Page 33 of Duke of Wickedness (Regency Gods #4)

T he letter was definitely odd.

You are cordially invited to a soiree at Bacchus House, by invitation only. Attire is informal; masks are required.

Then, there was a date and time.

And then, below that, a note in David’s own hand, not in the elegant calligraphy of the strangely formal invitation.

Come an hour early.

And that was it. No little bird , no flirtatious comments.

For the first time, Ariadne was tempted not to do as he asked. This time, it wasn’t because going to the party remained a bad idea, although it was still certainly that. And it wasn’t because she still feared that her emotions were a little too compromised—though they likely were.

It was because of all the mad emotions she’d had around David—and they had been many —this was the first time that she had felt mildly offended.

The note felt rude .

She went, but she did so in a bit of a huff.

“What,” she demanded, waving the note at him tartly as she barged into his study, “is this?”

“Hello, little bird,” he said from where he was lounging near an open set of veranda doors.

He was wearing another one of those charming looks, the ones that she now knew were a front, a mask as much as the things he wore at his parties.

She felt even more offended at the sight.

Did he really think she could be fooled by this facade?

Why did he even want to fool her? Hadn’t they always been clear with one another?

Wasn’t that the whole point of what they were doing with one another?

“Don’t you little bird me,” she said irritably. She planned to stay irritable, damn it all. She would not let his charm or his stupid, handsome face distract her. “What bizarre, impersonal, commanding twaddle is this?”

He winced at impersonal and cringed outright at commanding .

“I… I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right.”

Just like that, Ariadne’s anger went out like a candle that had been snuffed.

She hadn’t thought he would truly admit that he’d been wrong. But he had—easily. And he had apologized .

“Why are you like this?” she asked, throwing up her hands.

She was wearing her beautiful swan dress again.

She almost hadn’t—he didn’t deserve to see her looking so fine, not with how strangely he had been acting—but she didn’t have anything else that was suitable for the kind of parties that were thrown at Bacchus House.

“I…don’t follow,” David said slowly, rising and approaching her cautiously, like one might approach an animal suspected to be feral.

“You were so polite in the park,” she said, making it sound like the vilest oath. “And then you sent me this note.” She shook it again. “Who even wrote this?” She kept going, not letting him answer. “And then you apologize ?”

“Was I not supposed to apologize?” he asked, sounding genuinely baffled.

Ariadne let out an incoherent sound of frustration because how was she supposed to explain that it was horrible when he was distant, but worse when he was kind? How could she tell him that she was struggling to keep her feelings—feelings she was never supposed to have—under control?

But maybe David understood her. He somehow seemed to understand things about her—even when she didn’t want him to.

She gave him a helpless look, and he held out his hand.

She took it, no matter that it was not going to help the twisted-up feeling inside her.

“Come outside, little bird,” he said. “Let me show you something.”

She was helpless to do anything besides follow him.

On the veranda, there was a small table set for two, a candelabra on the middle casting a soft glow. To the side, a meal waited on another table, half a dozen or so dishes each covered by a silver dome.

“It’s a bit informal—we’ll be serving ourselves,” he said. “But I thought we could perhaps just…talk.”

“Talk,” she echoed, taking in the scene before her. It felt…romantic. Nothing in their agreement had included anything about romance.

He stood close behind her, one hand resting on her waist, and Ariadne was relieved—this, at least, was familiar ground. She couldn’t be certain whether or not she was pleased that she couldn’t see his expression—and he couldn’t see hers.

“Talk,” he agreed, his tone sounding easy enough. “I know you are still seeking a husband, and that you might want to focus on…a true partnership.”

Now, Ariadne was definitely glad he couldn’t see her face, as she needed a moment to control the flicker of a frown that crossed her face.

“But I do hope,” he continued, “that we can continue to be friends, after. And I thought maybe…” He paused, and it was the first indication he’d given that this was as hard for him as it was for her. “Maybe we could just talk to one another. Like friends. As practice.”

She closed her eyes briefly against the emotion that threatened to upend her. But she swallowed hard, and her voice was steady when she spoke.

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “That sounds nice.”

He led her to her chair, pulled out her seat and helped her into it. He went to the side table and retrieved a bottle of wine, then poured her a glass. It was all unspeakably gentlemanly, but this time, it didn’t feel like a show or a facade.

It was just nice. Oh, it hurt. It hurt quite a bit. But still. It was also nice.

“I realized recently,” David said when he sat across from her, looking hauntingly beautiful in the flickering firelight, “that I don’t know nearly as much about you as I ought to.”

She felt her lips tremble with a smile.

“You know…quite a lot of things about me that others don’t know, actually,” she reminded him.

He gave her a chiding look. “I am not talking about that, and you know it.” He paused, and the look in his eye was sincere—though perhaps that was just a trick of the firelight, of the dimness on the veranda, or the wine that was going to her head.

“I want to know you—what you want, why you want it. I just…want to know.”

The low earnestness on this last bit was a knife to her heart.

But she could not deny him.

“Right,” she said. “Well… I cannot say it is such an interesting story. You know the broad strokes of it—my family’s home was lost to fire when I was a child, and my brother inherited. I was four years old, so I remember far less than the others.”

“That doesn’t mean you weren’t affected,” David said from behind his wineglass.

“No,” she agreed. “But I had Catherine—she practically raised me, though she was scarcely more than a child herself. She and my brothers…they were my whole life.” She wrinkled her nose, trying not to sound too piteous as she went on.

“But now they’re all married. They have their own lives.

And I’m…trying to understand what that means for me. About where I fit.”

“Which is why you’re seeking a husband,” David said, as though a piece of a puzzle was clicking into place.

She chuckled. “Most unmarried young ladies are seeking husbands,” she pointed out. “They don’t necessarily have a secret reason behind it.”

“They might not,” David said reasonably. “But with you… It didn’t make sense, and now it does.”

He sounded terribly satisfied by this. This warmed Ariadne in ways that it ought not.

“Tell me about you,” she urged, feeling bashful at speaking so much about herself. “You know about my family; everyone knows about my family. What about yours?”

Even in the candlelight, she could see how his jaw tightened. There was a long enough pause that she thought he might not respond at all, but then he sighed and set down his glass.

“My father was a bastard,” he said.

She felt her face go slack with shock.

“No, not literally,” he explained. “In the long list of things that’s wrong with me—” Ariadne wanted to quibble with this, but she didn’t dare interrupt.

“—anxiety about my lineage is not part of it. But my father…” He let out a humorless chuckle.

“He did all the things you might expect of a duke. He had mistresses and dallied with actresses. And, in public, he pretended as though he was a perfect saint.”

“Ah.”

This time, Ariadne was the one who felt the puzzle coming together.

“And your mother?” she asked gently.

He looked out over the side of the veranda, his gaze distant as he stared at the garden below.

“She also pretended that he was a perfect saint,” he said quietly. “She made it absolutely clear that she saw nothing, heard nothing. No laughter, no snide comments, no gossip. And it wore her until she was…a ghost.”

“Oh, David,” she said quietly.

“For a long time, I thought everything they said was true,” he admitted. “I thought the gossip was just the usual kind of ton talk. And then I saw my father. With a woman. In my mother’s house .”

It was hard to breathe around the lump in Ariadne’s throat.

“I followed him to a brothel. I asked around. And they told me…” He wiped an arm over his face hastily, like he was trying to brush away an excess of feeling.

“They told me he was cruel. Vicious. The kind who hurt the girls who worked there and thought that it made up for it when he tossed another coin their direction.”

“Bastard,” Ariadne breathed.

David shot her a fragile smile. “Just so. I confronted him about it?—”

God, how her heart swelled at that; of course he had confronted his father. David wouldn’t let such an injustice go unaddressed, not even when he’d been a boy.

“—and he told me that he only let that side of himself out around people who didn’t matter .” The pain in his voice was obvious now. “As if I was worried about his fucking reputation and not that he—” He cut himself off, and when he spoke again, his tone was more controlled.

“So, I left.”

Ariadne blinked. “You…left?”