Page 37 of The Good Duke
Persephone, however, had never been one to balk at a challenge.
She stepped away from the hearth and nearer a different sort of fire.
“It’s just, you accused me ofstaring,” she said. “Staring involves fixating on something or someone.Observing, on the other hand, means to watch carefully, especially with attention to details or behavior for the purpose of arriving at a judgment.”
Simon rested one of his broad shoulders against the doorjamb and fixed one of those very stares they discussed pointedly upon her. “And tell me, what judgment did you arrive at, Miss Forsyth?”
“You’ve changed,” she said quietly. This man she didn’t know how to be around.
A muscle rippled in his prominent, well-formed jaw. “Fortunately, yes.”
He might think so.
A pang struck her heart.
She, on the other hand, missed the approachable, easygoing, non-cynical Simon.
Unable to meet his eyes, Persephone trailed her fingertips over the edge of the high-backed leather armchair.
Persephone drew in a slow, noiseless breath and shoved back those regret-filled ruminations. No good could come from dwelling on how he used to be.
For that matter, she’d changed too. She wasn’t the innocent, naïve girl who’d first set out into the world after her father’s death.
She made herself look at him once more and then promptly regretted it.
Simon remained with his hooded, piercing gaze locked on her.
Then, never taking his eyes from Persephone, Simon brought the panel closed behind him with infinite slowness, shutting himself and Persephone in the libraryalone.
Never, ever find oneself alone with a gentleman.
That’d been rule fourteen or fifteen, or something near there, of Mrs. Belden’s Rules for Ladies.
Persephone had never much worried about that rule for herself. She certainly knew how to handle herself around and to protect herself from men.
Only, as Simon clasped his hands behind his back and started slowly across the room toward her, that confidence in her abilities flagged.
Here she’d had a solid twenty-eight—now twenty-nine—minutes to prepare some clear, detailed reasoning for her being here and a request for his help. Instead, she’d been ruminating over the light matting of tiny, tight golden curls on his chest, and the sheer size of his thighs, and the breadth and length of that organ between his legs.
Simon opened his mouth.
Persephone spoke on a rush, violating Mrs. Belden’s Always-Let-a-Gentleman-Speak-First rule.
“I was sorry to learn of the earl’s passing, my lord.”
“Thank you, and it isYour Grace.”
She looked quizzically at him.
“I’m a duke now.”
She laughed. “Go on.”
He stared at her.
Persephone widened her eyes. “You’reserious.”
“Deadly.”
