Page 119 of The Good Duke
As if she’d sensed this monumental shift herself, Persephone’s steps slowed. Then, ever so gracefully, she turned back.
His breath caught and held, and a welcome warmth suffused his chest as he waited to meet that smile he’d so very badly missed these past days.
Only, when Persephone at last faced him, his own grin—a grin that’d started out as an answering one—froze on his lips at the absence ofhersmile. Overhead, the clouds chose that most fitting of times to drift by the sun and cast Hyde Park in a dreary darkness to match the grimness radiating in her eyes.
Even with all the distance between them, Simon caught a desolate glimmer sparkling in the tortured depths of her dark brown irises. And that sight of her misery hit him like a prized fighter had landed a solid blow to Simon’s solar plexus.
As a young man, he’d hated her rare moments of sadness more than any of the hell he’d endured at the hands of nasty lads.
As a grown man, he discovered her misery had an even greater impact. What accounted for that cloak of pain she wore about her? And who was the man Simon needed to kill for hurting Persephone?
You. It’s probably you, you great dunderhead.From the start, it couldn’t have been clearer had the lady shouted it herself from the top of her lungs in Trafalgar Square—she had absolutelynodesire to accompany Simon on his first outing with Lady Isabelle.
He’d initially been horrified by the prospect that, along the way, she’d developed a tendre for him. He’d sooner have chewed his own leg off than do anything to cause her pain.
And when he’d put his question to Persephone, how had she reacted to his worry that she might have romantic feelings for him?
She’d laughed in Simon’s face.
He should have been relieved. Instead, bastard that he was, Persephone’s adamancy had left Simon a little resentful and a whole lot hurt.
God, what was happening to him? When had the lines become so blurred between them?
Oh, you know. Maybe when you had your fingers in her hot quim? Or after she fisted you and rung the most exquisite climax from you.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, instead of continuing her forward march, Persephone stopped and wheeled about.
Simon quickly jammed his hat back into place.
With still determined steps, the minx who’d set up residence inside both his household and his head made her way back to Simon.
And just like that, the gloom lifted.
Maybe that’s what it’d been.
She’d notdeliberatelygone ahead. She’d just been preoccupied and failed to realize she’d left him behind.
Why, it was the most Persephone thing ever. This moment harkened back to so many other ones during their childhood years, where she’d been lost in her thoughts or eager to reach the lake for a cooling dip in the heart of summer.
Revived by those happy memories of simpler times together, the moment Persephone reached his side, Simon felt a silly grin fully restored to his lips.
He gave a waggle of his eyebrows. “I trust you realize you were forgetting someone—”
“Something,” she explained.
He stared at her blankly.
Something.
Not someone.
Not him.
But…something?
“What the hell are you missing?” Simon snapped, all the while knowing he sounded like a petulant, whiny child.
“My bonnet, Your Grace.”
