Page 20 of Duke of Wickedness (Regency Gods #4)

“ Y ou are looking very thoughtful this morning,” Catherine observed.

Ariadne couldn’t deny it. Being in the park felt…oddly surreal.

Ariadne wasn’t certain where she would mark a difference between her life before she had begun this thing with David and the life she was living now.

They were different—starkly, staggeringly so—but she didn’t know where to draw the line.

Was it when she had agreed to the bargain?

Was it when she had followed David from the ball and ended up at his scandalous party?

Or had this whole thing been going on for far longer than that? Had the wheels of fate begun turning when she’d gone to that first house party, two years prior?

Ariadne wasn’t even certain that she had spoken to him at that party, and if she had, it wouldn’t have gone beyond the common conversation between a host and a guest, all the how do you do s, and the thank you for inviting me s. She had been—she could admit it—a little frightened of him.

So maybe it was just the exhaustion of all these late nights pulling at her, or maybe it was the strangeness of promenading through the park, just like she’d done all her life, but she was inclined to take a long view.

Maybe everything had been pulling her toward this.

“Sorry,” she told her sister. “Just woolgathering.”

Catherine gave her an understanding look.

“Still puzzling over your romantic intrigues?”

Ariadne hoped that her laugh didn’t seem too forced.

“I’m not sure anyone has ever called my particular suitor romantic ,” she said, careful not to name names.

This was one of the warmest mornings they’d enjoyed yet all year, and it seemed as though three-quarters of the ton was out to enjoy the sunshine.

Ariadne was already courting gossip in one ill-advised aspect of her life; she didn’t need to also drop the names of viscounts in a crowded park.

“Allow me to once again remind you of the merits of telling him to go away,” Catherine said. “I promise that you will feel better once you do.”

Ariadne scrunched her nose, partially as an instinctual response against sibling interference, partially because Catherine was probably right, and partially because it was oh so very nice to be reminded that she had another set of problems besides the one that had been nagging at her day and night.

“Thank you for that sage advice,” she said dryly.

Catherine laughed. “Oh, how I long for the days when you used to hang on my every word. It was forever Kitty, please help me with this, Kitty, please help me with that .” She pitched her voice low and high like a child’s.

“As I recall it,” Ariadne countered, “you did not like that at all.”

“The harvest is always richer in another field,” Catherine said with mock solemnity. “We always seek the bright side elsewhere.”

“Alas,” Ariadne commiserated.

The two sisters devolved into laughter. The surreal sensation faded, and things felt normal. Maybe she wasn’t charging headlong into destruction as she feared. Maybe this would all just be fine .

It took the span of two heartbeats for Ariadne to abandon this theory and return to her previous hunch about the wretched hand of fate.

Because she saw her.

The woman from the theater. The one who had looked familiar.

The one who apparently looked familiar because she spent her time walking in Regent’s Park with the rest of the ton .

The woman who was—instead of pretending they didn’t see each other now and had, in fact, never seen each other before and had maybe never even seen anyone before, not ever —smiling and inclining her chin at Ariadne.

“Oh, hello,” she said brightly. “So good to see you!”

Ariadne blinked, then blinked again, and alas. The woman was still standing there. Still smiling.

“Um, hello,” she said. “So good to see you, too.”

The woman—who may or may not have been a bedlamite; it remained to be seen—offered Catherine a curtsey.

“Miss Phoebe Turner,” she introduced herself, and Ariadne had to hand it to her—it was a clever way to offer her name without arousing any curiosity about why Ariadne didn’t already know it.

Indeed, Catherine offered her own bob of a curtsey in return. “Catherine Egelton,” she said. “I’m Ariadne’s sister.”

“And the Duchess of Seaton,” Ariadne added dryly. “You aren’t quite so famous that you can’t add that bit, Kitty.”

Miss Turner gave Catherine a friendly grin. “Never worry, Your Grace, you are precisely as famous as that.”

It was a touch risky, as far as teasing went. Catherine was one of the highest-ranked ladies in Society, and this Miss Turner person didn’t know Catherine from Eve. But there was a gleam about Miss Turner that made this touch of sauciness seem kindhearted, not malicious.

And Catherine seemed pleased enough. She shrugged her shoulders.

“What can I say?” she asked breezily. “I am too remarkable to ignore.”

Miss Turner laughed, a little too big and bright to be a Society twitter. It was nice, though, Ariadne thought. Infectious. She found herself smiling right along.

“Where did you two meet?” Catherine asked. It was an innocent enough question, but Ariadne stiffened.

“Oh, your sister was kind enough to help me with a torn hem at a ball,” Miss Turner lied effortlessly. “I didn’t even know it was there. She mentioned something before I turned an ankle—or, given my luck, broke my neck. We commiserated over the perils of slippery dance floors.”

This was… an astonishingly plausible lie, especially given how quickly it had been summoned. Ariadne struggled for a nonchalant nod.

“Imagine what womankind could achieve if we were only given slippers that don’t threaten us with every step across a ballroom floor,” Catherine sighed.

Miss Turner smiled. “Dangerous things, most likely. That’s why we haven’t been granted them.”

It was another risky comment—and it gained another laugh.

“I’ll leave you to chat with your friend for a moment,” Catherine said to Ariadne.

“I’ll go talk to—” She glanced around the park, and her smile grew a little more strained.

“Oh, I’ll go talk to Lady Fitzhugh. Her husband is one of Percy’s political allies, so I’ll look like a very good political wife and all that. ”

“I’m sure he appreciates it enormously,” Ariadne encouraged—a touch selfishly, as she was absolutely trying to get rid of her sister so that she could talk to this Miss Turner character alone.

As Catherine walked away, she muttered something that sounded suspiciously like he had better .

When her sister was out of earshot, Ariadne turned back to Miss Turner, trying to hide her suspicion.

Either she wasn’t doing a very good job of it, or else that was simply a predictable reaction to the situation at hand, because Miss Turner said, “I am guessing that you are rather curious about what I am doing.”

She said this so guilelessly that Ariadne almost had a flicker of abashment that she was, in fact, rather curious.

Then she remembered how smoothly Miss Turner had lied to Catherine.

She conveniently disregarded, for a moment, that she was grateful that Miss Turner had lied to Catherine, because Ariadne hadn’t been confident that she could have managed it herself.

“I am,” she agreed carefully.

“Right.” Miss Turner seemed friendly enough. “Well. If I were you—and I know I’m not you , exactly, but we have some things in common, I gather—I would be worried that some strange little miss coming up out of nowhere was going to try to turn our first meeting into fodder for the gossip columns.”

“Well, yes, the thought did occur to me,” Ariadne said.

She did not like that she kept agreeing with this woman.

It made it very hard to maintain an air of suspicious hostility, and she felt certain that she ought to be suspicious and hostile.

“But then I figured that you’d have a hard time explaining why you were there, too, so I decided it was only a moderate concern. ”

Miss Turner beamed as though Ariadne had said something simply brilliant.

“Precisely! Suffice to say, I am not going to go prattling to the gossip rags. Nor did I really suspect that you would do the same. So, I thought this put us in a wonderfully unique position,” Miss Turner said brightly.

If Ariadne’s wariness had faded, it came back now in full force. Was she about to be blackmailed ? That wasn’t… That wasn’t something that happened in real life, was it?

That was fodder for thrilling novels, and the blackmailer was always some mustachioed villain who would make attacks against the heroine’s virtue.

Well, Ariadne had already welcomed several none-too-virtuous activities, and Miss Turner didn’t look like a villain.

She looked…a little cherubic. She was slender, her form athletic in a way that was very fashionable at the moment, but she had soft, rounded cheeks that made her look lovely and innocent.

Also, it was daylight. Surely it had to be illegal to blackmail someone in the daylight?

Well, maybe it was illegal to blackmail someone at any time. But it was unnatural to blackmail someone in the sunshine.

That would make for a great twist in a novel, though—the greed-eyed maiden being the mastermind behind the chaos—so Ariadne kept her guard raised.

“What unique position?” she asked warily.

This was the very first time in the whole conversation that Miss Turner looked the least bit surprised.

“Why, to be friends, of course,” she said.

“To be—” Ariadne began echoing this, patently incredulous, then cut herself off. “Or what?”

Now, Miss Turner looked openly surprised.

“Or—or nothing,” she said, her surprise yielding to a faint sense of woundedness. “I just—I just thought it would be nice.”

She seemed so genuine in this that Ariadne felt, with a sudden certainty, that she was being straightforward, that she was simply telling the truth—to Ariadne, at least, if not to Catherine—and that maybe, just maybe, Ariadne had read this all wrong.

Miss Turner looked at Ari, expression inscrutable, for a moment longer. Then she gave a stiffer smile than any that she’d shown before.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have?—”

“No, I’m sorry,” Ariadne interrupted. “I—that sounds really nice, actually.”

Tentative hope crossed Miss Turner’s expression. “You think so?”

Now that she paused to consider it, Ariadne did think so. Hadn’t she been feverishly hoping for someone she could talk to about all this? Someone with whom she could be genuine and open?

“Yes,” Ariadne said more confidently. “I do think so.”

Miss Turner beamed. It did seem that this good cheer was her natural state…that and the mischievousness that shone in her eye.

Ariadne really had a knack for attracting troublesome types, didn’t she? She decided she would worry about that later.

“In that case,” Miss Turner said, “I have to ask: what brought you to that—” She paused dramatically. “—ballroom where we met?”

That was a question that Ariadne couldn’t possibly answer—maybe at all and certainly not in the middle of Regent’s Park.

“Is ‘curiosity’ an acceptable answer?” she asked.

“‘Curiosity’ is the perfect answer,” Miss Turner said eagerly. “It’s actually my exact answer, too. I just got so sick of not knowing, you know? Men get to know everything, and we get to know nothing? Just because of our sex? It seems petty and unfair and stupid.”

Ariadne laughed. There was just something about Miss Turner’s ebullience that was impossible to ignore.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Ariadne said. “But…you just went on your own?”

Miss Turner shrugged. “I didn’t have anyone else to go with me, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me.”

“That’s amazing,” Ariadne said, the words spilling out before she could think better of them. Maybe it was na?ve or foolish, but she liked Miss Turner.

“Well, thank you,” Miss Turner said, shrugging her shoulders happily. “You see, this is why I thought we would be good friends. Most people would say things like, ‘No, Phoebe. Don’t, Phoebe. That’s how people get murdered , Phoebe.’”

“Good God,” Ariadne said, alarmed. “I hadn’t thought about that last one.”

Miss Turner waved an airy hand. “Oh, the worst I’ve suffered is some ribald comments. Also, I carry a knife.”

“A knife !”

“I’ve never had occasion to use it,” Miss Turner said, still apparently unconcerned.

And maybe it was the absurdity of discussing carrying secret knives while standing in the middle of a park. Maybe it was the insouciant twirl of her parasol that accompanied Miss Turner’s words.

Or maybe it was just the sheer, perfect joy of making a new friend. After all, when was the last time that Ariadne had made a new friend? Goodness, she wasn’t sure she had ever made a new friend, if one didn’t count members of her family, whether they were related by blood or by marriage.

But whatever it was, Ariadne started to laugh.

And then Miss Turner started to laugh, too.

It was girlish and foolish and likely unbecoming at their age, but Ariadne couldn’t regret the helpless giggles that consumed them both.

“I really like you, Miss Turner,” Ariadne managed through her laughter.

“Phoebe,” her new friend corrected. “Please. Call me Phoebe.”

“Phoebe,” Ariadne agreed. “And you must call me Ariadne.”

Phoebe linked her arm through Ariadne’s.

“Happily,” she said brightly. They strolled, though none too quickly, in the direction where Catherine was still having what looked like an extremely stiff conversation with Lady Fitzhugh, who wore a purple feather in her hat so broad and tall that the elderly lady seemed at risk of taking accidental flight in a strong gust of wind.

“Now that we are such good friends,” Phoebe said in a quiet voice as they walked, “you must allow me to confide that your escort the other night?” She widened her eyes emphatically. “Very nice work, mademoiselle. Very nice work, indeed.”

Ariadne ducked her head. “He is rather handsome, isn’t he?” she said quietly, thrilling at the ability to gossip like this with someone.

“I have never found a man who is worth the effort, personally,” Phoebe said. “But I understand why you might have chosen differently, given those looks.”

Ariadne blushed. “Will you blame me for getting my head a bit turned?”

“Never,” her new friend promised. “So long as you promise that we can see one another intentionally, next time.”

It was an easy bargain to make.

“I would love that,” Ariadne said, feeling it in every part of herself.