Page 43 of Duke of Wickedness (Regency Gods #4)

Because— damn it all —she cared for a very specific reason. A terrible reason. The worst, stupidest, most pathetic reason of all.

She was in love with the Duke of Wilds.

David was up to his usual tricks—which was to say, brooding and staring moonily at Ariadne—when he felt a jerk on his arm so forceful that it nearly toppled him off his feet.

David submitted to this treatment the same way he had submitted to every other thing of late: with weary resignation.

He couldn’t say whether being badgered back into Society was better or worse than sulking morosely around his house.

On one hand, he now sulked morosely around various locales in London, which had caused his once-overflowing basket of invitations to dwindle dramatically.

This was a blessing, by his accounting; he no longer had the wherewithal to decide between this ball and that musicale. Being excluded had its benefits.

On the other hand, he kept seeing Ariadne.

This was a rather mixed bag of its own. He loved seeing her.

He hated seeing her. She had become mesmerizingly popular in the last few months, and while David felt that it was only just that the pathetic gentlemen of the ton finally realized her glory, he also felt a distinct burning sensation in his stomach whenever he watched her dance with and smile at someone else.

It was probably dyspepsia, he told himself. Maybe it would kill him soon! There was a bracing thought.

There was also the problem that David was a man who prided himself on discretion. He’d made a name for himself by never revealing which ladies he had or had not seen unclothed. He had never ruined anyone. Not ever .

But if he kept staring…

“We are leaving right now,” Percy said tersely from where he had grabbed David’s arm. He hadn’t released that arm, either. Evidently, David was either accompanying his friend or remaining in this ballroom without his right arm.

While David recognized that he had not been taking particularly good care of himself of late—half his wardrobe no longer fit properly because he’d been eating so infrequently—he did still wish to remain in possession of all his limbs, which he supposed meant there was still hope for him yet.

“Very well,” he said amiably, because he’d run out of energy to fight Percy weeks ago. “Do we need to find your wife?”

Percy scoffed. This was, David would realize later, the first sign of where this conversation was going to go, but he was too short on proper sleep or decent meals to come quickly to this conclusion.

“My wife is the last person you want to see right now,” Percy said forbiddingly.

David declined to ask any questions about this statement.

He just let Percy tug him along, out of the ball, into David’s own carriage—another oddity, one about which he, similarly, did not comment.

He let his friend load him up into the carriage, drive to Bacchus House, drag him back out of the carriage, and then haul him up into the house.

Throughout all this, Percy was stonily silent.

This meant, all in all, that it was both extraordinarily surprising and really not surprising at all that, when they arrived in his study, Percy punched David straight in the gut hard enough that David found himself on the ground.

David still didn’t ask any questions—but this time, it was because he didn’t need to.

“I suppose you’ve figured it out, then,” he said, a touch breathlessly. For a proper, governmental sort, Percy could throw an impressive punch.

“I have,” Percy said tersely. “And—well, I’m not sorry about hitting you. You understand why I had to do it.”

David did. It was astonishing that he hadn’t been hit more in his life, really.

“But,” Percy went on, most of the tension going out of his form, “now that we’ve dealt with that part, we can get to fixing things.”

David blinked as Percy’s hand appeared, extended, in his line of sight. The brief hope that he’d entertained that Percy would beat him bloody—thus hopefully beating this hideous obsession right out of him—evaporated.

“What do you mean, fix things ?” David asked, taking the hand in hopes that this was a trick and he was going to get thrashed.

Percy, wretched reasonable person that he was, did not take the opportunity to sweep David’s legs out from under him. Instead, he lightly, almost affectionately, nudged David backward until he was seated in an armchair. Then he sat in the chair across from him and braced his elbows on his knees.

“So,” he said flatly. “You’re in love with Ariadne.”

The punch had been honestly less surprising.

“I’m not—” he started to protest.

“Oh, give it up,” Percy said, eyes narrowed and uncompromising. “I know you’ve had about a thousand liaisons in your day—” He paused. “—something that I am very much not thinking about in the context of my younger sister. But I have never seen you like this, which is why I hit you only one time.”

“I’m not like anything,” David tried again. He still didn’t sound convincing.

“I can hit you again if you want,” Percy offered menacingly.

David found that, when faced with the real possibility, being beaten senseless did not hold as much appeal as it did when only a hypothetical.

“Fine,” he said shortly. “I might… It is possible that I am experiencing some—some inconvenient emotions.”

“Love is never convenient,” Percy said. David flinched at the word, but when he tried to make himself object to it…

He couldn’t. The words didn’t come.

“It doesn’t matter,” sprang from his lips instead.

“That doesn’t sound correct,” Percy said, “but let’s say, for argument’s sake, that I am willing to entertain whatever nonsense you’re about to spout.”

Again, denial failed. David wasn’t entirely sorry for it, either. For as much as he valued discretion and felt confident that he was, somehow, doing Ariadne wrong by admitting anything…

God, it felt good to talk about it. It felt like an unburdening.

And besides, he felt as though he was doing Ariadne wrong merely by breathing these days, so what was on more sin added to his list? At least he knew Percy wouldn’t betray Ariadne to the gossip rags. He hadn’t even betrayed them to Catherine, at least not yet.

He flinched slightly. Catherine was going to hit him so much harder than her husband had.

“It doesn’t matter,” he reiterated. “I’m not right for her.”

Percy took a long, slow breath, like he had to actively hold back harsh words.

“I take it,” he said after a long moment, “that Ariadne is the same woman you’ve been mooning over these past few months.”

David waved a hand that he hoped signaled his admission. He might as well confess to it all, he supposed.

“Right,” Percy said. “Well. What was that last stupid thing you said? That she wanted… Freedom, was it? You do realize that Ariadne is—and has been, for several years—on the marriage mart?”

“Yes.” The word came out of David’s throat with the harshness of gravel.

Percy paused meaningfully, as if he had hoped that this point would rouse some sense in David, then sighed even more meaningfully, as if castigating himself for ever entertaining such foolish hopes.

“Right,” he said. “Well, let me put this in very simple terms, then. You love her. You are eligible. You should marry her.”

A flinch was not enough. David surged out of his chair and began pacing.

“I can’t—I can’t marry her,” he protested, feeling completely insane that he even had to say it.

“Given the circumstances,” Percy said, tracing David’s movements with his eyes, “I would be well within my rights to press the issue. Ariadne might not be my sister by blood, but I do have some vested interest in her happiness.”

David felt a flash of staggering rage at the implication.

“You think I don’t care about her happiness?” he demanded, whirling on Percy. “All I want— all I want—is for her to be happy. You were right. Are you pleased with yourself? You were right. I love her. I love her.”

He almost collapsed with the uncontrollable relief of saying it. He wanted to laugh, or possibly sob. Definitely he would have liked to have a drink or three in hand. But there was more to be said, and now that he had started, he found himself unable to stop.

“I love her,” he repeated. “And I can’t—I can’t stop .

And that’s why I can never have her. I feel—” He’d spent so long trying not to let these feelings out that he struggled to put them into words now.

“I don’t want to share her. I want all of her smiles, all of her attention.

I want her with me always . And that—that possessiveness —” He spat the word. “It’s unconscionable.”

Percy looked at him with far more patience than David deserved.

“Do you think my wife is unhappy?” he asked.

David blinked at this change in direction.

“Your—? What? No, of course not,” he said. “The two of you are appalling with one another.”

Percy nodded thoughtfully. This was, David knew, building up to something he would not like.

“And do you think I never feel possessive of her attentions? Do you think that I never feel a touch sulky because she’s off doing something else and I wish she was with me?”

His prediction was correct; David did not like this.

“That’s not the same,” he protested.

“No, it’s not,” Percy agreed, much to David’s surprise.

“My situation is entirely different, because I know that Catherine will come home to me every day. I know that she will smile at me soon enough, and that helps me remember that I am being a fool for that jealousy. And then, that night, when I lay my head down beside her, and in the following morning, when I wake up with her in my arms, I don’t feel possessive —I feel content.

Because that stupid jealousy is fleeting.

And what we’ve built together—that lasts. ”

Percy sounded so pleased that he seemed almost wistful, like he was partially envious of his own life. David still loved his friend, deep down—but that love was very deeply buried at the moment.

“How nice for you,” he said, not bothering to hide his bitterness.

Percy, in turn, didn’t hide his exasperation.

“My point, you idiot, is that you can have that . I didn’t just realize that you were panting after Ariadne tonight, you know.”

David wanted to take umbrage at panting , but he felt that he needed to reserve his argumentativeness for more important matters.

“I saw you looking at her…oh, a week ago,” Percy said. “But at first, I thought you just liked it. It wasn’t until tonight that I realized that she was the woman you’d been—” He hesitated, making a very brotherly expression of distaste. “—involved with.”

A perverse part of David wanted not to ask the question that Percy so obviously intended for him to ask, but he couldn’t resist.

“So, what happened?”

Percy smirked.

“I saw her looking back,” he said simply.

David swallowed hard. The lump in his throat remained.

He meant to deny it. He meant to say that this was another sign that he was no good for Ariadne. She shouldn’t be looking at him, after all, not when she wanted to find herself a husband, someone who would give her all the things that David couldn’t.

But instead, he asked, “What if I ruin her? What if?—”

In a flash, he thought of his mother, thought of how pale and fragile she looked on the day that he asked her—begged her—to leave with him.

Thought of that dead look in her eyes, though she would live for another decade to come.

Thought of the miserably brief flash of hope he’d held that she might actually leave, might actually choose herself.

She hadn’t. She’d stayed. And when he’d come back after his father’s death, she’d been paler. More fragile. Sadder.

“What if I dim all that brightness? What if I hurt her?”

“What if you don’t?” Percy asked gently.

“You’re not giving her very much credit, David.

Ariadne is different from when I first met her—and now that I’m looking more closely, I can see that she’s different from the way she was a few months ago.

She isn’t your mother. She isn’t unprotected.

I’ve already hit you once, and that’s… Well, if Xander got news of you hurting his sister, you wouldn’t live long enough to regret it. ”

David was far enough gone in all of this that he felt faintly grateful that Xander Lightholder would murder him if he ever hurt Ariadne. Except that wasn’t comfort enough, because in that scenario, David had already hurt her.

He couldn’t bear it. He just couldn’t.

“I can’t,” he told Percy. “I…I can’t.”

Maybe there was enough finality in his tone, or maybe his friend had finally given up on him. God only knew that David deserved it.

But Percy just sighed.

“You’re an idiot,” he said.

David laughed, but it sounded desperate.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure that I am.”