Page 15 of The Good Duke
God, he despised this place.
It was what had driven him to leave years earlier and travel the Continent. He’d have been content to leave it all behind him and exist in a state where no one knew him or of him. The jeering he’d endured behind people’s backs. The jeering he’d had leveled at his face. The pitying looks.
He’d been spared from all of it so long, having carved out and created a new life for himself.
Alas, Chaucer had been more on point when he’d noted all good things came to an end.
Even as a servant rushed forward to open his carriage door, Simon pressed the handle and climbed down. Tugging off his gloves as he went, Simon headed for the limestone steps of the stucco townhouse he’d left—happily—behind.
Only to return.
Of course, his return had been inevitable. An honorable gentleman with lands had men, women, and children reliant upon him. As such, he’d always been slated to return and personally see to all his responsibilities. This unexpected—and unwanted—change in his circumstances, however, had simply sped the inevitable process along.
But then a bachelor lord enjoyed some freedoms to travel the Continent. A newly minted duke, who’d inherited extremely profitable lands and responsibilities from a distant cousin, wasn’t permitted the same luxuries—or freedoms.
The bright blue door, the only decorative element of the otherwise white stucco townhouse, was drawn open by a familiar servant.
“Bouchard!” Simon greeted affectionately.
But for a handful of more silver and grey hairs, the Broadbent family butler, Bouchard, was still the always-smiling man he’d been for most of Simon’s life.
“Lord Prim—That is, Your Grace,” Bouchard gushed. “It is so very good to see you.”
He’d be the only one to feel that way. Nor did that realization come from any self-deprecating or self-pitying on Simon’s part. Rather, it came from a place of truth. He’d never had friends. At best, he’d had acquaintances. He had always been of the fringes of polite society. At worst, mercilessly mocked. At best, subtly pitied. Tolerated, even good naturally by some, but always an oddity.
“Likewise, Bouchard,” he said, handing his cloak over to a waiting footman.
Simon glanced around the foyer, taking it all in. The dark wood flooring still gleamed. The Cararra marble of the fireplace, flanked on either side by columns done in Portoro marble, bore not a hint of ash or dust in its grate. The same urn, filled with fresh flowers, sat on the mahogany hall table.
It was as though he’d stepped back in time, which was also the last thing he’d wanted to do.
What man would want to return to a point in his life when he’d been scorned and sneered at?
“Mr. Grady arrived some time ago,” Bouchard murmured, drawing Simon out of his thoughts.
The fastidious butler looked at Simon with a question in his kindly grey eyes. “If you’d like me to inform him that it is best if he return tomorrow, Your Grace?” he ventured.
Simon gave his head a slight shake to clear those memories of the past.
“No need, Bouchard.” His jaw tensed. “I’ll see him now,” he said, dismissing the servant.
Bouchard dropped a bow. “As you wish, Your Grace.”
As he wished? Nearly all his life, everything had existed outside of his control. Having inherited a dukedom had only dropped another noose upon his neck.
Nay, it had never been about his wishes or dreams.
What he wanted in this particular instant, however, was to settle affairs with his man-of-affairs.
Simon made his way to his office, the one that had belonged to his father and his father before him—and stopped at the old oak panel.
His gaze went to the pair of initials crudely etched into the wood near the bottom of the door, that carving a remnant of the one happy part of his childhood: SMB and PLF.
Mayhap that was why when the housekeeper had suggested replacing the panel some years back, he’d been unable to do so.
He’d not thought of Persephone in more years than he could remember. Since his return, all the old, hated, and painful memories that dwelled in this place had come back to haunt him.
He reached for the brass door handle but stopped.
