Page 146 of The Good Duke
Persephone’s maid shook her head. “Depart, Your Grace?” she sounded one more question on his part away from dissolving into tears.
Simon forced himself to temper his voice. “Tilly, is it not?”
At his knowledge of her given name, the maid’s eyes flared. She nodded.
Splendid. Surprise was far better than the disquiet which previously paralyzed her.
“Can you tell me,” he continued, “when did Se—Miss Forsythleave the house?” How did he manage to ask that question so calmly?
Deepening confusion leant several new lines to Tilly’s still creased brow. “I was not aware shedidleave?” A slight uptilt turned the maid’s words from a pronouncement to a question.
Simon frowned. “You packed for her, did you not?”
“I…” Tilly offered only another confused little shake of her head. “I did not.”
Tamping down a curse, Simon stormed deeper into Persephone’s chambers. The suddenness of his flight seemed to break the maid from her stupor. She hurried into the room behind him.
“There’s nothing here,” he snapped, sweeping his arms wide to display the state of Seph’s former chambers.
How could she not see the barren room for the abandoned state it now sat in?
With a little frown, Tilly took in the space. Her gaze landed on the pretty painted soft green armoire, and she cleared her throat. “If I may?” she asked hesitantly.
The maid took his silence for acquiescence. With sprightly steps, she flitted over to that piece of furniture and then drew both doors wide.
Four very serviceable dresses hung neatly, with a pair of equally serviceable boots and two pairs of slippers. Beside those shoes sat an ancient floral valise.
“See, Your Grace?” Tilly asked happily. “The miss has not gone.”
Simon stared dumbly. “These are her things?” he asked, unable to look away from that heartbreaking display of Persephone’s belongings.
With a wide smile, Tilly nodded. “All of them, Your Grace.”
All of them…
If it’d been Tilly’s intention to wound Simon, she couldn’t have chosen many more words than those she’d just spoken.
He briefly closed his eyes. He’d thrown accusations at Persephone’s maid that’d been better self-directed. How the hell had he failed to see how little she had to her name?
There’d been any number of times in Simon’s life when self-loathing besieged him. Nevermore, however, had he hated himself more than he did this moment, and for how he’d treated—and not treated—Persephone.
Tilly spoke into his tumult. “Well, not all of them,” she noted, breaking the madness that gripped Simon.
He stared hopefully at the girl.
“There is the lady’s work satchel,” she said, making to close those double doors. “Which I know stores her notebook, Your Grace.”
Her work satchel.
Tilly went about shutting those double doors, but even with those panels shut, the sight of Persephone’s sparse existence still lived on in his brain.
Simon nodded. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “That will be all, Tilly.”
After the girl had dipped a curtsy and left, Simon remained rooted to the floor; he stared sightlessly at the armoire.
Persephone, she adored books, and adored sketching and drawing, and adored painting, and she had not a single one of those items in her personal possessions.
Of course, she doesn’t, you arse.Her father died. She lost all her worldly possessions to some rotted distant cousin who’d failed to provide for her. She’d since spent more than a decade scuttling between employers, moving from household to household. Such a life certainly didn’t allow a woman those luxuries Simon himself had forever taken for granted—and would have continued doing so, if it hadn’t been for Persephone’s empty armoire.
