Page 1 of The Good Duke
Prologue
Cheshire, England
Twenty years earlier
Simon Broadbent, thefutureEarl of Primly, once thought there was nothing more shameful than his stutter.
Seated on the oak settle hall bench outside his father’s office, and still soaking-wet from his earlier—and interrupted—swim in Pickmere Lake, Simon discovered he’d been wrong.
He’d been soverywrong.
Just then, the current Earl of Primly and his country neighbor, Mr. Forsyth, a local member of the gentry, remained shut away; two lifelong best friends—undoubtedly, now former best friends—were embroiled in a heated fight.
“I should have known better,” Mr. Forsyth fumed on the other side of the door. “Boys and girls, men and women, cannot be friends. It isn’t natural. There’s areasonsociety forbids it.”
“Well,youallowed it,” Simon’s father pointed out.
“And more’s the fool am I.”
Nauseous, Simon fiddled with the curved edges of his black beaver hat he’d not bothered to hand off to a footman.
God, what had he done?
What had he andPersephonedone?
She was the only person who’d ever been kind and a friend to him.
It was why, even against his better judgement, he’d gone ahead and let her do that which she’d begged. But he’d known better and should have demurred.
Now, I’m going to lose my only friend.
His gut continued roiling, and Simon fought to get air into his lungs.
Needing to assure himself he’d not lost her yet, that she remained part of his life still, Simon looked over at the sixteen-year-old girl who shared the bench with him. Not for the first time in a lifetime of knowing her, Simon marveled at her strength.
They couldn’t have been more different—in this moment, and in anything and everything.
Simon—freakishly tall, raw-boned, and easily disquieted.
Persephone was delicate, perfectly proportioned, and always unflappable.
Unlike Simon, who remained excruciatingly attuned to the row occurring on the other side of the Italian painted and lacquered door, Persephone sat next to him with her usual insouciance.
Why, with the way she had her knees drawn up close to her chest so they formed a makeshift desk for the sketch pad on her lap, it may as well be any other carefree day between her and Simon.
How was she so…bloodycalm?
There came another ear-splitting back-and-forth between his father and Persephone’s father.
“Are you hearing this?” Simon whispered furiously.
“Hmm?” She directed that distracted response at her page.
“This is bad, Seph.Verybad.” Dire and disastrous and deleterious, and every other doom-filledDword.
At last, Persephone looked up. That slight bob of her head sent her thick, dark brown plait flopping. She pushed it back over her narrow shoulder.
“You’re going to ruin it,” she chided.
