Page 7 of The Good Duke
He lifted his head.
“I wouldn’t change you.”
“Nor I you—”
Her father called out again. “Persephone, come here thisinstant.”
Any other child would have been compelled by those warning tones. Not Persephone. She remained rooted there next to Simon. Just as she’d always been. Just as she’d never be again.
“I’m so sorry, Simon. Foreverything.”
He lifted his hand, waving off that apology and waving goodbye to his only friend.
With that, she was gone; the bright light that was Persephone walked out of his life.
And never before had Simon been more alone.
Chapter 1
20 years later
Upon her father’s death twelve years earlier, Miss Persephone Forsyth, having no relatives and few resources, had been forced to take on employment at Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School.
It was a post she’d both appreciated for the security it provided and hated for how dreadfully dull and miserable her role, in fact, was.
Twelve, however, would mark the most years she would ever work at Mrs. Belden’s if she didn’t start thinking, andfast. For there could be no reason, except a bad reason, for a summons from the headmistress while an instructor was mid-lecture.
Standing outside the headmistress’s office, Persephone brought her shoulders back, donned a smile, and stepped into the unencumbered and surprisingly cozy-looking space.
The pallid, thin-lipped headmistress, Mrs. Belden, stared at Persephone from across the immaculate surface of her mahogany kneehole desk.
“Mrs. Belden,” she greeted. She sank into a deep, graceful curtsy the mulish woman behind the desk would have been hard-pressed to fault. “I always enjoy meeting—”
“You know my opinion on smiling,” the headmistress said in her crisp, frosty tones that could bring snow to the summers. “I don’t like it, Mrs. Forsyth.”
Even with the number of years she’d been employed by Mrs. Belden, Persephone never had, and likely never would have, grown accustomed to being addressed as “Mrs. Forsyth.” Alas, Persephone’s role as an instructor at Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School required such pretense. After all, it would be scandalous if Mrs. Belden’s clients knew the instructor she’d hired to help school their daughters make an advantageous match had never herself managed the feat.
“Forgive me,” Persephone murmured. “It is just I always en—”
“Enjoy meeting with me.” The old harridan took the liberty of completing Persephone’s lie for her. “Yes, yes.” Mrs. Belden pointed a wrinkled finger at the single, straight-backed chair across from her throne-like seat. “Sit, Mrs. Forsyth.”
Persephone hesitated. “Are you certain? I know how busy you—”
“Now.”
Oh, hell.
Clasping her hands in the prayer-like positioning Mrs. Belden expected of instructors and students alike, Persephone came forward. Remaining dutifully silent, she sat.
The stern headmistress pressed her fingertips together and peered at Persephone over the tops of them.
In her life, Persephone had come to both dread and despise absolute silence. Nothing more than a hush had ushered in some of the darkest moments in her life. The night after Persephone’s father and her best friend Simon’s father had a falling out, she’d discovered her father alone in the kitchen, silent and staring so intently into nothing he’d not even heard her approach.
Then, years later, the stillness she’d encountered after returning home from a visit to Pickmere Lake to discover her beloved papa dead in his favorite chair.
And then the time, she’d lost her heart to an employer’s son and been sacked for that unforgivable offense.
The stern headmistress finally spoke. “Do you have anything to say?”
