Page 181 of The Good Duke
“Splendid. Given you do not fear my company, love, then you’d be willing to stay and listen to what I have to say.”
And just like that, with his glib tongue and the challenge that’d fallen so effortlessly from it, she’d allowed him to set her up.
Silas was unnerved.
Oh, he had mastered a rogue’s grin, his crooked smile somehow even more charming than it’d been years and years earlier.
He possessed a cocksure arrogance and the unswerving strength and confidence of a powerful peer accustomed to getting what he wanted and when he wanted it. Even so, had Persephone not been studying his urbane veneer so closely, she would have missed a fleeting moment of uncertainty and hesitation in him.
The fact, however, remained there’d be disastrous implications were they discovered here—for her and Simon. For his sister.
She glanced past his shoulder.
“You say you’re not afraid of me and yet you look like you’re plotting your escape, lo—Miss Forsyth,” he said sadly.
He employed his best rogue’s grin but, despite honoring her wishes about that term of endearment, Persephone remained implacable—unmoved.
“I said I’m not scared of you, my lord. That doesn’t, however, mean I wish to remain out here with you or intend to.”
“God knows I can tell by the way you’re looking around me that I’m the last person you wish to be with.” Silas released a shaky laugh and dragged an even more quavering hand through his locks. “Trust me, I understand I’m deserving of your scorn.”
He took her lightly by the shoulders.
She stiffened and attempted to step out of his arms, but he retained a firm but still gentle hold.
“Persephone, please,” he said hoarsely, lifting his palms before him. “Just hear me out.”
She stared at him with a mutinous expression.
Silas gripped his head in his hands. “I’ve had years thinking about what I’d say to you. I’ve even carried this conversation between us out in my mind to the point I’d each sentence memorized like a bloody script.” Emotion blazed in his eyes. “And now I’m here, Persephone, and every single one of them has flown out of my bloody head.”
Funny, she’d spent years hating him for the way he’d hurt her. She’d wanted him to suffer the same pain she’d endured. His suffering, however, did not bring her any solace or consolation. She felt…an unexpected sense of pity for this man who, in his desperation, she no longer recognized.
Despite every bit of logic that urged her to flee from the moment he’d arrived, Persephone remained.
She’d let him say his peace, and then they could both achieve the closure they so desperately needed.
Persephone stared at him.
Silas instantly took the cue, and this time, when he spoke, he did so with a calm and clarity that hadn’t been there until now.
“My father and mother discovered our relationship,” he began quietly, then grimaced. “In retrospect, they were always going to learn about…us.” A wistful smile formed on his hard lips, and he gave his head a sad little shake. “I didn’t realize that then. I was a cocksure lad who was so blinded in love that I couldn’t see anything beyond the joy I knew with you.”
His gaze grew far away.
“I lived for each stolen glance and each private meeting. The happiest I’ve ever been was when I made you smile.”
Those romantic words would have likely made any other woman fall in love with him—again.
“My father vowed to destroy you. That is, if I did not break it off with you.”
“So, you decided to see to the destructive task yourself?” This time, she wasn’t able to quell the rush of bitterness.
“I had no other choice,” he said. “He threatened to cut me off, so I had no way to support you and see you, with no other options but to become some nobleman’s mistress.”
She stilled; her mind slowed under his revelation. Persephone shook her head.
He nodded. “It’s true, Persephone,” he said, his voice thick. “As I said, I never stopped loving you. I always knew our separation was temporary.” His Adam’s apple moved. “I just never suspected it’d last so goddamned long.”
