Page 5 of The Good Duke
Simon choked, strangled by his own humiliation and shame and unable to interrupt her horrifying flow of words.
“Gerald has definitely gr—”
“W-Will y-you pleasestop?” He struggled to get that last word out and pulled it from himself with an added ferocity. He slammed a fist on the arm of the bench. “Just stop! Can you notseethe trouble we are in?”
Persephone went ashen and followed his gaze to the earl’s still-closed door.
Their fathers’ muffled shouts spilled out into the hall.
Persephone lifted her eyes back to Simon’s. “You don’treallythink they’ll make us stop seeing one another, do you?” she asked haltingly.
“Really?You’ve only just deduced thatnow?” Simon spoke sharply. He didn’t allow her a chance to answer. “And the truth is, Persephone, if they are wise, then, yes, and perhaps it will be for the best.” Because they were always landing one another in scrapes, but the abasement wastoogreat this time.
Hurt filled Persephone’s expressive, big brown eyes, and she went absolutely silent.
Silent, when Persephone was only ever chatty.
She picked up her sketch pad and redirected her attention to labeling her drawing, scratching in big, bold, swooping letters as “the Male Penis.” And he would have laughed at her tenacity in not letting the matter rest, even on her page, but caught a glimmer of sadness in her eyes.
And for the first time in the whole of his life, it happened: Simon had become…the bully.
Granted, she’d been yammering on about his manhood, but that was neither here nor there. As long as he’d known her—which was forever—if troubled, she’d prattled on. The thing of it was, she possessed such self-assurance that the times of her rambling were few and far between.
He stole a look from the corner of his eye at the crestfallen girl beside him.
He’d always failed to understand the pleasure boys had taken in humiliating him and hurting him. Being on the other end of it now, feeling as miserable as he did at the forlorn look of her, he understood that cruelty even less.
He’d not have a heated argument be the last exchange they shared.
Simon ran a shaky hand through his still-damp hair.
Only, he couldn’t let her see the dread eating him apart. He forced his palm back to his lap.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean what I said. I’m just—”Afraid.Except, if he admitted as much, then it would only further add to her worry. “Frustrated,” he finally settled for. “No one is going to keep us apart, Persephone.”
“They won’t, right?” Hope sparked to life in her dark brown eyes. “We wouldn’t let them.”
He kept up the lie. “They couldn’t stop us if they tried, Seph.”
Simon and Persephone wouldn’t beableto stop them.
Persephone’s full lips formed a slow, wide smile.
God, how he’d miss her and that smile of hers.
Pain squeezed at his chest.
He stuck out his left palm. “Friends?”
She immediately dropped her sketch pad and pencil and slapped her right one against his outstretched hand. They mimicked that slap against the back and then front of their hands two times before folding their fingers in a single fist.
They shared a smile.
“Forever,” she said softly.
Never again.
“For—”
