Page 38 of The Good Duke
Apparently, she’d missed even more news surrounding her one-time friend.
“A duke,” she repeated, giving her head a rueful shake. “Imagine that.”
He nodded. “Courtesy of a distant, distant relative, who had the largess to turn up his heels and pass this newest of titles on to me.”
“How good of him,” she said, straight-faced.
Simon’s lips twitched…but he did not smile.
Ah, so he’d adopted the seemingly unspoken but well understood rule of “dukes-do-not-grin.” Along with that and the title he’d inherited, he’d acquired the cynicism, standoffishness, and self-possession befitting one of his exalted station.
“Of course, you’re a duke,” she muttered under her breath.
Much like the man, even his title had becomemore.
He quirked a blond brow. “What was that?”
Persephone gestured to his damp hair. “I said you should have toweled off better. You’ll catch the croup.”
A droll grin brought his lips tipping up at the corners, one that said he recognized her lie.
Old Simon would have called her out—as he should.NewSimon continued to assess her in that shrewdly cynical way.
New Simon, who she didn’t know what to do with.
Then he started across the room, toward her.
Warily, she followed his almost lazy approach.
She stiffened.
Only…he continued walking right past her and stopped at the two-tiered wood, bronze, and marble table stacked with bottles.
Persephone stared at his broad back covered in nothing but a white lawn shirt. Still damp, it clung to his skin and put the sculpted muscles of his back and arms on beautiful display, and damned if her fingers didn’t long for a pencil with which to sketch him.
Simon who remained wholly—and thankfully—oblivious to her scrutiny.
Rather, he perused the decanters a long moment and then availed himself of one whose contents were rich, earthy tones of brown and red.
Persephone schooled her features as he turned back, facing her once more. Only, her recalcitrant eyes had a mind of their own, and her gaze involuntarily slipped a fraction—a hint of damp, golden coils peeked from the opening in his shirt.
Her pulse jumped in that bothersome way.
Persephone swiftly brought her stare back to his.
“That is a tea table,” she said to fill the latest round of weighty silence.
He stared questioningly at her.
Persephone pointed behind him. “That fine piece of furniture situated just over there. You know, the one you’ve repurposed for liquor.”
Simon followed her still wagging finger. “Indeed.”
He sounded as bored as Persephone’s students had during her lectures on decorum.
Just as she hadn’t blamed them, she couldn’t blame him.
He continued to sip of his spirits and study her, and she quite despised it. He left her feeling uncertain, hesitant. Things she’d rarely been, and certainly hadn’t been when around him.
