Page 61 of The Good Duke
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
Simon scowled.
How ironic. Persephone was the person who freed him to write, but whose presence alone also distracted him from—
He stilled.
And just like that, the creative spark flickered somewhere deep inside, and then like a fire he’d once witnessed overcome a small copse in the hills of Italy, it became a conflagration.
Simon bent his head, and this time he let his pen fly across the page.
An old friend, resurrected,
From the ashes of oldmemories,
Each word fueled him.
Old laughter, an echo in themind,
It kindles remembrances of—
Each verse liberated him from the chains of his new ducal responsibilities.
His pulse pounded hard; the excitement and joy he’d only ever found in poetry breathed to life by the free verse now flowing from Simon.
“There you are!”
Simon’s pencil skidded clear off the page and scraped across the desk, leaving a charcoal mark upon the previously immaculate marble top surface.
He looked up slowly to the killer of his fledgling creative thoughts…even as he didn’t have to look to know the responsible party. For he well knew the voice and identity, all five feet, four inches of beaming, ceaselessly chattering lady.
The sight of her now, however, knocked him off-balance.
She’d always been lovely. He’d secretly thought so and only grudgingly told her when the village boys bullied her.
Time had since leant a maturity to her features. Her once girlish features had given way to a sharp, prominent bone structure the Greeks had lauded in their greatest works of art. The high planes of her cheeks, which could have otherwise been leveled too perfect, were softened by those deep dimples that’d always been a part of her smile.
Persephone spoke, effectively shattering that very temporary moment of madness.
“Is this one of those competitions we’d engage in?” she said on a comically loud whisper. “You know…the one where we’d see who could be silent longest.”
“The one you unfailingly lost?”
She burst out laughing like he’d told the grandest jest and not the actual truth.
Simon thinned his eyelashes into small slits. “Is there something you require?”
Sure enough, that black scowl had absolutely no effect on her sunny disposition.
Balancing, with her spare hand, an old-looking leather journal against one shoulder, Persephone sauntered all the way over.
“Shame on me, Simon.”Shame on her indeed.“I was so sure you were avoiding me.”
“I was,” he said under his breath.
She puzzled her brow, and the book she still carried in her arms slipped. “What was that?”
“Was there something you wanted, Miss Forsyth?”
