Page 14 of Duke of Wickedness (Regency Gods #4)

Ariadne paused midway through her exit to stick her tongue out at her sister by marriage.

Helen laughed at Ariadne’s retreating back.

When Ariadne got back to her bedchamber, she found herself feeling even more restless than she had been when she’d left it—which was no mean feat. She nearly started pacing again, then caught herself.

She didn’t want to go back and forth on this by herself. It wasn’t getting her anywhere, unless she counted driving herself even further to distraction.

What she needed was advice, the kind of guidance that younger women got from previous generations.

In most cases, this would have meant turning to her mother, but since Ariadne could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen her mother in the past decade, she had no plans to seek out the Dowager Duchess of Godwin.

Instead, Ariadne would turn to the woman who had been a real mother to her: her sister, Catherine.

And if Catherine just so happened to be married to the Duke of Wilds’ closest friend…

Well. That wasn’t Ariadne’s fault. The world was simply full of many strange and charming coincidences.

And if that overlap meant that Ariadne would have to be careful to hide specifics of her situation, that was something she’d already intended, given that the last thing she wanted was to worry her sister.

Cheered by these hypotheticals, Ariadne did a little repair work on her coiffure and took the short trip to her sister’s house.

The butler showed her into the front parlor before retreating deeper into the house to find Catherine. The lady of the house must have already been headed in this direction, however, as Ariadne had only been in the parlor for a minute or so when Catherine and Percy both came walking into the room.

Giggling. They were both giggling .

“Oh, hello, Ari!” Catherine said, trying and failing to tamp down the tail end of her laughter.

Ariadne fought to keep her own face impassive.

She was thrilled that Catherine was so happy, but it still felt so bizarre to see her sister—who had been widely lauded as one of the most fashionable, admirable, and proper women in Society during her years on the marriage mart—act like a giddy schoolgirl.

And that wasn’t even getting into the strangeness of seeing the stiff and stern Duke of Seaton act with the same level of cheer and joie de vivre.

“Hi, Kitty,” Ariadne said. “Good morning, Percy. Sorry to interrupt your morning at home.”

“Not at all,” Catherine replied instantly. “We don’t mind in the least.”

Percy looked as though he minded a little, but when his wife nudged him in the side, he nodded along.

“We don’t mind at all,” he said unconvincingly.

“Try a little harder,” Catherine muttered under her breath to her husband.

Ariadne pressed a finger to her lips to hide her smile. Coming here had been a good idea; she felt a little better already.

“You know,” Percy said, as if the idea had just occurred to him, “I think I am actually going to work from my club today. So, if you are thinking I am around and might hear things, I am not. I am elsewhere, not bothering anyone.”

Thank you , Ariadne mouthed to her brother by marriage, who gave her a little nod.

Catherine looked faintly disappointed, but nodded, too. “Oh, fine,” she sighed. “I’m guessing you came to talk, since we are so rarely blessed with your unexpected presence.”

Catherine said this with all the warmth in the world, but Ariadne felt the usual flicker of insecurity. Catherine might be happy to see her, but Ariadne was still a burden. She was still interrupting.

If she let her doubts show, however, Catherine would try to reassure her, and Ariadne wouldn’t believe her, and they would spend time going around and around only to end up where they had begun.

So, Ariadne shoved down her worry.

“I did come to talk, if you have the time,” she said instead.

“Of course, of course,” Catherine reassured her.

Both sisters smiled. The words were all right, but Ariadne felt a pang.

Things were different now. Once, they wouldn’t have been so polite with one another, because they had lived in the same house.

They would have seen one another at breakfast, wandering the halls, at night while they were already in their shifts for sleeping, but just needed one last cup of cocoa to settle themselves in for the evening.

When Ariadne had had nightmares—which had gone on for years after the fire—Catherine would make space in her bed for her little sister, would rub her back gently until she fell asleep again.

And, yes, change was good. It only took one glance at Catherine’s expression as she bid Percy farewell for the day to say that this change was good.

But that didn’t mean that Ariadne didn’t sometimes miss the way things were before.

The awkwardness didn’t last; Catherine ordered some tea, then curled her legs up underneath her, something she only ever did at home. Ariadne technically wasn’t at home, but she still copied the pose anyway, letting the sense of familiarity overtake her.

“All right, duckling,” Catherine said, using the nickname she’d had for Ariadne as a child. “Tell me what’s amiss.”

In all her fretting and fussing, Ariadne hadn’t actually planned on what she was going to say to her sister—just what she planned not to say. What came out was, “I have a suitor.”

Catherine’s eyes lit up with interest, and Ariadne had a brief flicker of pity for any children that she and Percy had one day, once they grew up and had their own romantic intrigues.

The Lightholder family was full of loving family members, but…

goodness, they were nosy. If Ariadne thought about it that way, she was lucky that her siblings were all lost in their own love affairs.

They really could be bothering her so much more than they were.

“A suitor,” Catherine said, trying to sound calm. “How interesting.” She glanced down at her teacup as if it fascinated her. “Not to pry, of course, but if you happened to want to tell me about him…I’m here to listen.”

“Oh, for my benefit only, of course,” Ariadne said dryly.

“Of course ,” Catherine agreed earnestly.

Ariadne snorted a laugh. This had been a good idea. She felt better already.

“Lord Hershire.”

“Oh.” Catherine deflated. “You can’t do that to me! If you come in here acting like you have new information, you need to have new information.”

“Sorry. I do have this tidbit: he has come to call several times since we met at that ball.”

Catherine perked back up. “Oh? And?”

“And…he seems nice enough?” Ariadne supplied. “He praises me a lot. I guess that’s…nice.”

As a Lightholder daughter, Ariadne had enjoyed the tutelage of the best governesses that money could secure. Her vocabulary was—if she did say so herself—impressive. And yet, she could not think of a single synonym for the word nice .

Somewhere in the North, Miss Abernathy was sensing a disturbance in the universe that distracted her from whatever joys her retirement afforded her. Ariadne wouldn’t be surprised if she soon received a letter promoting the values of lifelong learning.

“Nice,” Catherine echoed.

“Unobjectionable?” Ariadne managed.

Catherine gave her a droll look. Ariadne sighed.

“I know ,” she said. Catherine had always been able to make her wilt with that look. “He’s a little boring; I admit it. And his obsession with propriety is a little…imposing. I do feel rather as though I need to tiptoe around him a bit.”

Catherine gave an indulgent laugh. “Boring and imposing—those are qualities that describe many men of our social class, I’ll allow.”

“Not helpful, Kitty,” Ariadne scolded.

“Darling, this has an easy solution. Just reject him.”

This was an easy solution—an obvious solution, even. But, for some reason, it caused a flare of anxiety to surge up in Ariadne.

“Can I…do that?” she asked fretfully. “I’m one and twenty, Kitty.

I haven’t had a single proposal—not that I know that the viscount will propose, either,” she hastened to add, lest she look too self-important.

It wasn’t terribly important to maintain a demure aspect in front of her sister, of course, but it was good to keep in practice.

Catherine shook her head. “Of course you can do that,” she said vehemently.

“In fact—you must .” She reached across the small table and briefly grasped Ariadne’s hand.

“If you aren’t happy, then there is no point , Ari,” she said.

“Marriage is… It’s a complicated thing. It isn’t always about how we feel.

I know that. But you are among the fortunate few.

You don’t need to marry. Which means that you get to choose the right person. Because when you do…”

She gave a happy, dreamy sigh.

Ariadne took back everything she said about being grateful that her siblings were in love. Nobody should ever be forced to bear witness to so many people gazing happily off into the distance. Ariadne was a martyr to familial loyalty, truly.

“Oh, enough of that,” Ariadne scoffed, which made her sister laugh.

“Sorry,” Catherine said. “I just…I want you to also be so happy that you annoy everyone around you, huh? That’s my dream for you.”

Ariadne twisted her mouth to the side. “And until then, I just wait for that happiness to walk through the door?”

Catherine shrugged. “I decided to have many bitter arguments with my happiness, instead, but that’s an unconventional method. But if you’re looking for someone to argue in favor of rushing…you’ve come to the wrong woman. I will remind you that I was an established spinster when I met Percy.”

Catherine had been six and twenty when she’d married. Ariadne simply could not make it through another five years of trying and failing to keep out of Xander and Helen’s way as they built families of their own.

“I’m not sure I wish to wait that long,” she said doubtfully.

Catherine gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m not saying that you will. I’m just saying that the whole ‘walking through the door’ bit? It can happen at any time?”

Ariadne was cursed. That was the only explanation she could think of for what happened next. For as she was sitting there, mulling over the wisdom of her sister’s words, she heard the sound of a man clearing his throat at the doorway.

And then, the Duke of Wilds walked through the door.