Page 18 of The Good Duke
“There has never been a doubt as to your loyalty toward my father.” He sharpened his gaze on the man across from him. “But you were always a bastard to me.”
Grady’s face dropped.
“I want you out of this household immediately.” Simon inclined his head. “We are done here.”
An ashen, slack-jawed Grady found his legs. With stiff, slow movements, he stood. “You are making a mis—”
“Grady,” he interrupted, infusing a warning edge into his voice. “It is because of your work and loyalty to the late earl that I’ll furnish you with future references. That being said, if you utter so much as another word, you can count on leaving my employ without even that generosity.”
Grady instantly closed his mouth. His thin lips formed a harsh line under an even thinner black mustache that gave him an almost comically villainous look.
Then, with jerky movements, his former man-of-affairs grabbed for the estate papers.
“Grady,” he said, staying the servant. “Leave them. All your books belong to me.”
Fury, loathing, and outrage roiled from the depths of the other man’s eyes. Then, without a word and only a single hate-filled look, Grady turned on a stiff heel and marched from the room.
With the first break he ever recalled from an always unflappable Grady, his former man-of-affairs slammed the door hard behind him.
That thunderous bang resonated in the otherwise now quiet room.
Simon leaned back in his chair, brought his fingertips together, and tipped his lips up at the corner in a harsh grin.
If the gentlemen he’d once been jeered and bullied by expected to find the same pathetic, pitiable man he’d been, they were destined to be disappointed.
He’d returned to London to take care of business: to take a prized wife, the cherished sister of any one of his former bullies—and there were so very many to choose from. And when he’d accomplished that coup de grace, he’d leave that same lady in charge of handling his affairs in London so he could continue to live a life for himself—traveling and writing. In there, there’d be the matter of siring an heir.
And unlike before when he’d been rejected and rebuffed, he’d succeed in having whatever it was he sought or desired.
For now, Simon wasn’t the desperate, wretched earl paying court and stammering out Shakespeare’s sonnets in the hopes of currying a lady’s favor. Nay, he’d come back to London an even more powerful duke, with an even vaster fortune, and, more importantly, in full control of himself, his heart, and his voice. A voice he had been judged for since he was first learning to talk.
No, his days of diffidence and floundering for words were at an end.
For it wasn’t the Earl of Primly who’d returned to London, but rather the Duke of Greystone.
Chapter 3
London, England
Persephone had known everything there was to know about Simon Broadbent, the Earl of Primly.
Every Season, he spent in London amongst the illustrious members of the ton. Without fail, he took his seat in Parliament, put his support behind merchants, and welcomed political participation from those outside the aristocracy.
Every winter, he journeyed to some respectable family’s house party; he never visited the same family.
Every summer, he retired to one of his many country estates.
Nor was there anything suspicious in Persephone’s very specific knowledge about the Earl of Primly. Rather, she knew him because she’d known him so very well as a child and then as a very young man…and he’d been prodigiously committed to living the life that was expected of an earl.
That was until he quit England to travel the world. That marked the end of what she’d learned about Simon’s goings-on.
Both his predictability and his absence from London was why Persephone had endured the long, arduous journey by mail coach from Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School.
And it was why she, even now, found herself in a dark, narrow alleyway between Simon’s Mayfair townhouse and…some other stranger’s stucco one. Hurrying along the narrow passageway, Persephone couldn’t determine whether she would have wished for a clear, moonlit night to light the way for her or the current inky black, cloud-filled sky overhead.
She stole a peek at the well-lit manse neighboring Simon’s. Nay, any additional light would be disastrous. No doubt, the owner of that other residence would be a good deal less forgiving if he or she or one of their many servants were to find Persephone lurking outside their residence.
With that reminder knocking around her brain, Persephone quickened her steps.
