Page 73 of The Good Duke
With a frown on her lush lips, lips Simon had been so very close to kissing days prior, Persephone looked at her breast with shocked eyes and then pressed her right palm against the bodice of her gown.
He may as well have struck her with an arrow for all her dismay.
Her accusatory eyes flashed with fire. “Simon, are you attempting to stab me?”
Simon briefly closed his eyes. She’d failed to note Pruitt’s presence. It was too much to hope the roguish fellow hadn’t heard Persephone’s use of Simon’s Christian name.
When he opened them, Simon caught the parade of emotions that crossed Pruitt’s face: shock, confusion, and then, curse the dolt, a slow, knowing smile.
His friend turned all the way back, so he faced Simon.
“Well, well, well,” Pruitt murmured in hushed tones reflective of the years he’d spent working for the Home Office. “I believe I’ve found the source of your…frustration.”
Hell.
Persephone found herself greeted by twoverydifferent stares: the red-faced, annoyed expression worn by Simon Broadbent, Duke of Greystoke…and theother.
In her career working throughout various noble households, she’d encounteredthatlook before: the lascivious leer.
It indicated a respectable gentleman had identified amongst him one of the great incongruities of his high-powered world—a lady by birth, but who didn’t have the benefit of relatives, had fallen on hard times, and thus had been required to do that which true ladies did not do.
Work.
To a nobleman, a lady employed as a governess or matchmaker may as well be the same as a prostitute available for the right price.
When she’d suffered her fall from grace, Persephone had been too naïve. She’d realized too late there was but one difference between a finishing school instructor and a courtesan: the latter got paid.
The former? Women like Persephone, who’d wanted to preserve their reputations and virtue while also doing respectable work, were deceived and seduced. In the end, the only gifts she and others like her received were those of empty promises, broken hearts, and shattered dreams.
As the silence continued to march on, Persephone looked from one handsome gentleman to the next.
Tick-tock-tick-tock.
Simon and his friend had gone mute, like two schoolboys caught with their hands in the biscuit jar as opposed to two grown men in a ducal office. One of them—one of them who was not Simon—wore a winning grin. The other stared mutinously back.
Funny that. She preferred short-tempered, cynical Simon to an affable-lookingbut certainly dangerous charmer.
She’d hand it to both of them. Simon and Lord Rogue each employed different, but effective in their own right, tactics that would have effectively sent another woman into a cower or a blush.
Persephone, however, was decidedly not that woman.
The pervasive quiet continued marching on, and Persephone looked back and forth between them.
The trio they made remained frozen, saying absolutely nothing.
She sighed. Someone needed to be the bigger man in the room. It appeared Persephone would be that person.
She offered a deep, respectful curtsy that would have seen her with a wage increase at Mrs. Belden’s. “Your Grace, my apologies for interrupting.”
That seemed to jolt both men out of the awkward trance they’d found themselves in. Both jumped up at the same time and fell into respectful bows.
“Miss Forsyth,” Simon returned in an equally taciturn way.
In a clear display of power, he remained rooted to the throne-like chair behind his late father’s desk. With his formidable bearing, Simon, the duke, wore his power and command with the same natural ease and fit that a king did his cloak and crown.
When it became clear no proper introductions were coming, Persephone clasped her hands into tight fists at her side.
The dashing stranger looked pointedly at Simon.
