Page 106 of The Good Duke
And damned if Persephone didn’t feel a tender pull at the girl’s wistful musings.
“My poor girl,” the young lady soothed. She made a regretful sound. “This beautiful dear requires abeautifulname to suit her.”
Persephone flinched, and her momentary goodwill faded.
Did she merely imagine the slight frown that played at the corners of Simon’s mouth because she wished to see him as her dear avenger? It must have been the shifting streams of sunlight before he looked away from Persephone that turned the glint in his eyes to a glimmer.
For his next words to the lady proved playful.
“Do tell me, my lady,” he said in a soft, teasing murmur. “What name would you give this dear girl?”
The young woman turned Astrid about so they faced one another. She lifted the dog closer, bringing her up for a careful inspection.
Dog and Diamond considered one another.
Astrid warily. Diamond contemplatively.
Persephone couldn’t stop the satisfying reminder that not all had fallen under the woman’s spell. Animals were superb at judging a person’s character. And Astrid had clearly decided…
Astrid licked Lady Diamond’s cheek, and the woman giggled in a high, lilting laugh better suited a young girl. “Belle! She should be called Belle.”
Belle. Not Astrid, the horrid middle name that Persephone—bringer of death, leader of the underworld—possessed, but rather something truly as beautiful as the woman herself.
“Belle,” Simon repeated on that husky murmur that shamefully, even with this beauty he undoubtedly considered a prospective bride, stirred an ache between Persephone’s legs. “I concur, it does suit her, just as it suits you, Lady Isabelle.”
LadyIsabelle?
Ah, so the lady had a name.
A pretty pink blush dusted Lady Isabelle’s impossibly high cheekbones.
The lady had the audacity to name Simon’s dog after herself.
Before she could stop herself, Persephone pulled a face. Not that either Simon or Lady Isabelle even knew Persephone remained beside them. For Simon and his Diamond, the world had fallen away, but for the two of them.
Simon’s dog panted, revealing a happy smile at the budding relationship unfolding before them.
“I daresay she is more than a little in love with you,” Simon declared.
Yes. But who wouldn’t be?Including Simon.
Persephone found herself besieged with another overwhelming urge to cry.
“Are you alone?” Persephone asked, that question emerging more harshly than she’d intended or could have helped in this instant.
Both Simon and Lady Isabelle looked at Persephone like she’d sprung a second head. And mayhap Persephone had, and this one contained a completely and utterly mad brain.
You are better than this, Persephone. You’ve always known what your job has been. You just allowed yourself to be caught up in a fleeting dream of a ‘what if’ that included Simon.
Persephone drew forth from everything she’d learned at the hands of Mrs. Belden and demurely dropped her eyes.
“Forgive me,” she said on a quiet murmur. “Of course, you are not alone. Is there someone we may help you locate? A mother, a chaperone…”Anyone who can take you on your way.
“A brother,” the young lady supplied.
Persephone stared at her in confusion.
“There is someone who accompanied me and will be looking for me,” Lady Isabelle said softly. “I fear I’ve been separated from my brother.”
