and not even fully so. Certainly not as he was now.

Persephone peered more closely at Simon. He still possessed those same luscious shoulder-length golden curls he always had. With his hair now slick with water, however, she couldn’t determine whether those strands were now looser and darker merely because of his bath, or whether time had changed them.

His cheekbones were still sharp, his square jaw solid and hard but for the slight cleft at the center of it.

Her gaze slipped a fraction. Look away. Look away. Alas, she remained as unable to tear her gaze from the matting of tight blond whorls upon his well-muscled chest as she had been unable to look away from the massive length of his manhood decades earlier.

Persephone swallowed wildly.

Yes, he was different in that regard as well.

One area, however, in which he remained unchanged—his politeness.

Not shouting or ordering her out, as he was well-within his rights to do, but issuing clearer directions to the area of his household she’d been in search of. No, rather he was taking this…very well. Very well indeed.

And for the first time since she’d been sacked, Persephone began to feel that mayhap everything would be all right after all.

She shook her head and forced her eyes back to his blue bemused ones.

“I expect it is something of a shock finding me here,” she said. When he merely stared at her in silence, she frowned. “That is unless you are in the habit of having women in your chambers?”

“No.” He grinned. “At least not in those of my personal residence, love.”

Persephone frowned. She didn’t like this roguish side of him. Alas, given after all these years, she’d arrived in his household with her hands out, seeking a favor, a lecture didn’t seem the wisest course.

She’d save that for later.

She opted to take him to task for altogether different reasons. “Sweet? Love?”

He couldn’t even be bothered to use her given name?

His grin widened. “Do you prefer my dear ?”

“Only when my father referred to me thusly,” she muttered.

He laughed. “Love it is, then.”

Then it hit her like the weight of a brick wall.

Persephone recoiled.

“Love?” he asked concernedly.

“Love. My dear. Sweet? ” she repeated weakly and to herself.

Not: Persephone. Not: Seph. Not: Miss Forsyth. Because he’d absolutely no idea who she was.

Are you surprised? She shouldn’t be. Noblemen hardly remembered the girls they’d been friends with as children.

And yet, even knowing that, neither could Persephone tamp down the swell of disappointment that crested in her breast.

“It has been many years,” she whispered. “Though I didn’t think you’d forget me altogether,” she added that last part for herself.

After all, she’d not forgotten him.

Simon continued to stare blankly at her. “Do I know you?” he urged in a slightly desperate but still very even voice.

Sighing, she took mercy on him. “Simon, it is me, Seph .”