Page 108 of The Good Duke
She was in a temper.
She’d never been in such a state while in Simon’s presence. But he’d witnessed it enough in action against other unfortunate boys to recognize her current state.
She sat with her left shoulder angled at Simon and her gaze turned out the window at the passing London scene—just as she’d been since they climbed inside a short while before. The crystal panes reflected her tensed features, unblinking eyes, and the troubled glimmer within them.
Shifting on the bench, Simon draped a leg across his opposite knee. “I would say the afternoon has been a success,” he drawled.
“Hmm?” Persephone didn’t so much as take her fraught gaze from that window.
Simon studied her with greater curiosity.
“Or, I should say by your measures and very purpose in being here with me, I’d believeyouwould classify the day as a success.”
At last, Persephone shifted on the bench. She looked at Simon as if she’d only just recalled his presence.
A cynical glimmer he’d not witnessed in all the years he’d known her glittered in her eyes.
“Yes,” she said. Bitterness dripped from that single syllable. “It was the greatest of successes.”
And never before had he detected such acrimony from her.
Simon scowled.
What in blazes?
Here Simon had taken his leave of Lady Isabelle and her elder brother, the Marquess of Bute, believing Persephone would wear her always generous smile at the day’s triumph. At the veryleast, he’d expected she’d have saidsomethingor felt somewayabout the grand unfolding of the day.
Relief at an almost scandalous situation turning into a possibly very advantageous one.
Pride at how easily Simon had—without effort—conversed with the Diamond of the Season. A feat that, in the past, had been agonizingly painful for him and also invariably a failure.
Why, he was even expecting some amour propre and I-told-you-so words and looks at her having been proven right about Simon’s success this time around on the Marriage Mart.
After his public exchange with Lady Isabelle and her brother, Simon’s reasons for being in London were undoubtedly spreading like wildfire even now.
He peered intently at Persephone.
No, Persephone should bethrilledat today’s turn of events. Not that he’d found a bride and future duchess, but that he and Persephone were one step closer to him doing so. Given that, she should be positivelyelated.
As soon as Simon shored up his future, Persephone could be free of him, and he could be free…of her.
Simon stilled.
In the triumph of the moment and the morning, he’d not given thought…to that part of it. There’d been any number of times when he’d silently acknowledged he was one step closer to fulfilling his obligations to both the dukedom and Persephone.
But this time was different. The inevitability of their parting ways was real now in a way it hadn’t been before. Perhaps that realization also accounted for Persephone’s upset? Perhaps for the first time, she too had been confronted with the sobering reality that their time together was at an end.
Simon, in an attempt to look at her so he could make something out of what was going on in her mind, angled his head.
Persephone stiffened.
She refused to look his way. That telltale tensing of her spine, however, indicated she felt his eyes upon her.
She would. They’d perfected that sixth sense as children in church, sending glances across their respective pews.
“What is it?” he asked quietly.
“I didn’t say anything, Your Grace.”
