Page 21 of Duke of Wickedness (Regency Gods #4)

W hen Ariadne got home, there was a letter waiting for her.

Meet me tonight, little bird. Same place and time.

Ariadne read this several times, trying to decide if the brevity was a sign of David’s admirable sense of discretion or whether it was commanding in a way that made her blood heat inside her.

And, if she landed on the latter, was her blood heating in a way that thrilled her or in a way that annoyed her immensely?

Was there really any difference when it came to the way the Duke of Wilds made her feel?

She obviously still went . But she did, when the clock struck midnight, stick the note in her pocket.

“This,” she said, waving it in his face as she climbed into the unmarked carriage, which was once again parked around the corner from her house, waiting, “is not a useful document.”

Somewhere along the line, she realized as she thrust a scrap of parchment into a duke’s face in a dark carriage after midnight, she had let her mask drop entirely while she was around David. It had been slipping from the beginning, but now she didn’t even bother trying to hold it in place.

She wasn’t like that with anyone—not anyone outside her family, anyway.

And Phoebe. She’d let herself just be with Phoebe today, too.

It felt…strange. Not bad. Just strange.

Stranger still was that David always seemed to accept each of these real pieces of herself that she let out.

Now, for instance, he leaned back in his seat, smirking.

“I must disagree,” he said, not missing a beat. “As you are sitting here, in my carriage, with me. Just as I wanted.”

She let out an impatient breath.

“It is astonishing to me,” she said, “given your history, that you actually do not know anything about women.”

He looked properly offended at that.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Do you know how many kinds of gowns there are?” she demanded.

He opened his mouth to answer, but she held up a hand.

“Let me stop you; you do not. You might notice the things you like or don’t like about a woman’s attire, but if you can tell me the difference between a morning dress, a walking dress and a tea party dress, I shall give you one million pounds. ”

“You don’t have a million pounds,” David said.

“You don’t know the difference between those dresses,” she countered.

There was the briefest détente.

“I do not,” he allowed.

“Ha,” she said smugly.

“Why don’t you come here and I’ll tell you if you’ve worn the right attire for tonight?” he said silkily.

Ariadne was very tempted to give in to that offer, but she was too delighted to find that she was actually winning one of their little battles of wits.

“Next time, just make things clearer in the note,” she said tartly.

From his seated position, David pouted—it was annoyingly charming on his frustratingly handsome face—and then bowed.

“As my lady commands.” The words were dry, teasing, and still, they sent a sensual little rush through Ariadne. It was fun to play this role, if only for a moment—her, the commanding seductress, and not the ignorant virgin.

Their trip was much shorter this time than it had been when they’d gone to the theater; by the time Ariadne was considering giving up on her performance of hauteur and letting him inspect her dress after all, they were coming to a stop in front of the duke’s house.

An even greater frisson went through Ariadne—half anticipation, half nerves.

“Are you—are you having a party tonight?” she whispered.

David laughed; it wasn’t unkind, but he was definitely laughing at her.

“Oh, little bird, you are a delight,” he said warmly. “No, no party tonight. I am not certain that you are quite ready for that particular lesson yet, though your eagerness is to be commended.”

Ariadne wanted to protest, but then she thought of that image that she’d seen through the window that first night, the woman grinding atop the man’s lap, her head thrown back.

Yes, Ariadne had seen a fair amount of nudity that night at the theater, but that had mostly been female nudity, which frightened her much less, given that she had taken a bath before in her life and had therefore seen just about everything that the female body had to offer.

But she suspected that men would be naked at one of David’s parties. And she wasn’t quite certain how she was supposed to face seeing…that.

“I’m not eager ,” she protested absently. “But then—if there’s no party—what are we…?” She didn’t like how she stuttered over the question.

His smile was a little gentler this time.

“Tonight,” he said, “we are going to have a lesson that’s a touch more…theoretical.”

Well, wasn’t that intriguing. She practically hopped out of the carriage in her eagerness to follow him into the house, denials be damned.

David led her through the front—and goodness, it really was nice to be able to just waltz in and out of the house whenever one wanted; men really did have all the good things in this life—and straight up to the second story.

Ariadne was starting to wonder—with that same mix of nerves and desire—if theoretical was some particularly opaque code for going to bed together when David led her through a door and into…

A library?

Her feet came to a stop without her mind’s permission.

David looked at her, bemused and entertained.

“This is what stops you?” he teased. “I take you to a naughty theater and you plunge right in, but when confronted with books, you balk?”

“No,” she said, balking.

He laughed. “Come on, little bird. I have something to show you.”

He twined his fingers with hers and tugged her along.

They passed shelves of books, most of which were the kind of ancient tomes that lived in every aristocrat’s library and went untouched, and one that was haphazardly stacked and clearly well-used.

David led her past that one, too, though, and to a small room off the back of the library.

Ariadne was working herself back around to believing that theoretical was actually a secret message, and that maybe David had a special—oh, she didn’t know—some sort of secret bed in his library?

Helen’s books had made Ariadne perfectly aware that one didn’t need a bedchamber in order to engage in bed sport, but maybe a professional libertine like David liked to maximize his comfort? And convenience?

The anticipation might have been driving her a little mad. Ariadne was not so far gone that she could recognize that.

But when David pushed open that extra door in the back, it was to reveal…

More books.

Ariadne paused, looked at David, looked back at the books, then paused some more.

“Am I…missing something?” she asked.

This was clearly what he had been hoping she would ask.

“Don’t you want to see my collection?” he asked, visibly enjoying himself.

There were two kinds of traps in this world, Ariadne decided as she looked at him, practically vibrating with glee. There was the kind of trap that was best avoided, the dangerous kind, the kind that snapped shut around you and didn’t let you go.

And then there was this—the kind where you walked right in, knowing it was a trap, and not caring, because the person setting it was simply enjoying themselves so very, very much.

“I do want to see your collection,” she agreed warily.

This, she decided shortly, had been the best decision.

“Where did you get all these?” she asked as she pored over the volumes that David had laid out on the small table in the middle of the room, which appeared to have been placed there for just this purpose. “These are…definitely very illegal.”

“You sound impressed,” he observed.

“I am impressed,” she agreed. “But if the constables come knocking at your door, I know nothing and am highly disapproving.”

“I thought it possible that you would be actually disapproving,” David admitted.

“One of these days, you will learn to stop underestimating me,” she said, though there wasn’t any real censure to it. He could have said something far more insulting but she still would have been too distracted to offer any real anger.

Because these books .

Ariadne had been suitably impressed by Helen’s stash of novels, which had put their characters in highly compromising positions, even if they did occasionally use some creative metaphors to obscure the particulars.

These books…were not that.

These books were illustrated .

“How did you even get these?” she asked, her eyes glued to an image in which a man lay on top of a piano, a robust young lady kneeling atop him.

Unlike the real woman that Ariadne had witnessed at David’s party that night, this illustrated version was entirely naked, viewed from behind.

The woman’s buttocks were centered on the page, emphasizing where the man beneath her was inserting his… his manhood.

The image was made all the more shocking because neither of the partners atop the piano was responsible for this insertion. Instead, it was another woman, wearing a dress that revealed more than it concealed, whose hand was occupied in abetting this act.

The drawing was titled A music master tuning his instrument.

Ariadne tapped at the title. It was the only part of the paper that she dared touch, which was frankly ridiculous, but alas.

“A bit of an understatement, don’t you think?”

David’s laughter came from right behind her, his breath ruffling her hair.

“Just so,” he said, placing his hands on her waist in a featherlight touch. He didn’t move closer, and she didn’t lean back. The scant inches of air between them felt charged.

“This collection here,” he said, indicating the erotic drawing, “is perhaps half a century old, maybe a little more. Laws about obscenity were looser then—as was the social attitude toward such things.” He sighed wistfully. “It was a glorious time.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot you were a hundred years old,” she commented lightly, turning the page gingerly. The next image was decidedly stranger, showing an undressed young woman putting what looked like…was that a wig? And why was she putting it on her derriere?