Page 179 of The Good Duke
Knocked off balance, Persephone angled her head. “You are not Lady Isabelle.”
Funny. She knew she spoke. Her lips parted and her mouth moved, and yet she’d swear no sound emerged.
Or perhaps she did speak, and the loud buzzing in her ears merely drowned everything else out and left Persephone turned upside down and her mind muddled.
“No,” the marquess mouthed, in a confirmation that shehadin fact responded to his unexpected appearance.
He offered a droll grin and then spoke loud enough for her to hear him clearly through the crystal panes. “In fact, I can say with absolute certainty this is the first time we’ve ever been confused.”
That slight upward tilt of his mouth contained a gentle amusement that proved as contagious as it’d always been.
They exchanged their first smile in years.
Hers faded first.
The marquess’s expression grew solemn and, with all earlier teasing aside, he offered a belated bow and greeting.
“Persephone,” he murmured.
She tensed. Silas used her name so easily when he had absolutely no right to—not any longer. Nor was that thought born of resentment, but instead as a matter of propriety.
The husky quality of his low baritone once had a devastating effect upon her heart. Now, after years apart and this chance meeting in Simon’s gardens, that same organ beat with disquietude at finding herself alone with him.
The marquess, as undeterred as when he’d attempted to get Persephone to postpone her daily lessons for his sister, pressed his nose against the window.
Up close, she noted a new bump along the once-perfect ridge that indicated a break at some point after they’d parted.
No, you did not part ways. He tossed you out.
“This is generally where you’d return a greeting,” he called more loudly than before.
She sank into a reluctant curtsy. “My lord.”
“Silas,” he gently amended and lifted his fingers in a hesitant little wave.
Hesitant.
Again, Persephone cocked her head.
Funny, she’d never before seen the great, roguish, clever Silas Keefe, the Marquess of Bute, as anything less than unabashedly confident. The sight of him so reserved and cautious gave Persephone pause.
Lord Silas nudged his chin her way.
Puzzling her brow, she tried to make sense of whatever it was he was saying.
“Door,” he mouthed.
Persephone’s gaze followed Silas’s fingers as he motioned to the brass handle, and she furrowed her brow. “Door?”
She was well aware she sounded like a complete and total lackwit, repeating back his every thought and word.
And then she came crashing to.
The moment he stepped outside, Persephone took a reflexive step backward.
They studied one another—Silas’s expression proved inscrutable.
Unnerved by the intensity of his stare, Persephone was the first to speak. “My lord,” she said evenly, “I must ask that you excuse me. It isn’t proper, us being here—”
