Page 8 of The Good Duke
Persephone opened her mouth.
“I’d encourage you to continue with caution, Mrs. Forsyth,” Mrs. Belden warned.
Persephone’s heart pounded as she searched for something to say.
Without a word, the leader of this miserable institution pushed a drawing across the desk—a very familiar drawing.
Her gaze locked on the dashing visage of Lord Silas Keefe, the prized and beloved son and heir of her former employer.
Once, when she’d traveled to London with her father, she’d witnessed a coach turned on its side and people scrambling to fetch the screaming passengers out. As their carriage passed by, she’d stared on, held captive by the horror of the scene.
This moment felt remarkably like that one of long ago.
Her stomach roiled.
The day when she’d captured his likeness came back as fresh as if not even a day had passed. Lord Silas Keefe stretched out in the high grass, wearing a dashing half-grin as he dared her to sketch him.
She’d been a fool then but had proven a bigger fool these past years for never having burned the page.
She searched for something to say. Anything to say.
“It is just a drawing,” Persephone said carefully, keeping her voice calm in a bid to keep from turning herself over to the panic knocking at her breast.
“And since when did your responsibilities include the role of art instructor?” Mrs. Belden shot back.
“Never,” she demurred.
Alas, Persephone had been assigned—and only ever taught in—the unenviable role as Instructor of Mores, Manners, and Matchmaking at Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School.
Mrs. Belden’s nostrils flared in a rare display of pique. “A drawing that, according to Lady Claire,youdrew, Mrs. Forsyth.”
Her mind raced. In the brief but precious spare time she managed for herself, she’d found joy in drawing. Unfortunately, she’d been discovered by several of her students, who’d begged to see her renderings of the human form. In the end, she’d stepped neatly into a well-laid trap.
This meeting with the headmistress, however, was not about any prior bad behavior on Persephone’s part, but rather the sketch she’d done of a gentleman.
Mrs. Belden collected the cane resting against her desk and thumped the bottom against the floor in her familiar I’m-annoyed-with-you three tap rhythm. “Nothing to say, Mrs. Forsyth?”
“I didn’t realize there was a question?” Persephone added a slight uptilt, transforming her own words into a query.
“Is the drawingyours?”
Alas, it appeared Mrs. Belden had run out of all patience.
“Yoursis a really such a general word, isn’t it though?” She didn’t let the other woman get a word in edgewise. “Yours. Hers. Ours. Why, it could beanybody’s. When you figure there are four different art lessons each day, comprised of eight ladies in each, with an average quantity of eight pieces of parchment per each student, that is”—she swiftly tabulated those numbers in her head—“two hundred and thirty-four. As such, it is infinitely difficult ascertaining just who specifically a given rendering might belong to.”
And with that, Persephone managed the seemingly impossible—she flummoxed the old headmistress and head proprietress of the finishing school.
Mouth agape, her head cocked, the older woman was a study of perplexity.
Under any other circumstances, Persephone would have taken immense pride in being the first and only to ever knock the miserable harpy off-kilter. But these were not ordinary times. She sat in the headmistress’ office, one word from Mrs. Belden away from being severed, and losing the steady, secure employment she’d known since her father’s passing.
Persephone, however, had never been one to give in easily to surrender. She cleared her throat. “Given the speed with which I calculated all that, this might be the ideal time to suggest a change in my teaching assignment.”
Mrs. Belden found her voice once more. “Your teaching assignment, Mrs. Forsyth?” she returned frostily.
“Oh, it is not as though I’ve not enjoyed my time and tenure as lead instructor in the all-important role of matchmaker.” It was an outright lie. “I have, immensely,” she rushed to assure her employer. “I just feel it might be more beneficial to utilize me in other capacities.”
“And what capacity is that, Mrs. Forsyth?”
