Page 23 of Duke of Wickedness (Regency Gods #4)

O ne of the very worst fates to befall a little sister was to learn that her elder sibling was, in fact, completely right.

But Catherine had been absolutely, profoundly, and completely right about Lord Hershire.

“Lady Ariadne!” he greeted exuberantly. He was, Ariadne decided even before she turned around, like a puppy. He was just so inescapably earnest in a way that it made it difficult to put him off.

However, just like a puppy that kept piddling on the rug, sometimes viscounts needed a strong hand, too.

Ariadne turned from the vase of flowers that she’d been casually arranging while half her mind was still on ancient Roman fertility ceremonies.

“My lord,” she said, striving to strike the right balance between suitably polite and not excessively warm. “Good morning.”

He nodded so emphatically that she wondered if she should worry about it bobbling right off his shoulders.

“It is a good morning; it really is. A fine day. The finest.”

Well, he was even more uncommonly exuberant this morning. She struggled to keep a wince from her face. It was harder than usual, as if her recent experiences away from Society’s stiff and prim rules had diminished her ability to play her proper young lady role.

She should have ended things with the viscount far before this, but she’d been distracted. She gathered her resolve.

“My lord,” she began.

But the viscount was still talking. “And I woke up this morning and thought that, given that today was such a fine day, I really ought to come by and see you.” He paused, though not long enough for Ariadne to get a word in edgewise.

“Not that I mean to mention something inappropriate, of course. My apologies.”

It took Ariadne a moment to realize that by something inappropriate , he had meant the very concept of having a bed .

If she hadn’t already been resolved to end things between them, this would have done it. It was simply a step too far. Maybe a few weeks prior, she could have looked at a man who found having a bed to be improper—although, honestly, maybe not, because it was absurd—but no longer.

She knew things now. She’d seen things.

She’d talked to a man who told her that having desires didn’t make her cheap or unworthy, a man who had said that she mattered not because she was pure or any other such nonsense, but because everyone mattered.

She knew that the viscount had his own secret desires; he had said as much from the start. He wanted a woman separate from that to put on a pedestal.

But she wasn’t truly separate from that. And she didn’t like to think about how he treated the women who he saw as less than pure.

It all painted a picture that she found…distasteful.

“My lord,” she tried again. “I really think…”

“But,” the viscount went on, apparently too wrapped up in his speech to pay her any real notice, “I suppose we shall have to find a way to talk about matters that are a little less delicate going forward, so perhaps it isn’t so uncouth of me, after all.”

“We will?” Ariadne asked. She was starting to get a bad feeling about all this, but maybe it was just nerves. She’d never sent a suitor away before, after all.

“Well yes, of course,” the viscount said. “A husband and wife must converse openly with one another about matters—within the bounds of propriety, of course.”

“A what ?” It was a yelp. Ariadne couldn’t deny it. It was nothing short of a yelp.

“These things are delicate, I know,” the viscount said, and Ariadne couldn’t tell if he was purposefully misunderstanding her or if he was a bit dense.

“But please do rest assured that it isn’t about the money.

Your dowry shall be for your especial use—well, mostly.

There are some things—but don’t fret. My estate is solvent, I assure you. ”

“My dowry?” Ariadne was descending rapidly into a full-blown panic. “No, my lord, you see, I can’t?—”

“What I am trying to say,” he went on quickly, as though overcome by nerves, barreling straight through her objection, “is that I would be most honored to make you my wife.”

It wasn’t a question. Somewhere in the back of Ariadne’s mind, she noticed that it wasn’t a question.

The rest of her, however, was shrieking refusals.

No. No, no, no.

The viscount let out a contented sigh, like he had gotten out what he needed to say, and was now entirely at his leisure.

It was that sigh that made Ariadne grow just a little bit angry. He was so certain . He was so confident that she—the demure, proper, pure little lady that she was—would do exactly what he wanted.

She didn’t let that anger out. He really wasn’t worth it.

But she did let it motivate her, let it push her forward, let it make her immovable as iron.

“My lord,” she said briskly. “I appreciate the offer. But I must decline.”

There was a silence, a cavernous, echoing silence. The viscount stared at her.

“You…what?” he asked, looking so genuinely perplexed that it was as though she’d spoken in tongues.

“I cannot marry you,” she said, which felt a bit blunt, but she didn’t want to leave room for him to mistake her meaning.

“But—” He broke off, glancing around the room, as if an answer might suddenly appear to make this all make sense. “But why?”

Ariadne might be unpracticed in duplicitousness, but that didn’t mean she was unable to tell a little white lie out of kindness.

“You have been very kind to me,” she said. He hadn’t. He’d been polite at best. “And I respect you a great deal.” She really, really did not. “But I fear we aren’t a good match.”

“But why ?” he repeated. It was practically a wail, the angry cry of a boy who was not used to being denied a treat.

“I don’t think I would really make you happy,” she said. “Not in the long run.”

Anger brewed in his expression, turning his unremarkable features into something twisted and unkind.

“You aren’t what I thought you were,” he spat. It was clear that he considered this the worst insult he could levy in her direction, but it only made Ariadne laugh.

“You are right,” she said simply. “I’m really not.”

If her refusal of his suit had discombobulated him, her failure to be cowed by his insult seemed to actually alarm him. He gave her a long, shocked look, like the entire world had turned upside down before his very eyes.

And then, without a word—or, more accurately, without seven polite platitudes about the weather or matters of propriety—he left.

Ariadne stared at the empty hallway. And then she turned back to her flowers, a grin on her face, feeling as though she was as light as air.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

David had a good life. He had a life that was the envy of three-quarters of the gentlemen of the ton , not to mention likely a fair portion of the ladies, not that they were given leeway to admit it.

He was a duke. He had his fortune—and, as Ariadne kept reminding him, the glorious freedom to do as he pleased in his own home. He had his morals, tarnished though many might consider them. But it mattered that he lived his life openly. To him, at least, it mattered.

And he had those things. He had them all.

But the night prior, he had felt…

He’d felt proud .

He hadn’t been able to name the feeling until Ariadne had said the word. They’d been finishing up their exploration; he’d kept his hands off her all night, aside from a couple of chaste caresses, and he felt so aroused that he worried that he might actually combust from it.

“You should be proud of this collection, David,” she said, smiling at him in a way that caused something in his stomach to lurch. It was a smile that didn’t want anything from him. It wasn’t a bargain or a deal or a request.

“And I’m sure you collected it because you’re—” She waved a hand up and down, encompassing all of him. “Because you’re you , but still. It’s very impressive.”

That you didn’t sting the way it would have from someone else. From anyone else, they would have been indicating the notorious Duke of Wilds, chaotic hedonist, walking scandal. And Ariadne knew about those parts; she’d never really blinked at them. By contrast, she’d always been hungry for more.

The things he had shown her tonight, though—those were the things that might repulse even some of the more open-minded people of David’s acquaintance.

Ariadne had asked to learn more.

It wasn’t merely the sensual elements, either.

She had listened while he’d talked about history, while he had explained, albeit tangentially, the places where he thought the world could be better than it was.

She’d been eager and hungry for that information, too.

She’d wanted more—more of the part of him he kept much closer to his chest.

And when she’d told him to be proud, he’d realized that that was what he’d been feeling.

Proud of her for her courage, for her curiosity. Proud of her for reaching for everything she wanted, even when the world had told her that she oughtn’t. Proud of her for not accepting less than what she deserved, which was absolutely everything.

And maybe, if he looked at himself through her eyes, he could be a tiny bit proud of himself, too.

That was a dangerous feeling. It had to be, even if he couldn’t say precisely why.

“Thank you, little bird,” he had said to her, meaning it.

And then he had hurried her out the door so quickly that he wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d been offended.

The unsettled feeling hadn’t faded, however. Instead, it had intensified.

Perhaps, he told himself, it was time to put an end to this thing. He needed to keep a clear line between what this was—a bargain to help Ariadne learn what she wanted to learn—and what it wasn’t.

Which was anything that was built to last.

Not that he even wanted that. That wasn’t who he was. That wasn’t what he was.

Ariadne might not be suited for a hypocrite like Hershire, but she hadn’t said anything that suggested that she had abandoned her plans for matrimony, either. And that meant she could never be for a man like him.

“Not,” he muttered aloud to himself, “that I want her like that.”

He knew plenty of people who wouldn’t dim Ariadne’s fire—and who wouldn’t turn up their noses at marrying her atop that. And if his stomach twisted at the idea of giving her over to someone else—someone of her choosing, of course—well, that was just another sign that it was time.

He would begin organizing a party at once. It was time for the little bird to take flight on her own—and for him to let her flutter off wherever her wings could take her.