Page 128 of The Good Duke
Persephone managed to smile for the girl’s benefit. “Two is company but three is not,” she said in a gentle declination of Lady Isabelle’s gracious invitation.
The young lady waggled a finger Persephone’s way. “Ah, yes, but four makes two couples.”
Persephone tensed, already knowing what the other woman intended, even before she turned a radiant smile upon her brother. “You must simply accompany Miss Forsyth and join us on our walk.”
Desperate for an out, Persephone looked to Simon.
Simon remained expressionless, giving no indication he cared one way or another whether Persephone joined or declined.
Reluctantly, she slid her gaze over to the Marquess of Bute.
Silas’s inky black lashes swept low, and he held out an arm. “Miss Forsyth,” he murmured, his deep baritone more gravelly than she recalled. “Will you do me the honor?”
Would she do him the honor?
She gritted her teeth. Did she have a choice was the better of questions.
The ghost of a smile played at his hard, firm lips.
The all too familiar roguish glimmer in his eyes indicated he knew Persephone enough to have guessed the question she’d not spoken aloud.
“Miss Forsyth?” Simon called over, his voice laced with a question of his own and now laden with concern.
Persephone forced another smile, and avoiding Simon’s gaze, she placed her fingertips upon Silas’s sleeve and allowed him to lead her at a sedate pace behind. All the while, Persephone kept her gaze on the giggling lady and gentleman who now charmed her.
Persephone’s throat worked.Simon.Simon was that man.
But I? I find myself with a different gentleman.
They walked so long in silence, she began to believe he didn’t intend to force a conversation between them after all.
“You look good, Persephone,” Silas said quietly.
Ah, the futility of hope.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “A broken heart, good firing, and lack of funds and security must have that effect on a woman.”
His skin paled and he flinched like she’d punched him. Which for years, she’d yearned to do. She’d been angry and filled with hate and sorrow. Curious she should feel such apathy now.
He forced them to a stop, and she quickly retreated several steps.
Persephone frowned and looked off in the distance.
Simon and Lady Isabelle remained enrapt with one another’s company and wouldn’t have noticed if Persephone had disappeared in the Serpentine. The echo of Simon’s deep laugh and Lady Isabelle’s lilting, girlish one danced on the spring breeze.
No help there, then.
Hadn’t she already learned the lesson long ago that she had but herself to rely upon? That there was no one there to save her.
“What do you want, my lord?”
“I…” Yanking off his black top hat, Silas raked a hand through his thick, black hair. Unfashionably long where it’d always previously been close-cropped, he bore the look of a rogue more now than he had then. “I need to speak with you.”
A bitter laugh bubbled past her lips. “You, the all-powerful Marquess of Bute, with vast land and even vaster wealth,needsomething?”
He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “That is rich, my lord. Because I have lost employment because of you, not once, but twice now. I’ve no home. No family to which I may turn. F-Few funds.”
She despised the quiver in her voice and hated the way his features tensed as if her sorrow caused him sorrow.
