Page 142 of The Good Duke
She shook her head. “Ihaveto.”
Something in that slightly overemphasized word gave him pause; it set off faintly tingling bells of warning at the back of his head.
He hesitated a moment and then nodded.
“I worked in one household,” she began. “The master and mistress were monsters.”
Persephone turned her gaze out at the water, and Simon knew she lived in a moment Simon had never been in but wanted to climb into so he could take apart the ones who’d made her life miserable.
“I take it you had equally monstrous charges,” he said, unable to keep the antipathy from his voice.
“On the contrary. They had young daughters and… a son,” she murmured, and this time her expression grew soft and even further distant. “They were the kindest children I’ve ever known. I worked in that grand household, but with their parents not caring, I could very well believe and pretend those girls were my siblings. The moment their parents were out, I’d school them on the topics they yearned to explore. I was never happier.”
Simon despised himself for resenting that her happiest moments didn’t include him, but were instead with some strangers whom she’d been paid to be with.
“Then,” Persephone was saying, “one day, their eldest brother came to visit.”
All Simon’s muscles bunched and coiled in anticipation of where her story would go.
“A handsy rogue?” he asked, uncertain how he managed to keep his tone so even when he wanted to snap and hiss like a feral beast.
“Wrong again,” she said with a smile.
Of course.
“A rogue, but not handsy.” Once more, her gaze became inward. “At least, not without my permission.”
Here he’d thought this knotty sensation in his chest couldn’t become any tighter, only to find himself unable to breathe under the vise-like hold it had over him.
As if she took Simon’s silence as condemnation and not the savage jealousy it, in fact, was, Persephone spoke quickly. “It didn’t begin that way. He was a loving, loyal brother.”
“That is how he presented himself.” What a bastard. He’d used his siblings to ensnare the innocent governess.
“It’s how he was,” she said.
And her loyalty to the bastard all these years later sent Simon’s jawbone sliding and his teeth scraping. God, she defended him!
“At first, he’d pay visits to his siblings and play with them.” A quiet laugh shook her slender frame. “I’d never known a nobleman could be that way with children. He’d play horse and get down on all fours, have them climb upon his back, and ride them all around the nursery.”
With eyes that twinkled, she looked at Simon like she expected him to share in her wonderment for the bloody bastard who’d held her heart—and, by the happy color in her cheeks, still did.
“He sounds like a swell…chap,” was the best Simon could manage to say between his clenched teeth.
Not that Persephone required any input from Simon.
“Along the way, we began to talk. He’d sit in the school room while I instructed his sisters in watercolors and painting, and then after they went off for their dance lessons, he’d remain, and we’d talk about art.”
Of course, he had. Simon gritted his teeth. The chap had not only been a rogue, he’d beenquitethe rogue.
“We’d paint together and his work, Simon?” She shook her head. “I’d neverseenanything quite like his renderings.”
So, apparently, the fellow had been a skilled artist after all. A bloody paragon.
More of that searing, all-potent jealousy went through him, and Simon preferred a fate where that green-eyed monster devoured Simon rather than leave him alive with this sensation slowly consuming him.
“We’d sit under the stars,” Persephone softly shared, “and he’d point out the constellations.”
Like Simon used to do for Seph, but never had she cared for him in that way. Not as children, anyway. Hell, aside from sex, maybe not even now.
