Page 6 of The Good Duke (The Licentious Lords #1)

S imon sat conversing…in his bathtub.

Though, in fairness, it wasn’t really conversing, as the dark-haired woman standing beside his tub was content to fill every last corner where silence existed.

As a boy, the village boys had mocked Simon for his struggle with speaking. He’d been so very glad of the day when he’d go to Eton and start a new beginning…only to find the boys there were bigger, meaner, and even more vicious because of his stutter. Oftentimes, he found himself the victim of horrible jests. With time’s passage, the meanness had become more subtle, but so had Simon’s visibility amongst most of the world.

He glanced around, certain that he’d somehow again found himself the subject of some cruel game played by some bored lord.

In the years he’d been traveling, Simon had done, witnessed, and heard all number of scandalous things.

He’d believed himself incapable of ever being properly shocked again.

He’d been wrong.

He’d been so very wrong.

Simon, it is me, Seph.

For, of all the women who could have broken into his house and invaded his room while he bathed, this woman was none other than Persephone Forsyth—his one and only childhood friend.

It was as if when he’d seen her initials carved upon the office door, he’d conjured her back from…wherever it was she’d been all these many years.

Persephone, whom he’d not seen since he’d been indecent before her.

Not unlike the way he found himself now .

Shock brought him repelling back in his tub. Sudsy water splashed all over the sides, hitting both the hardwood floor and the skirts of the woman standing over his bath.

Nay, not just any woman.

Seph? As in… “ Seph Forsyth? ”

She brought her palms together in a quick, happy clap. “You do remember me!”

She’d been his only friend. Of course he remembered her.

He also recalled that telling little cheerful clap she’d done with her hands whenever she’d been jubilant or joyful.

Yes, even with all the very many years between them and their fathers’ falling out, thoughts of her still, on occasion, slipped in. He’d been all-too-content burying away thoughts of that time in his life because, aside from the time spent alone with her, his existence growing up and then living amongst the ton had been a living hell.

“What are you doing here?”

“Working,” she said automatically. “Or trying to,” she added under her breath.

What in hell? She was a maid? And worse…

“In my household?” Simon blanched. There was something so very wrong about employing one’s former best friend.

“In London,” she rushed to explain. “I’m only… visiting you,” she clarified.

This was some wild joke after all. Nothing else accounted for it.

“Is that what this is? A visit?” He managed to keep his features even. “And here I thought parlors and drawing rooms were the best places to conduct a visit, and during the morning hours.”

“Yes, well, in fairness, I didn’t expect you’d be here,” she said as casually as if they conversed in one of those rooms in question.

Simon stared incredulously at her. “Let me get this right: you came to visit me at my London residence, but you did not expect I’d be here?”

She nodded. “That’s correct.” Persephone paused. “Or mostly. I didn’t come to visit you.”

“Ah,” he said, inclining his head. “That makes perfect sense.”

She brightened. “Does it?”

“No!” he exclaimed, chasing away her smile.

“I came to visit your townhouse.”

“While I was not in it.”

His wasn’t a question. She nodded anyway.

“But upon discovering you in residence, that visit now extends to include you.”

“How very fortunate for me,” he said dryly.

Persephone beamed once more. “Indeed.”

She was as rubbish at identifying sarcasm as she’d always been. In fairness, he’d never been flippant with her. The other lads who’d been merciless bullies to him, however, had been just as caustic to her. The reminder of those malicious curs and how miserable they’d been to him and her kept Simon from clarifying.

Simon swiped a palm over his face.

Not so very many years ago, horror would have had him stammering and sending her from his room until he was decent.

He lowered his arm and let his hand fall into the water. “Let’s try again. Why are you here?”

She opened her mouth, but he interrupted her, clarifying. “Now and not some other time before?”

Persephone nodded. “That is a very good question.”

When it became apparent she didn’t intend to add anything more, he said, “One that I trust you intend to answer.”

And then her words came tumbling free.

“I have been an instructor for some years now at Mrs. Belden’s. It is the premier institution in England and has served young ladies for seven decades now. Mrs. Belden’s grandmother, and mother before her, established a school to shape the minds of young ladies and turn them into cultured, capable women who will lead London’s drawing rooms. Mayhap you’ve heard of it?”

She paused long enough to take a breath.

He shook his head. “I’ve n—”

“Yes,” she went on, apparently requiring no real confirmation either way from him. “As I was saying, I was an instructor who helped young ladies assess the personality traits of a prospective partner and offer them guidance on the more valuable qualities they should seek. My services would on occasion take me to various points of England, where I would join my students at house parties or during their London Seasons as a chaperone and confidante.”

“A matchmaker,” he said disbelievingly. “You are a matchmaker.”

Persephone wrinkled her pert nose. “That is one way of describing my role.”

Neither the irony nor the ridiculousness of the moment was lost on him. He sat here naked, conversing with a lady as casually as two parishioners who’d just left Sunday services.

“How would you describe your role?” he drawled.

Color blossomed on her cheeks. “I’ve never been much one for titles. Titles just box one in, and you know how I don’t like to be shoehorned.”

No, she hadn’t, he thought wryly, as she proceeded to prattle on and fill the very brief void of silence. No doubt to prevent him from debating her on the descriptor of her work. Not much had changed there either. She still had an equal perchance for being right as for prattling.

“…and unfortunately, I…”

His ears pricked up. “What was that?”

“I was…saffed,” she mumbled.

Simon attempted to make out that mumbling.

“Which really is unfortunate as I was… am quite good at my work.”

“What was that?”

“I said I’m quite good at my—”

“No, no,” he cut her short. “You were… saffed ?”

The crimson color on her cheeks deepened. “Sacked. As in…dismissed. Discharged. Disemployed.”

He opened his mouth to ask which offense it was that had seen her “saffed” and thought better of it. It really was time for her to leave—far past it, in fact.

Alas, Persephone appeared all too comfortable carrying on this exchange with him naked and her standing over him.

“Upon discovering a male nude I had drawn, she let me go. That is, her attention was brought to the fact I had a male nude in my sketchbook.”

He stilled. “Not.” Please, no. “Not…the one…” Horror filled every part of him. “Not that …one. Oh, my Goood .”

Persephone scrunched her brow up in confusion. “You were never squeamish. Why—” Understanding lit her eyes. “Ahh, you’re worried it was my drawing of you .”

Simon dissolved into a choking fit.

Persephone was there in an instant, around the back of the tub. “Worry not, Simon. It wasn’t the sketch I did of your penis.”

He gasped and choked all the more.

Persephone thumped him hard between the shoulder blades. Each solid thwack sent water sloshing and slapping over the edge of the bath.

“W-Would you s-stop?” And damned if it wasn’t indignation that caused this particular stutter.

“Are you sure?” she asked, and most certainly didn’t stop as he’d commanded. “You are choking.”

“If I’m talking, I’m not ch-choking.”

Persephone instantly stopped her previous assault on his back. She eyed him dubiously. “You’re su—”

“Absolutely sure,” he interjected. “Now, if you’ll excuse me?”

The minx nodded.

Simon simply stared at her.

Again, Persephone brought her head up and down in another one of those perfunctory little bobs.

Exasperated, Simon tossed his arms up, and in so doing, he sent more drops of water spraying. “This is where you excuse yourself.”

Her eyes formed giant circles. “Ohhh.”

Don’t ask. Because to ask a single thing more delayed her exit and continued this ridiculous back and forth.

His efforts at restraint were in vain. “Just what did you think I was saying excuse me to, Persephone?”

“I thought you were apologizing.”

He stared at her. “Me?”

She nodded.

“You think I’m the one who should be apologizing? Me for choking? And not say…maybe you , who broke into my home, invaded my bedchambers, interrupted my bath, and slapped me while I was in said bath, should be the only making apologies?”

Anyone, absolutely anyone other than the woman before him, would have been properly chastised with that callout.

Persephone shrugged her dainty shoulders. “Well, you were always polite, and I attributed that particular pardon to your politeness.”

Yes, he’d always been polite. And look what that had gotten him: a lifetime of being bullied and not a real friend in the world. A pushover was what he’d always been. It was why, even now, he continued to discuss and debate this particular woman.

“Get out,” he gritted out.

Her eyes grew stricken. “Now?”

“No. Five minutes ago. But, yes, now will suffice.”

She dug in. “I will not leave until you grant me an audience.”

“I’ve not already done so? You’ve not already stolen one?”

“A longer audience.”

Apparently, she still failed to detect sarcasm.

“I wish to speak with you—”

And as she’d no clear intention of heeding his wishes, Simon stood.

Most proper ladies would have looked away. The remaining ladies would have turned tail and bolted.

Not Persephone.

Her gaze immediately dropped to his waist, and with her dark, slender eyebrows pulling at the center, she boldly examined him.

“Hmph.” Persephone directed that little noncommittal sound directly to his shaft.

Hmph?

“You’ve grown, Simon.”