Page 32 of The Good Duke
“Bah, I’m fightingourbattles. Just as you’ve done for me in the past.”
He let out a sound of frustration. “It’s not the same.”
She scoffed. “Of course it is.”
Persephone spoke so convincingly, he actually believed she believed that too.
The truth remained that even having begun taking lessons with Gentleman Jackson himself, Simon still didn’t possess the right hook Persephone did, and he certainly hadn’t managed to take down the village bullies as she did.
“I did it for you, and for me,” she repeated.
His own misery and embarrassment forgotten, he looked at Persephone. Really looked at her—she who had a gaze so strong and direct that were the king himself presented, he’d glance away first—continued to evade Simon’s gaze.
He followed her stare right down to her beloved sketch pad, a sketch pad that now rested forlornly upon the ground.
Simon frowned. Among Persephone’s very many accomplishments and talents, her art proved some of her very best skills—which was saying a good deal indeed.
“They were making fun of your sketches?” he asked in disbelief.
Persephone gave a tiny nod. “Big Bruce took the pad from my hands when I was on my way to see you, and…and flipped through the pages, and started laughing, and I popped him good. Like I said, it was for the both of us, Simon.”
His own altercation forgotten, ire rose on his best friend’s behalf, and Simon picked up Persephone’s book. She didn’t attempt to stop him.
But then they’d always had the most open relationship. No secrets existed between them.
Still, before he opened up Persephone’s sketch pad, he looked over. “May I?”
“Of course,” she said as if he’d been mad to even ask.
He opened the cover, and his gaze immediately landed on the lifelike rendering of her father’s hounds. “Seph,” he said, turning the next page. “These are bloody brilliant.”
“Keep going,” she mumbled. “It gets worse.”
“It c—”
Simon stopped on the next page, and that assurance went unfinished.
“They weren’t wrong to laugh. It is mortifyingly bad.”
Heat climbed his neck, and he coughed into a fist. “It’s not all w-wrong. J-just your…” Oh, God. “P-proportions are off.”
“How would I know that?” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up. “I’ve seen your bits and pieces before.”
Simon strangled on his swallow, breaking into a fit of choking.
“Not in years, and I just assumeditgrew like arms and legs did.”
Itbeing none other than the male penis.
Persephone began to pace before him, back and forth in a tight, quick, short path over the graveled shore. “I pride myself on my art, you know that.”
He did.
“I really am quite good,” she said more matter-of-factly than with the bravado her work certainly merited. “As long as I can see something, I can draw a fairly accurate rendering.”
“Veryaccurate rendering,” he corrected.
“Exactly,” Persephone said, not breaking stride. “But I’ve never seen a man’s naked body.”
