Page 176 of The Good Duke
Heat slapped his cheeks.
“I’m still here,” she drawled without inflection.
“Forgive me—”
The young lady waved off the rest of his words. “No apologies necessary.”
Any number of apologies were about to be due the lady. He’d seriously courted Lady Isabelle, and he’d done so with the intention of marrying her. He’d given her reason to hope and believe, and he’d provided Polite Society with those same expectations.
As Persephone had rightly predicted, guilt at the damage he’d inflict upon the young woman’s reputation swirled inside. His gut clenched. A discussion of his and Lady Isabelle’s future—more specifically their lack of one—needed to take place. To buy himself time, Simon grabbed his claret and took a long swallow. He owed her an explanation—and soon.
Lady Isabelle dropped her elbow on the side of the table and, resting her chin in her hand, she leaned close. “You are a million miles away, Your Grace,” she murmured.
“I’ve been a horrible conversationalist.” He grimaced. “In fairness, I’ve never been known for my skill as a great communicator.”
She scoffed. “My brother said that was the case years earlier. We all change with time and over time, Your Grace.”
We all change with time and over time…
“That’s certainly been the case with me,” she mused. “I was free-spirited and wild and wildly fun to be around.”
“I trust that remains the same,” Simon said automatically.
The lady snorted. “If I wasstillfree-spirited and wild and wildly fun, I wouldn’t be the Diamond of the Season. I’d be some scandalous figure written about in the worst way in the gossip columns and excluded from respectable events.” She paused. “I also suspect, were that the case, you would not have begun courting me.”
“I—”
“There is no response necessary, Your Grace. Mine was not a question.”
Lady Isabelle discreetly gestured to the chair directly opposite hers. “There’s Silas,” she continued, drawing Simon’s attention the marquess’s way.
Next to Simon, Lord Bute was so enrapt with Persephone, he remained completely oblivious to the fact he was the subject of conversation between his sister and Simon.
“When he was younger man,” Lady Isabelle said in hushed tones, “he was ever so cheerful and playful; he was always ready with a jest. Once,The Timeswrote an entire article about his smile. I teased him about both that story and his grin.”
The image the young woman painted matched so perfectly with the one Persephone had of the marquess and Simon’s own recollections of Bute when he’d been a student at Eton and Oxford and bore no resemblance to the angry figure beside Simon.
“And now…” Lady Isabelle murmured, sadness creeping into her voice, “as you can see, the marquess is a shadow of who he once was.”
The young woman stole a regretful glance at her brother. “All these years, I wondered what accounted for the changes. Something has clearly befallen him. After all, a person does not just…change, not without a reason.”
Lady Isabelle picked up her goblet. “Just recently, I came upon my brother whistling, and I searched my memory for the last time I’d heard him hum or sing or whistle. Do you know,” she remarked, “I could not recall. It’d been years, Your Grace.”
She held Simon’s gaze.Years.
For one so young, Lady Isabelle happened to be incredibly perceptive and wise beyond her years.
Another one of Persephone’s fulsome and vibrant laughs filtered around the dining room, and Lady Isabelle and Simon looked to Persephone.
“Do you know who has not changed, Your Grace?”
He shook his head.
Wordlessly, Lady Isabelle pointed her gaze across the table—over in Persephone’s direction.
Together, they sat and watched Persephone embroiled in a lively exchange with Lord and Lady Edgerton and Lord Kit. The quartet spoke with all the ease of ones who’d known one another their entire lives and not ones who’d just met as a matter of chance at a dinner party.
As she spoke, Persephone gestured wildly with her hands. How free she’d always been. How he’d envied her the ease with which she moved through life.
