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

“ I ’m terribly sorry for the wait, my lady,” the coachman said to Ariadne as he hopped down from the driver’s box.

“Not at all,” she assured the man.

Ariadne knew that hostesses desired for their balls to be a dreadful crush, so that the gossip pages would write about how popular and successful the evening had been, but it did make for quite the crowd when people tried to leave.

The poor coachman had had a devil of a time trying to pull the carriage around.

Ariadne had struggled not to shiver as she’d waited; spring had come to the daytime, but the evenings had not yet gotten the message, it seemed, that this meant it ought to be cool and pleasant instead of chilly and damp.

Standing alone had made the waiting all the more challenging. Percy and Catherine had offered to retrieve her from home, since they’d been attending together, but Ariadne had brushed off the suggestion when they’d made it earlier in the week.

Xander and Helen had been scheduled to spend the evening at home with their daughter, Cornelia, so the carriage was free. It simply made more sense for Ariadne to meet them at the ball, rather than sending her sister and brother by marriage on an extra voyage through Mayfair’s busy streets.

She’d made that decision based on pragmatism.

She hadn’t considered that doing so would remind her that she was just a bit lonely—that maybe her desire to find a husband this Season wasn’t exclusively about wanting to be out of her siblings’ way as they started their lives and their marriages.

In the cold, misty night, she had to admit that maybe, just maybe, she wanted something that was just hers.

She would later blame this loneliness for the absolutely madcap idea that seized her next.

She was just about to let the coachman hand her up into Xander’s carriage when something caught her eye.

No, not something.

Someone.

The Duke of Wilds, lamplight glinting off that hair that, though technically brown, had just enough burnished color that it seemed to gleam an illuminated bronze.

His words came back to her.

I will see Hershire at…an event we are both scheduled to attend.

Now that she thought about it, that had been mysterious and evasive, hadn’t it? And, to be certain, that could have been because flirtation came as naturally to the duke as breathing. But something about the vagueness of that event piqued her curiosity.

“John,” she said slowly to the coachman, “do you see that carriage up there?”

Pointing was technically less efficient than saying “that carriage with the Duke of Wilds’ crest on it,” but if she dared say the man’s name aloud, Ariadne feared she would be overcome with the folly of what she was about to do.

“Ah, yes, my lady?”

“Follow it,” she ordered—and then quickly entered the carriage and pulled the door shut behind her before she could think better of the request.

John Coachman hesitated only for a moment before Ariadne heard him mount back up into the driver’s box, then click softly to the horses to guide them back out onto the street.

She didn’t dare look out the carriage windows as they clattered along.

“You are being a lunatic, Ariadne Lightholder,” she told herself, trying to imagine what advice Catherine would give her—and not the Catherine who was desperately in love, but the past version of her sister, the one who had made such sensible arguments as why marmalade does not belong on one’s hair or I promise you, one day you will be thankful that you learned how to do sums, even if practicing them is boring.

“Following a man’s carriage to an unknown location is very foolish,” she told herself, her voice lacking conviction. “He could be going anywhere. He could be leaving London! He could be going to visit his great aunt.”

She admitted that this last option seemed a touch unlikely, in fairness.

In the end, all her wild guesswork proved incorrect, as they did not pull up in front of a house of ill repute or a pub in a more dangerous neighborhood in the city or even at another raucous ballroom.

Instead, when the carriage finally stopped and Ariadne chanced a look outside, she saw that they were…at Bacchus House. The Duke of Wilds’ home.

Puzzled, she ran back through the duke’s comments in her mind. He had said the mysterious ‘event’ was that evening, hadn’t he? Had he needed to retrieve something from home first, perhaps?

Her musing—and her wondering if this wasn’t a sign that she, too, should just go home —was cut short when the front door to the house opened, emitting a warm glow that enveloped the couple that emerged, heads bent together conspiratorially.

The door shut behind them, the light vanishing and letting the couple disappear into the dark.

Ariadne blinked. There were clearly lights inside, but no illumination came through the windows.

What on earth was going on here?

The coachman opened her door, extreme doubt written across his features. Ariadne was going to have to dig deep into her pin money to bribe him against telling her brother about this, wasn’t she?

“Are you certain that this is where you want to be, my lady?” he asked, voice concerned.

Ariadne was not certain, but she was determined.

She didn’t know what was happening, but she intended to find out—especially if Lord Hershire might be here.

It was all well and good for a man to want to protect his wife, but if the viscount needed something that a bride could not provide, it was her duty to at least learn what that thing was , wasn’t it?

Even inside her own head, the logic seemed a bit thin.

“I am,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “Do wait here, if you please.”

His expression said that he didn’t please, not at all, and Ariadne added a few coins to her mental tally of the necessary bribe. The coachman was far too well-trained to say anything, however. He handed her down from the carriage with a long-suffering air.

She threw back her shoulders and approached the door, trying for all the world to look like she belonged.

“Well, hello there, little bird.”

Ariadne, to her horror, let out a yelp like she’d been pinched at the sound of a low, silky voice coming out of the darkness.

She whirled, her hands pressed to her mouth in a mortifying display of missishness, only to find the Duke of Wilds looking at her, a sly smile on his face.

“Do not sneak up on me like that!” she demanded on a breathless exhale.

The duke arched an eyebrow, which—well, yes, that was fair.

“Can I truly sneak up on a person who is trying to infiltrate my home?” he asked lightly, humor barely contained. “Can I sneak up on a sneak? A question for the philosophers, perhaps.”

Ariadne had kept her blush at bay in the ballroom, but now, she couldn’t hold it back. At least the darkness was there to hide some of it, she reasoned.

“I wasn’t trying to infiltrate ,” she protested.

“No?” It was too hazy out for any proper moonlight to shine through the clouds, but somehow, every beam that snuck through seemed to land directly on the sharp angles of the duke’s face.

It should have made him look too extreme, grotesque, even.

But, to Ariadne’s great annoyance, it made him look even more beautiful.

It was frankly outrageous.

“No,” she said, forcing herself to look him in the eye. She was a Lightholder, damn it! She would not be cowed by any man, not even a beautiful, infamous duke who had caught her doing something less than proper.”

"No,” he echoed, taking a step closer. She fought the urge to retreat. “You found yourself at my house entirely by accident, then? How dreadful. You have gotten very turned about, in that case, little bird.”

Her cheeks blazed hotter. “Don’t call me that,” she said. “And I…Oh, fine! I was curious.” She raised her chin defiantly. There was absolutely no proper reason for her to be here; she could see no way to feign her way out of this one. She would have to brazen it out instead.

Dark shadows striped across the duke’s face as he took another lazy step forward. Ariadne was so hungry to see whatever was hidden in his expression that she nearly leaned in toward him before she caught herself.

“Curiosity is a dangerous thing,” he said.

“I just wanted to see,” she said, hating that it came out a little defensive. “I just wanted to know.”

The duke’s dark laugh sent a shiver down her spine, though not one that she found unpleasant. Instead, she had the immediate sense that she would like to feel that kind of shivery feeling again.

“There is nothing here for you, little bird,” he said. “Nothing that you need to see here.”

“I told you to stop calling me that,” she protested. He stepped forward again. “And it isn’t up to you what I do or do not see.”

Another step. Even in the dim light, she could now see the gleam of challenge in his hazel eyes.

“I think,” he said, voice low, “that you will find that it is up to me what you do or do not see in my own house. Just as it is up to me what I call you— little bird .”

The last words came out lilting, mocking. Ariadne wanted to be furious about that, but instead she felt hot. Her stays were suddenly too tight.

Part of her wasn’t even certain why she was pushing so hard about this. It would have been far wiser to scurry along back to her carriage, to return home and to pray that the duke never mentioned this to Percy. But there was another part—a stronger, louder, more determined part—that needed to know.

“I won’t tell anyone about it,” she breathed. “I—whatever is going on in there. I won’t interfere. I won’t ruin it.”

The duke had crept forward so slowly, so purposefully, that she had scarcely realized that he was within arm’s distance until he grabbed her swiftly around the waist, turning her so that he was between her and the door.

They were pressed together in an instant, her hands to his chest, his arm wrapped securely around her, his face mere inches from hers.

“No,” he told her. “But we might ruin you .”