Page 89 of The Good Duke
Something in his words, in the reminder he’d his sights set on some young, virtuous, breathtaking beauty sent an unwelcome jealousy roiling in her belly. She didn’t want to think about—
“Is there a problem?” His wry query slashed across her runaway musings.
“No,” she said softly.
“Very well.” He inclined his head. “Run along, then.”
Run along.
Persephone fisted her hands at her side. Simon’s was an order because, despite their past and the mesmeric embrace they’d shared, Persephone remained a woman in his employ and nothing more—at that, a woman tasked with finding Simon a bride.
Suddenly miserably forlorn, Persephone made to go so she could just get all of this over with.
“Oh, one more thing,” he called, because of course he now lived to torture her.
Persephone stared questioningly at him.
In a perfectly ducal pose, Simon clasped his hands behind him and trained an austere gaze upon her. “Given we’ve entered the part of our arrangement where you bring forth young ladies, all whom I’ll consider as my eventual duchess, I’d have you refrain from using my Christian name.”
A slap would’ve hurt less than that pomposity.
She bowed her head in proper servility befitting the station divide between them. “Very well, Simon.”
This time, he let her go, and as she closed the door behind her, putting that wooden panel between them, she silently acknowledged that as much as Simon had hurt her with the barriers he’d put up, it was for the best. Persephone needed the reminder she was nothing but a nuisance whom he’d taken pity on and found a purpose for—among those, slaking his lust with.
After this meeting, she’d throw all her efforts not into needling him but finding him the lily-white bride he sought. Then she’d have references and a sum to tide her over until she found her next assignment.
Chapter 16
Was there a problem, she’d asked? Simon gritted his teeth.
Only if one considered tugging a fellow off and then climaxing herself while the gent’s potential future bride is under the same roof, awaiting a formal introduction, aproblem.
At that, she’d presented him with a lady who bore the same name as the first woman whom he’d ever courted.
Simon cursed long, loud, and blackly.
Only Persephone.
She was the only woman on planet Earth who’d come in his arms, then scamper off to collect his possible wife. The fact that she could do so effortlessly and callously left a bitter taste on his tongue.
All the anger drained from Simon, and he sat. He stared blankly at the door Persephone just sailed through.
God, she vexed him like no other. Where he’d secretly enjoyed their battle of the wits, this time she had gone too far.
As if you weren’t as much a bastard to her, the rational voice that forever lived in Simon taunted.
Nay, he’d been the worst sort of libertine. Where he’d always possessed a lusty appetite for the depraved behind bedroom doors, this particular instance was markedly different.
Persephone was no light o’ love. She was a lady, a former friend, and he’d said and done all manner of wicked things to her; the sort he’d only ever done with the most skilled courtesans.
What was worse, even knowing the inherent wrongness in how he’d treated her, Simon still possessed a hunger to have her in his bed where he could do even more with her…toher.
She, a bold, spirited, obstinate beauty would chafe at submitting to anyone.
Persephone’s loud and desperate moans and the increased wetness between her legs when he’d whispered sinfully delicious words into her ear indicated that, ultimately, she’d love all those depraved things he’d do.
These past days, he’d been consumed by wicked thoughts of what he wanted to do with her. He’d dipped himself in cold baths, lost countless hours of sleep, and slaked his lust with his own hand and her visage in his mind.
