Page 11 of Duke of Wickedness (Regency Gods #4)

W hat is it that you think about when you touch yourself?

The duke’s words echoed in Ariadne’s ears as she lay in her bed, staring up at her ceiling.

Explore what feels right to you.

The words had been very clearly suggestive. Hearing them from the duke’s lips had sent a thrill through her.

But now, alone?

What in goodness’ name was she supposed to do ?

She looked at her own arm, then touched it with her opposing hand. That obviously wasn’t what he had meant, but…

It wasn’t not nice, the feeling of a grazing touch against her skin.

She touched her arm again, focusing on the trailing sensation of her fingertips, letting herself really feel the sensations that were left behind.

Yes… Right. She could use this. She thought of the things she’d read in Helen’s stash of novels, which hadn’t quite been instructions, but had been suggestive enough to give her a sense of direction.

She let her fingers keep going, tracing them up over her elbows, her upper arms, her collarbones. She switched hands, letting the other one explore, enjoying the shivery feelings.

Emboldened, she pulled her arms beneath the blankets.

It didn’t feel quite as nice with the thin layer of her chemise between her fingers and her skin, but there was something pleasant about feeling the whisper-thin fabric brush against her.

She chased the thrill that went through her when she brushed her hand over the curve of her breast, enjoyed the way her skin erupted in gooseflesh when she trailed her fingernails across her abdomen.

She followed these impulses, pushing forward when something felt good, changing direction when it didn’t feel as nice.

All of this brought her, after much wandering and experimenting, to the tender skin on the inside of her thighs, then higher to a place where— oh .

She chased and chased the feeling, something inside her winding tighter, a warmth in her belly that grew and grew until it burst .

After, Ariadne found herself staring at the ceiling again.

Well. That had been…

All at once, she erupted into a fit of giggles. Goodness gracious. How had she never known that she could do such things to herself? How had she gotten to one and twenty years old without knowing that she could find such feelings from her own touch?

As quickly as they had overtaken her, the laughter faded as a question occurred to her.

If the duke could lead her to this kind of pleasure with just a few suggestive words, muttered in one quiet moment in the hallway of a dinner party, what could he offer her if she took him up on his offer?

This had been marvelous, but was there more ?

“Blast,” she said quietly into the darkness of her room.

Was this why men were so obsessed with physical intimacy? Ariadne didn’t want to go so far as to say something outrageous like men might have a point , but…

But this had been intriguing .

And she was starving to know more.

Because what if? What if she learned something phenomenal? What if she learned something that made her feel—feel like this ?

She was on her feet before she’d even made the conscious decision to get out of bed. It might be the middle of the night, but she needed to know right now .

Maybe physical intimacy made one have absurd ideas. That really would explain a lot about men, actually.

Yet, like generations of forefathers before her, apparently, Ariadne didn’t pause to second-guess what was no doubt a very foolish decision.

Instead, she dressed quietly, slipped from her room, and bribed the coachman to take her to the Duke of Wilds’ house.

Unlike the previous time she’d snuck out to Bacchus House after dark, the house was quiet—and illuminated by a few errant flickering lights here and there, indicating that this time, at least, the windows were not covered.

Most of the lights were upstairs, too, indicating that the household was not yet abed, but was no longer entertaining.

No party tonight, then. Good. That would make it easier for her to get an audience with the duke.

And would save her from seeing anything that made her look as though she was some na?ve little girl, seeking answers from the dark, dangerous duke.

She was not, after all, the hapless heroine in some fairy story, destined to meet a dark end. This was her decision.

Thinking of Helen’s story about first getting to know Xander—while resolutely not letting herself think of any details—Ariadne eschewed the front entrance and slipped around back, to where servants and deliveries would be received.

She rapped politely at the door, waited, then knocked just a little bit more insistently.

The ensuing wait was long enough that she was torn between knocking again—which would have been the height of rudeness, especially given the hour—and giving up, which really did not feel like an acceptable outcome.

Just when she began to tip in the direction of doubt, however, the door opened, revealing a butler who seemed, it had to be said, enormously baffled.

“Good evening?” he said, more question than statement.

This was not encouraging, but Ariadne squared her shoulders and gave the man what she hoped was the right level of smile—apologetic for the hour, confident lest he be tempted to send him away, with just a touch of aristocratic poise.

It was the kind of smile she would have used if she were at a ball, cornered into making a faintly unflattering observation about a mutual acquaintance.

“Good evening,” she said breezily. “Is His Grace in?”

The butler’s look of confusion deepened, but it vanished quickly; clearly, he was a little more awake than he had been moments ago, and that meant his training was kicking in.

“He is,” he said, then hesitated. “But miss—my lady.” He peered around her into the darkness. “You do realize… That is, it is rather late in the evening.”

It was the height of lunacy—this whole conversation smacked of the farcical—but Ariadne actually looked over her shoulder, too, as if she might find anything other than darkness.

“Yes,” she said, scrambling to regather her confidence. “I do realize. Even so. I would like to speak with His Grace.”

The butler paused again, and Ariadne had a sudden flash of wondering if perhaps she hadn’t read this entire thing incorrectly. What if—oh God , what if—the reason this butler was acting so confounded was a ploy to cover up for the fact that the duke was already with a woman ?

Oh goodness. Oh, hell, of course he was already with a woman.

What did she think? Did she really think that he would sit around waiting for some curious virgin to come knocking at his door?

Did she really think herself so intriguing?

No, he was likely in there with some experienced, confident, buxom courtesan.

No, two buxom courtesans? Or even—goodness, how many were too many?

And there was more proof, really—she didn’t even know how many women were too many women!

“Ah, I—um. Unless he has—ah. Company?”

She hated how much she faltered, how, at the first hiccup, she became a stuttering little fool. But maybe it was for the best, because the next flicker in the man’s expression was kind and sympathetic, maybe even a little bit knowing.

And at least she had gotten her stuttering out in front of possibly the only kind butler in England instead of the Duke of Wilds himself.

“He does not,” the butler reassured her.

Ariadne nearly had to take a step back with the force of the relief that those words sent through her.

“I believe he is still awake; I can go see if he is accepting company. Who shall I tell him is call—” He cut himself off.

“I shall tell him someone is calling for him.”

“Thank you,” she said, really meaning it.

The time he left her in the kitchen, which was warm and dimly lit from the banked fire, couldn’t have actually been more than three or so minutes. It felt, however, like hours.

When the man came back, he gave her a slight bow.

“His Grace will see you, Lady…Pandora.”

She bit back a smile, both at the man’s hesitation, which showed that he knew the name was not hers in truth, and at the alias that the duke had chosen to give her.

Pandora, who had been so curious that she had opened a box full of evil.

She had to fault him for part of this—she was nearly certain, for all the debauchery that she’d witnessed, that evil was taking things a bit too far when it came to the Duke of Wilds—but he deserved far greater credit for his cleverness.

Not only had he protected her identity and made a quip about their circumstances, but he had noted her grandfather’s odd penchant for Greek Antiquities, the one that had given three generations of Lightholders names taken from myth.

Clever.

Drat it all if she didn’t like it a lot.

“Thank you,” she told the butler.

There was still a little smile on her face as she followed her guide to the upstairs study.

The smile died the instant the butler opened the door to reveal the duke.

On the surface, he was merely sitting, sipping a drink.

It was an innocuous activity, except for how nothing about what he was doing seemed at all innocuous .

Instead, everything, from the slight curve of his lips, to the way he had one ankle crossed over the other knee, to the way his fingertips tapped against the arm of the chair—it all felt… debauched.

“Thank you, Newman,” the duke said to the butler.

The butler bowed and left.

And then Ariadne and the duke were alone.

“Pandora?” she asked lightly. “You know, given my family, there’s a good chance I could have had a cousin called Pandora.”

He took a sip of his drink.

“I don’t , but you realize I could have,” she said. Something about his quiet observation made her nervous.

Ha. Something . Nearly everything about him made her nervous, but, strangely…she liked that, too.