Page 22 of The Good Duke
It was…an odd way to think of him.
The last time she’d seen Lord Primly, he’d simply been…Simon—her friend. They’d still been teenagers. Their families’ feud had been built that day, destroying the friendship their fathers—and she and Simon—had enjoyed.
And all because of the penis…
Simon’s penis, to be perfectly precise.
She never had properly thanked him for risking his and her father’s wrath in the name of her art.
At last, Persephone reached the guest suites. Some of the tension she’d been carrying in her shoulders since her official sacking back at Mrs. Belden’s, and then for the duration of her journey by mail coach, slipped from her tired frame.
Triumph filled her, and she released the close hold she had on her skirts, letting them fall in a noisy whir about her ankles. Stark white sheets hung over mirrors and paintings. Those protective coverings which prevented dust also spared staff from having to work in this closed wing of the household.
With still-careful strides, she counted the doorways to find the chambers she’d used a lifetime ago, back when she’d been a guest and not the intruder she’d become this night. Pressing the handle, she let herself in.
The well-greased hinges so perfectly oiled didn’t emit so much as a squeak of an announcement of her presence.
Persephone pushed the door quietly shut behind her and turned the lock.
Several sconces had been left lit. However, an inky darkness still hung over the room, and she blinked her eyes to adjust to the dimness.
“So much for attentive servants,” she muttered as she stretched up and blew out first one candle and then the next one. Leaving candles lit? His maids and footmen would burn the place down. Little clouds of white smoke filtered, and she waved her hands to waft about that tell-tale smell of sulfur in the event a servant did come searching.
Loosening the clasp at her throat, Persephone started across the darkened bedchamber and stopped.
A large copper claw-foot bath sat in the middle of the hardwood floor.
Her stomach lurched.
Notjusta bath. Not an empty one, that was.
A tub filled with the tall, distinguishable form of—
Persephone flared her eyes.
Oh saints in heaven and spawns in hell.
Simon?
“What are you doing here?” she exclaimed.
“I believe that should be fairly obvious.” The gentleman in question glanced down pointedly, drawing her gaze to the cloudy water that made the thinnest curtain over his bare body.
Given she’d seen the most intimate part of him, she should be nonplussed. Grown Simon, however, was altogether different than boy Simon from long ago.
Swallowing loudly, she looked up.
He grinned.
Only, this wasn’t a boy’s smile. This was a rogue’s grin. The tip of a lip that made a woman’s heart race and sent all worries about reputations tumbling into a dustbin.
“Alas, I believe you have the wrong room, sweet.”
Sweet?
That slowly spoken, husky endearment slashed across that brief moment of insanity around his smile.
“Forgive me,” she said stiffly, all too mindful of the fact that she conversed freely with a naked Simon. “I was searching for the guest suites.”
