Page 124 of The Good Duke
She cast a glance over her shoulder and looked for Simon.
He’d walked at such a snail’s pace before; Persephone hadhopedhe’d catch up.
He hadn’t.
Simon appeared not only all too content to maintain his leisurely pace but to also keep his future bride and her all-powerful brother waiting.
Good Lord on Sunday. It was official. He sought to drive her mad.
“Would you walk quicker?” Persephone said between gritted teeth.
When no reply was forthcoming, instead of using her parasol and bonnet as objects to hide around, she used them as a shield so she and Simon could enjoy some level of privacy.
Simon—who appearedentirelytoo amused, given the situation and his impending outing with a bridal candidate—cupped his hands around his mouth. “What was that?” he called. “I’m afraid I cannot hear you.”
“I’mafraid I’m going to kill you,” she muttered under her breath.
Simon laughed. That rich, deep rumble she felt all the way to her belly and set a thousand butterflies free. “That isn’t what you said.”
Persephone edged her parasol and bonnet just enough to send Simon an arch look. “You are infuriating,” she whispered. “Furthermore, you find the thought of me ending you somehow amusing, Your Grace?”
“Oh, absolutely, I do,” he said, entirely too cheerily. “Given you don’t have a bad bone in your body.”
She frowned. “I most certainlydo. Alotof them.” If he only knew.
“You sound offended,” Simon remarked, bringing her out of a rapidly spiraling panic.
“I…am.” Persephone passed a somber gaze over his beloved face. “I’m not some do-gooder, Simon,” she said tiredly.
“Ah, but neither are you a murderer, Seph.”
He winked.
A handsome couple nearby looked curiously in Simon and Persephone’s direction, and she shifted the parasol, effectively cutting off those stares.
After the young lord and lady continued by, she returned her focus to Simon.
“I’ve not lived my life above reproach,” Persephone confessed.
She’d done any number of naughty, shameful, scandalous things. Instinctively, she glanced back at the familiar figure, still pacing.
The greatest of which, just then, lifted his watch for a third time.
“Hey,” Simon murmured, drawing Persephone’s attention away from her former lover.
It hurt to meet Simon’s gaze.
“Seph,” he said with a tenderness that threatened to shatter her, “which one of us has lived a blameless life?”
“You,” she said automatically.
His chest shook with laughter. “Me?”
She may as well have put forth Satan’s name and not Simon’s for the amusement he found in her suggestion.
She bit down on her lower lip. This was different.
“Ah, yes,” he drawled. “I’m so above reproach that since we’ve been together, I’ve doneallnumber of lewd things to you,” he put forth on a whisper that had the exact effect on her center and senses that he no doubt intended. “Need I remind you, Persephone?”
