Page 39 of Duke of Wickedness (Regency Gods #4)

T he next night, as she waited for the house to go to bed so that she could safely sneak out, Ariadne thought that maybe, just maybe, she understood why Society cautioned women against going to bed with a gentleman before they were married.

Oh, not for the nonsense about purity or bloodlines or any of that other guff.

But because it was very hard to think about anything else now that she’d started.

She’d been distracted all day. There had been three separate instances where someone in the household had needed to call her name more than once before she responded, too lost in daydreaming about the night before to pay attention to her surroundings in the least.

It was astonishingly difficult to do anything else, not when the faint ache between her thighs kept reminding her of the touch of David’s skin against hers, of the way he’d murmured into her ear, of?—

Well. She should at least try not to think of it.

She wanted to save that energy for when she was with him, after all.

It felt strange, slipping out of her house and finding her own hack; she’d grown so accustomed to having David send his carriage to wait for her on that quiet, dark corner near her home, but it was easy enough to pull the hook of her cloak far forward, obscuring her face as she hired a ride to Bacchus House.

The servants were less surprised to see her this time, she noticed with a thrill.

It felt good, that tiny thrum of belonging that came with that recognition.

She practically shivered with the anticipation as she headed up the same stairs she’d traveled the night before.

The house looked very different without all the guests and lighting that came with a party, but she liked it like this, she decided.

“Thank you,” she said politely to the kind-faced butler as he led her up to David’s study—not that she didn’t know the way by this point.

“Of course, my lady,” the man said in return. “Do let me know if you need anything.”

Ariadne offered him a gracious smile, then let herself into the study.

David was sitting at his desk, looking absently at the fire when she entered. As soon as he heard the door, he stood and faced her?—

And the cheerful eagerness that had kept Ariadne going throughout the interminable day hiccupped at the look on his face.

He didn’t look forbidding or unwelcoming. He didn’t look angry, and he did not at all seem as though she had surprised him.

Instead, he looked…resigned.

Yes, that was the word for it.

“Good evening, Ariadne,” he said, wearing a smile that was not his charming smile but which was not quite his real smile, either.

“Ah—good evening,” she said, a marked hesitation overtaking her. “Is… Should I not have come?”

“No,” he said, the word accompanied by an emphatic shake of his head. “No, of course it’s fine. Please.” He gestured to a set of armchairs. “Sit.”

Ariadne had a sudden flash of something like panic. She did not want to sit. It was not a good idea.

“David,” she said warily. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” he said in that same bizarrely neutral way. “I expected that you would come. It’s good, really. We should talk, now that our arrangement has come to an end.”

It took her a beat to really understand his words. They were spoken in the king’s English, but, for a moment, they felt foreign.

“An end,” she echoed. Her voice sounded very distant to her own ears.

The gentleness in his expression now felt rather like a punch to the gut.

“I’ve shown you all you wanted to see,” he said simply. “There’s nothing more for me to show you. That makes this a natural time for us to part ways.”

Ariadne felt her cheeks begin to burn. It was hard to put a name to what she was feeling, because really, even in her most fantastical moments, she’d never truly lost sight of the fact that this thing with David was temporary.

So, she wasn’t precisely surprised, and it wasn’t as though she felt betrayed. They’d agreed to this from the start.

At worst, she could accuse him of being a little impolitic with his timing—it wasn’t terribly tactful of him to cut ties immediately after they’d gone to bed together.

But it certainly wasn’t unfair, either. This was what they had agreed upon from the start. She kept reminding herself of that. She had to, lest the blush that flamed on her face turn into some other, more humiliating reaction.

Still, though. Every instinct inside her urged her to rebel against his dictate.

“We don’t have to,” she pointed out, pleased when her words came out level and not desperate. An absolutely awful thought occurred to her. “That is… Unless you didn’t like it?”

The derisive snort he let out was too genuine to be disbelieved.

“I assure you,” he said seriously, “that is not at all why. You were marvelous, and I sincerely hope you know that. You are marvelous,” he amended, and she remembered all the times that he’d spoken so sincerely about having respect for the people he bedded, how he loathed anyone who criticized women for seeking pleasure.

It hadn’t occurred to her that his good regard could cut like a knife.

“But,” he went on in that same awful, awful neutral way, “we are still seeking different things. You plan to marry, and I do not. We are still the same people as we were when we began.”

Ariadne was positive that that was not true, not for her, at least, but the ways in which she’d changed weren’t material right now. She did still plan to marry—eventually.

“You realize that I haven’t got some suitor waiting in the wings for the moment we are finished,” she argued. “I’m still going to Society events—you’ve seen me at Society events. You aren’t the thing that’s stopping me from finding a husband.”

It was so fast that she almost missed it, but she could have sworn that he flinched. This put another horrifying idea in her head.

“That isn’t—you don’t mean to say—do you think that I’m trying to trap you?” she stammered, aghast.

David, for his part, looked equally shocked and appalled.

“No!” he said at once. Then, a little more calmly. “No, Ariadne, of course not.” He looked away for a moment, pausing as if gathering his thoughts.

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” he said, sounding as though he meant it. “Nothing has gone wrong.” He sounded less certain about this part, and Ariadne seized upon it.

“Then why?” she asked. “Why shouldn’t we keep enjoying ourselves? I… I have had the most wonderful time with you, and I can’t imagine finding someone else whom I trust more.”

It seemed to cost him to keep looking at her, and suddenly, Ariadne began to feel very small and very, very pathetic.

Because no, she couldn’t find another man like David, someone whom she could trust to show her all the things she remained curious about, someone whom she could rely upon to remain discreet, someone whom she knew would not judge her.

But he could find plenty more women like her. He could find plenty of curious women who had questions they wanted answered. He could find confident women who had experience, who had practice in all the things that Ariadne didn’t. He could have whomever he wanted.

But not her. There was one person she wanted, and she could not have him.

The unfairness of it all burned, and a very distant part of her realized that this turn toward anger was a defense against hurt, but she welcomed it anyway, because no matter what, she would not cry while he could see her.

“It’s for the best, Ariadne,” he said, looking regretful but immovable. “The longer things like this go on, the more complicated they become. It wouldn’t be fair to take the risk—not to either of us, but especially to you. It’s better that we just walk away before…”

He trailed off; it was the first moment of uncertainty he’d shown all evening, and Ariadne had the gutting realization that it was because he needed to stop himself from saying something insulting.

Before you become too involved, he might have said.

Or, before you forget that this was all just a fun diversion for me.

He was trying to be kind, and while part of her was grateful, part of her hated him for it.

It would be easier to walk away if he was cruel about it—but at the same time, she knew that easier wasn’t the same as better .

Not for her, most likely, and certainly not for David, who had admitted with such sincerity that he just wanted to be better than his awful father, that he wanted to be honest and open and good.

And he was . He was all that. She appreciated it, appreciated that it had to be hard for him, appreciated that he could so easily have just refused to see her or could have been unkind.

It wasn’t as though she had any recourse; she couldn’t do anything to slander him for unkindness that wouldn’t hit her ten times as viciously.

But he was being patient and gentle because he could. Because it was important to him.

But God. God . It hurt.

“I suppose I can’t change your mind,” she said. She sounded sad about it, but she was sad, and that was better than revealing the awful part of her that wanted to shake him, wanted to rant and rave and scream that things had been good between them, why couldn’t he just let them stay good?

“This is for the best,” he repeated. This time, he sounded as stiff as an automaton, like the repetition was difficult—or perhaps, she thought less generously, like he was simply sick of her and running out of patience.

“I see,” she said, because she feared that if she tried to get anything else past her lips, she would burst into tears, and truly, she would throw herself out the window before she allowed that. She was not a shrinking wallflower—at least not anymore. And she would not regret these past weeks.

They were hers . The memories were hers. The knowledge—hers. He couldn’t take that from her.

“Well,” she said crisply when the silence between them stretched for an unbearable length of time. “I suppose that’s all there is to say, then. Good evening, Your Grace.”