Page 8 of The Good Duke (The Licentious Lords #1)

I n the end, a short while after her run-in with Simon, Persephone settled on the library as the place for their impending reunion.

After all, the library proved to be the room in this household most familiar to her. In her long-ago visit, she and Simon had spent hours ensconced in the vast, high-ceilinged sanctuary built of leather books and big-paneled windows.

And given the way this night had played out? She desperately needed something recognizable.

Persephone paced a path over the French Aubusson tapestry rug situated entirely too close to the fireplace.

Reunion?

Or second reunion?

Or, mayhap, after their discussion in his rooms, their next exchange qualified as a meeting.

A panicky giggle bubbled past her lips.

Either way, that previous visit hadn’t gone as planned.

But then nothing had these past days since Mrs. Belden’s. In fairness, nothing had gone as planned these past years . There’d been the sudden, unexpected death of her father. The loss of the only home she’d ever known. Teaching at a finishing school. Getting sacked from a finishing school.

Being somewhat reunited with Simon.

And given the nature of their meeting just moments ago, why, it was as though they’d come full circle: him naked and with his manhood on full display.

Her face heated all over again.

“ You’ve grown, Simon? ” She pulled her lips in a grimace. “You’ve grown?” she repeated. “ Really? ”

Persephone increased the speed of her restless strides.

Had she actually uttered that— again ?

The last time she’d spoken those words, she’d been an innocent girl on the cusp of womanhood. But now? Well, there was absolutely no excuse for that same, mortifying exclamation.

Granted, he had grown.

But it certainly didn’t merit mentioning.

Nay, it didn’t take a master instructor at Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School to deduce what should be done the moment a lady accidentally invaded a gentleman’s private bedchambers—she left. A lady absolutely left.

She did not stay and discuss a single thought, idea, or, for that matter, anything else.

But that particular room had belonged to Simon, and the man in that large tub had been Simon.

Only, not Simon of old, but new Simon.

New Simon was taller, more muscular, more handsome, more everything .

She’d always been the unruffled one of their pair and, well, now not even that held true. His speech was steady and his commands crisp.

And when he’d unfurled from that tub, a veritable Poseidon, unabashedly proud in his nakedness and larger than life—larger than even the gods—those three words had just slipped out unchecked.

Nor, for that matter, was it as though she’d not seen a naked man before—she had. But that gentleman hadn’t looked anything like… Simon.

Persephone abruptly stopped her frenetic back and forth march and turned to stare into the gentle flames, swaying and dancing in the hearth.

The new, just acquired, image of Simon Broadbent slipped in, and she closed her eyes to keep the wicked thought out.

Her efforts proved futile, as Persephone recalled all over again Simon’s biceps bulging as he’d pushed himself up to a stand. The rigid planes of his stomach rippling as he’d used the sides of his tub to propel himself into a stand.

And then the way the water had sluiced over his thick, oak-sized thighs.

Her pulse increased.

Nay. No man had any business possessing that level of virility.

What was more, he’d been as bold and proud in his nudity as one of those carefully erected statues.

But then with a length as long and thick as his, why shouldn’t he be?

A low groan, born of misery and embarrassment, spilled from her throat, and she slapped her palms over her face.

It was one thing to be caught invading his residence and being made to explain the desperate circumstances that brought her here, it was an altogether different one to be caught gawking and gaping at his bits and pieces.

Stop it. This isn’t the first time you’ve seen his parts. As such, she shouldn’t still be consumed by thoughts of him stepping out of that bath, water dripping from his beautifully chiseled bo—

“Given all the circumstances under which we’ve met this evening, I’d wager covering your eyes was far more appropriate, say, some thirty minutes ago.”

Shrieking, Persephone spun toward the door.

Simon stood framed in the doorway.

Neither of them spoke. Persephone used that silence to study a fully clothed Simon.

He’d always been tall. But now Simon stood some five inches past six feet. He’d added layers of muscles to his previously gangly limbs. In fact, but for the loose golden-blond curls she’d once envied him mightily over, the man before her was a stranger in every way.

Odd, this properly clad Simon didn’t seem any safer. For he wasn’t her Simon. This wasn’t even the Simon the society pages had written about before he left England.

Persephone’s Simon had been forthright and open with her—always. Her thoughts and his had moved in such a like harmony, she’d been able to complete his sentences—as he had hers. While in dealings with everyone else in their village who hadn’t been her, he’d been more than a little bashful.

Years later, when he’d existed as nothing more than an old friend whose name she’d searched for in the papers, she’d learned that he’d retained his shyness. The papers had also mentioned the then Earl of Primly’s penchant for carrying a copy of Shakespeare’s works in hand. Only she’d known he’d carried those small volumes close as a source of comfort, which the Great Bard had always been for him.

This stranger? She couldn’t see him openly discussing his love for Shakespeare with a young lady, and yet Persephone had read that bit of information about him some years back too.

Desperate for some glimpse of the friend she’d used to know better than she even knew herself, Persephone peered at Simon.

She’d been wrong.

Even those luxuriant, flaxen strands had changed. Once carefully cropped, they were now unfashionably long; his damp locks brushed a pair of broad shoulders.

“You still have a penchant for staring, I see,” Simon drawled.

A healthy level of cynicism denied that response the lightheartedness she’d come to expect from Simon.

Expect from Simon?

Could one really have expectations for a man she’d not seen in more than twenty years? In her desperation, she’d deluded herself.

“I’m observing.” She finally managed to fashion that response.

He quirked an eyebrow, and with that gesture, he all but dared her to say more.

Persephone, however, had never been one to balk at a challenge.

She stepped away from the hearth and nearer a different sort of fire.

“It’s just, you accused me of staring ,” she said. “Staring involves fixating on something or someone. Observing , on the other hand, means to watch carefully, especially with attention to details or behavior for the purpose of arriving at a judgment.”

Simon rested one of his broad shoulders against the doorjamb and fixed one of those very stares they discussed pointedly upon her. “And tell me, what judgment did you arrive at, Miss Forsyth?”

“You’ve changed,” she said quietly. This man she didn’t know how to be around.

A muscle rippled in his prominent, well-formed jaw. “Fortunately, yes.”

He might think so.

A pang struck her heart.

She , on the other hand, missed the approachable, easygoing, non-cynical Simon.

Unable to meet his eyes, Persephone trailed her fingertips over the edge of the high-backed leather armchair.

Persephone drew in a slow, noiseless breath and shoved back those regret-filled ruminations. No good could come from dwelling on how he used to be.

For that matter, she’d changed too. She wasn’t the innocent, na?ve girl who’d first set out into the world after her father’s death.

She made herself look at him once more and then promptly regretted it.

Simon remained with his hooded, piercing gaze locked on her.

Then, never taking his eyes from Persephone, Simon brought the panel closed behind him with infinite slowness, shutting himself and Persephone in the library alone .

Never , ever find oneself alone with a gentleman.

That’d been rule fourteen or fifteen, or something near there, of Mrs. Belden’s Rules for Ladies.

Persephone had never much worried about that rule for herself. She certainly knew how to handle herself around and to protect herself from men.

Only, as Simon clasped his hands behind his back and started slowly across the room toward her, that confidence in her abilities flagged.

Here she’d had a solid twenty-eight—now twenty-nine—minutes to prepare some clear, detailed reasoning for her being here and a request for his help. Instead, she’d been ruminating over the light matting of tiny, tight golden curls on his chest, and the sheer size of his thighs, and the breadth and length of that organ between his legs.

Simon opened his mouth.

Persephone spoke on a rush, violating Mrs. Belden’s Always-Let-a-Gentleman-Speak-First rule.

“I was sorry to learn of the earl’s passing, my lord.”

“Thank you, and it is Your Grace .”

She looked quizzically at him.

“I’m a duke now.”

She laughed. “Go on.”

He stared at her.

Persephone widened her eyes. “You’re serious .”

“Deadly.”

Apparently, she’d missed even more news surrounding her one-time friend.

“A duke,” she repeated, giving her head a rueful shake. “Imagine that.”

He nodded. “Courtesy of a distant, distant relative, who had the largess to turn up his heels and pass this newest of titles on to me.”

“How good of him,” she said, straight-faced.

Simon’s lips twitched…but he did not smile.

Ah, so he’d adopted the seemingly unspoken but well understood rule of “dukes-do-not-grin.” Along with that and the title he’d inherited, he’d acquired the cynicism, standoffishness, and self-possession befitting one of his exalted station.

“Of course, you’re a duke,” she muttered under her breath.

Much like the man, even his title had become more .

He quirked a blond brow. “What was that?”

Persephone gestured to his damp hair. “I said you should have toweled off better. You’ll catch the croup.”

A droll grin brought his lips tipping up at the corners, one that said he recognized her lie.

Old Simon would have called her out—as he should. New Simon continued to assess her in that shrewdly cynical way.

New Simon, who she didn’t know what to do with.

Then he started across the room, toward her.

Warily, she followed his almost lazy approach.

She stiffened.

Only…he continued walking right past her and stopped at the two-tiered wood, bronze, and marble table stacked with bottles.

Persephone stared at his broad back covered in nothing but a white lawn shirt. Still damp, it clung to his skin and put the sculpted muscles of his back and arms on beautiful display, and damned if her fingers didn’t long for a pencil with which to sketch him.

Simon who remained wholly—and thankfully—oblivious to her scrutiny.

Rather, he perused the decanters a long moment and then availed himself of one whose contents were rich, earthy tones of brown and red.

Persephone schooled her features as he turned back, facing her once more. Only, her recalcitrant eyes had a mind of their own, and her gaze involuntarily slipped a fraction—a hint of damp, golden coils peeked from the opening in his shirt.

Her pulse jumped in that bothersome way.

Persephone swiftly brought her stare back to his.

“That is a tea table,” she said to fill the latest round of weighty silence.

He stared questioningly at her.

Persephone pointed behind him. “That fine piece of furniture situated just over there. You know, the one you’ve repurposed for liquor.”

Simon followed her still wagging finger. “Indeed.”

He sounded as bored as Persephone’s students had during her lectures on decorum.

Just as she hadn’t blamed them, she couldn’t blame him.

He continued to sip of his spirits and study her, and she quite despised it. He left her feeling uncertain, hesitant. Things she’d rarely been, and certainly hadn’t been when around him.

“Hmph.”

“Is there a problem, Miss Forsyth?” He paused. “It still is Miss Forsyth, is it?”

Because he’d expect she’d never snagged a husband. He wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t make his accurate assumption rankle any less. Especially as the sting of her past mistakes still burned.

Persephone found her voice. “It is still Miss Forsyth.” It almost hadn’t been. There’d been one gentleman who’d promised to make her his wife…and na?ve as only a girl could be, she’d believed him.

Simon raised an eyebrow. “Some things haven’t changed, then.” He gave her another mocking toast.

“While many things have.” Persephone tipped her chin back at a defiant angle. “ You drink brandy, Your Grace .”

She shouldn’t be surprised he consumed spirits. All gentlemen did.

“Cognac.”

She cocked her head.

“This is cognac,” he clarified. “ Brandy is made from any fruit juice.”

A duke, a cynic, and a liquor connoisseur to boot.

Simon displayed the bottle still held in his left hand. “Cognac, on the other hand, has a fruit base made exclusively of white grapes that come—”

“Never tell me,” she interjected dryly, “from the Cognac region of France?”

Simon eyed her with some surprise. “You know something about cognac and brandy after all.”

“I don’t know a fig of difference between brandy from cognac from whiskey,” she said, disabusing him of that erroneous conclusion he’d drawn. “I do , on the other hand, recall some from the geography lessons my father insisted I take.” Lessons that hadn’t really mattered beyond this moment; lessons that would have mattered more had she actually seen the world outside of the English countryside.

Simon folded his arms at his chest so that the decanter dangled near his right below. “Do I detect a hint of disapproval?”

Oh, it was more than a hint .

“A wise man once said, a spirit is a spirit is a spirit,” she said. “They’re all a type of vile, just a varying degree of it.”

Such an agreement they’d come to, and words he’d himself uttered when they’d sampled from each bottle of spirits on the late earl’s sideboard.

“Stammered.”

Persephone stared at Simon.

Another grin formed on his hard lips. “A wise man once stammered .” Unlike the jeering, cynical one of prior, his smile now contained a wealth of self-disgust.

He lifted his glass in salute to her and his old self and then downed a swallow.

“No,” she said softly. “He didn’t.”

For Simon had hardly ever stammered with her. When they’d been together talking, his words had almost always came out effortless—as they did now. Neither had Simon been irreverent, as he was now.

A shadow flickered over his eyes, a shift so subtle that had Persephone not been contemplating him so closely, she would have missed.

But it was there…indicating the Simon she recalled did live within the hardened, ironic facade he now presented to the world.

Persephone clung to that faint shimmer of the boy she once knew.

“Simon,” she began softly, “you were always perfect as you were.”

As he poured himself another drink, Simon chuckled, a derisive, bitter-sounding laugh.

How she hated that he’d always doubted his worth, just as much as she despised the wall he’d built up in their years apart.

Persephone took a step closer to him. “You were always perfect to me ,” she spoke with a quiet insistence.

“You’ve not lost your rose-colored outlook,” he drawled. “How charming to find life never jaded you, Persephone Forsyth.”

Life had been, to quote Simon’s beloved Shakespeare, the son and heir of a mongrel bitch to Persephone. And had Simon bore a hint of her friend of old, mayhap she would have shared all the ways in which her life hadn’t been rose-colored .

Simon set his decanter down and retained his hold on his newly filled cognac. “I trust you’ve not come all this way from…?”

“Leeds,” she supplied.

“To discuss spirits and tea tables and my stammer.”

“No.”

He stared at her. “And,” he went on, placing an emphasis on that single syllable, “I trust you are going to explain how it is you came to be in my bedchamber?”

“Yes, well, that was a mistake. I’d sought a place inside your household and happened to stumble upon your rooms, and—”

“Miss Forsyth,” he said warningly.

Persephone pressed her lips into a firm line. Must he use that proper form of address? It made things…well, proper, and formal, and it was hard enough coming to a friend one hadn’t seen in twenty years. It was impossible to be made to beg that same friend for a favor.

“I am in need of assistance,” she finally brought herself to admit. “I am without employment and without references—”

“And you expect I should employ you.”

She pursed her mouth. “I’m not so hubristic as to have expectations of what you should or should not do. Given the nature of our last meeting, that would be a bold expectation on my part.”

“Indeed. I trust it isn’t every day a prospective employee puts an appeal in the master’s bedchamber while the prospective employer is bathing.”

“I referred to our last meeting in Cheshire.”

He just stared at her.

“When our fathers fought—”

“I recall our last meeting,” he said tightly, and then said nothing more.

Persephone filled the gap of quiet. “It’s just you mixed up that meeting with our reunion a short while ago, and as such, it isn’t entirely clear you did, in fact, recall.”

“I did, and I do.”

“You’re c—”

“Very certain.”

He continued to assess her. This time, Persephone didn’t make any attempt to speak into the silence. She remained still and unspeaking through his scrutiny. In fairness, her inability to talk came from this new, unwelcome awareness of him as a man.

As if to taunt and torment her for this unholy realization of him, Simon hooded his eyes and stared at her under impossibly long golden lashes.

“You need work,” he murmured, more to himself. “Which begs the question, what manner of services do you think you might provide me, Persephone?”

And all the wild butterflies he’d set free in her belly with a mere flutter of his lashes vanished.

Now, he’d use her Christian name. Now , when he was being all rakish and seductive.

Persephone flattened her lips.

She may be in dire straits, and he may be a duke who bore no resemblance to her former friend, but she’d enough pride and self-respect, especially after Lord Nicholas Woodhaven’s shameful offer, to tolerate that effrontery again.

“Are you making me an indecent proposal, Simon?” she asked flatly. “Because I assure you, the last thing I came here seeking was a place in your bed.”

Only, that wasn’t entirely true. “At least not in a bed with you in it.” She was, after all, in need of a bed in which to sleep.

He stared at her like she’d gone mad.

Her? He thought she was the one off her head, and not him who’d made her an indecent proposal?

Suddenly, he choked.

Again, she stepped forward to give him a thwack between the shoulder blades, when she registered…he wasn’t choking.

He…was laughing.

“I’m not offering you a place in my bed,” he said through his hilarity.

She paused. “You aren’t?”

He laughed again. “ God , no.”

She bristled at that overly emphasized “God, no,” coupled with his hearty bellow of laughter. “Well, it…appeared as though you were,” she mumbled.

“It also appears your observation skills need a bit improving, love,” he said dryly.

“Yes, well, then mayhap you want to drop that slow, husky form of speech that sounds like you’re bent on seduction.”

“Sometimes I am.”

“This was not one of those times?”

“This was decidedly not one of those times,” he confirmed.

Simon caught his hard, angular jaw between a thumb and a forefinger and contemplated her—or contemplated helping her.

He had to.

Well, he didn’t have to. He’d no obligations to her or reason to do so—except for the brief friendship they’d had so very long ago, a friendship that didn’t even seem so very important to him. At least, not any longer.

She, on the other hand, needed him to help. She’d no family. Aside from Millie and Gracie, who she’d been forced to leave behind at Mrs. Belden’s, there wasn’t a friend in the world.

Fighting back panic, Persephone made herself stay still.

No, the world was a cruel place for women. They were beholden to men and denied even the opportunity to perform the same work that would afford one security. It was why, even now, Persephone found herself appealing to a man she’d used to know for charity—charity he didn’t appear very keen to give.

Panic snapped the frayed thin of her patience. “If you allow me to stay, I won’t be much trouble,” she said quickly.

“Much trouble?” he asked with more of his newfound sardonicism.

“Any trouble,” she corrected. “I won’t be any trouble.”

“Persephone, the very origin of your name is the bringer of destruction.”

Any other time, she would have opted for being offended at that unfavorable opinion—but not now. One detail kept her from annoyance and calling him out.

Persephone.

He’d called her by her given name.

Hope surged to life all over again, and she pressed on ahead. “Or you might think of Persephone as vital in her role of making the seasons go round, and whose circumstances were a result of those with power over her. Namely, Hades.”

Simon narrowed his eyes. “Are you likening me to Hades?”

“Given the fact I’m seeking to stay here and not as a prisoner of yours, the analogy hardly stands up.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face.

He isn’t going to help. She saw that realization in the hard lines of his features the moment he dropped his arm back to his side.

More of that hated desperation clawed at her insides, and she felt a kindred connection to her namesake, at being trapped, not by any Greek god, but rather by her circumstances.

“Miss Forsyth, the very reason I’ve come to London is so that I might get on with the business of finding a wife,” he said. The gentleness of his tone harkened back to the Simon from long ago, and yet…his stated reason for being here belonged to a stranger, some powerful noblemen she knew not at all.

“It would hardly be helpful to either of us were your presence in my household—the household of a bachelor—to be discovered. You may stay for several days until you determine a safe place to go.”

Nowhere. There was nowhere to go.

Persephone locked her gaze with Simon’s unreadable blue eyes.

“If that place existed, do you think I’d not be there, Simon, and not here with you, a man whom I’ve not seen in more than twenty years?” she asked icily, turning that rhetorical question on him.

He drummed his fingertips against his thigh in that way he’d always done when he was lost in thought.

At least, some things remained the same. His penchant for helping her out of a scrape, however, would have been the preferable constancy.

Suddenly, he stopped that noiseless, rhythmic tapping. “I will…see what I can do in terms of helping you secure employment.”

Persephone gasped and charged over, stopping just short of launching herself into his arms the way she’d used to do when he’d come back from Eton.

She rocked back on her heels and adopted the unmistakably cool demeanor Mrs. Belden insisted on from all her instructors. “I am grateful for any assistance you may provide.”

“In the meantime, I’ve instructed my housekeeper, Mrs. Trowbridge, to prepare guest rooms for you.”

“Mrs. Trowbridge is still here!”

That affectionate, always-smiling servant had always reserved dishes of treats for Persephone and Simon and set those sweets in the kitchen for them to snack on.

“She is.”

This time, not even a lifetime of decorum drilled into Persephone by her former employer could squelch her excitement.

She grabbed Simon’s hands in her own and squeezed them. “Thank you so much. While here, I shall be the model of propriety and good behavior.”

Except, both good behavior and propriety dictated a lady not do anything so scandalous as, say, touch a gentleman.

As if on cue, his gaze and hers dropped to their joined fingers. His hands had always been larger than hers; now they dwarfed her own, enveloping hers in a heat both welcome and dizzying.

Dizzying?

This was Simon. She didn’t go all weak-kneed for Simon.

Why, she’d had her first kiss with him. Granted she’d been a girl, but that was neither here nor there.

Let go. Remove your hands from his. Ladies do not hold hands with men.

Even with that stern lecture a voice inside silently delivered, Persephone remained caught, as ensnared as her namesake she and Simon had discussed moments ago. But this imprisonment was over her senses and brought a welcome warmth she was all too happy to surrender to.

In the end, Simon was the one to sever that connection.

Stiffly, he drew his hands from hers.

Persephone’s quaked and she swiftly tucked them behind her, clasping them at the back so as to hide that tremble and steady her fingers.

She cleared her throat. “I promise you will not regret this, Simon.”

Simon inclined his head.

With that, he turned and headed for the door. “I already do,” he muttered.

Persephone scrunched her nose up.

The lout.

Given his generosity, she should ignore that. Alas, she’d never been able to be silent where Simon was concerned.

She cupped her hands around her mouth. “What was that, Your Grace?”

“I said I already do ,” he called without even breaking stride.

Her lips twitched. “Good night, Simon.”

“Persephone,” he returned, not even glancing back.

The moment he’d gone, her smile faded, and she brought her arms out from behind her.

Persephone studied her upturned palms that still tingled from his touch. How…peculiar to have butterflies in her belly and still feel the weight of his hand in hers, even after he’d gone.

This was Simon.

Her childhood friend.

The first boy she’d kissed.

There’d not even been tingles and butterflies when he’d kissed her.

But you weren’t a grown woman, and he certainly wasn’t a grown, confident, self-assured man.

“And arrogant,” she said under her breath. “Do not forget he’s now not only a duke, but an arrogant one, at that.”

She issued that much-needed reminder to herself because the last thing she could afford was to be distracted with thoughts about Simon Broadbent, Duke of Some-Title-She-Still-Did-Not-Know.

She’d promised Simon he would not have any regrets.

She, however, hoped, when all was said and done, she could say the same.