Page 6 of Duke of Wickedness (Regency Gods #4)

“ W hat the hell were you thinking, Ariadne Lightholder?”

“What was that, sweetheart?”

Ariadne jerked as her sister- by marriage, Helen, spoke up in response to Ariadne’s muttered self-castigation. Goodness. She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she’d practically forgotten that Helen was even there.

“Oh, nothing,” Ariadne said, shaking herself out of her surprise. “Just reminding the heroine in my novel to use a single ounce of good sense.”

She raised the book in her hand, which was more prop than pastime. Ariadne had ostensibly been reading for three quarters of an hour now, but she’d only made it about three pages in—and she frankly wasn’t even certain what had happened on those three pages.

All because her head was filled with the Duke of Wilds and the incomprehensible, staggering idiocy of her actions the night before.

What had she been thinking ?

Except that was the problem—she hadn’t been thinking, not really. She’d been reacting, letting the duke’s curious little hints about unsavory matters drive her to distraction, until she let herself be played for an utter fool.

“Oh, they never do,” Helen said with a laugh, poking a bit listlessly at her embroidery.

She was about as productive as Ariadne that morning; apparently, Cornelia had been up half the night and had positively refused to be comforted by anyone other than her mother.

“Those poor girls are always doing the stupidest things. But I suppose that’s what makes reading about it fun, isn’t it? ”

Ariadne looked at the frontispiece of the book, where the heroine—whose name was Purity, just in case readers dared misunderstand her role in the text—was fleeing a castle, which managed to look foreboding even drawn in simple black and white lines.

Ariadne tried not to draw comparisons between Purity’s flight and her own abashed retreat from Bacchus House the night before.

“Yes, I suppose so,” she murmured to Helen.

Part of the problem was that it was all too easy to compare the Duke of Wilds to one of the seductive, alluring hero-cum-villains of a gothic novel. He was the kind of man who drew you in, even when you knew you ought to stay far, far away.

She had very nearly let him kiss her last night.

No, it was worse than that—she would have let him kiss her, but he had been the one to pull away. He had been the one to put a stop to things, even though she had had a hundred—no, a thousand —reasons to withdraw before she had.

How mortifying.

“Just be glad we aren’t like them,” Helen went on with a tired laugh. “Although, I suppose I had my adventures back when I first met your brother.”

“Please,” Ariadne said. “I am begging you not to tell me any of them.”

A gleam of mischief lit Helen’s eye. “All I will say is this: Edwards—” This was the Lightholder butler, a positive institution in the family. “—is very understanding about women creeping into the house at all hours.”

Ariadne playfully covered her ears. “I said begging, Helen. Please. No more. Have mercy.”

Helen laughed. “Fret not, little sister. I am now an old, weary mother, far too exhausted for antics of any kind.”

This was patently false; Ariadne had walked in on her brother kissing his bride passionately, not two days past. It had reinforced her desire to marry and live elsewhere posthaste.

“I’m sure you are,” Ariadne said dryly, which only made Helen laugh again.

For all her protestations about not wanting to hear about romantic exploits where her family was involved, Ariadne found herself regretting Helen’s silence when they lapsed back into a comfortable quiet.

Or, rather, it was comfortable everywhere except inside Ariadne’s head.

Just… why did it have to be the Duke of Wilds?

She hated to admit it, but he’d likely been right about her being too na?ve, too sheltered, too innocent for whatever debauchery was going on inside his home, the kind of impropriety that demanded that one cover every window on the vast Mayfair townhouse.

If she was going to banter and flirt with a rake, she couldn’t have started with one of the lesser ones? No, she’d had to go for their king himself.

Not that I’m planning on flirting with rakes, she reminded herself. I have a plan. I am going to follow the plan.

“How is your Season going, by the by, love?” Helen asked, peering down at her embroidery as if it had offended her. “I’m sorry that Xander and I haven’t been available much; poor Cordy seems to be getting all her teeth at once, and it has turned her into a proper wee beastie.”

Ariadne smiled at the fondness that undercut the insult in the words, made all the more charming by Helen’s heavy Northern accent.

“Don’t worry about that for one moment,” she told Helen. “I am quite all right as I am. Catherine and Percy have been wonderful chaperones when I need them, and Jason and Patricia are happy enough to come out every now and again.”

Helen smiled at the mention of her younger sister, who had married Ariadne’s brother, Jason. They had both been young, so their union had come as a surprise, but three years into their marriage, the pair still looked at one another with the besotted eyes of newlyweds.

“Still,” Helen said. “We will come join you one of these evenings. I promise. Have any gentlemen caught your eye yet?”

She had a gleam in her eye that suggested a friendly hunger for gossip.

“Don’t look so excited,” Ariadne chided with a laugh. “There are some potential men, but I haven’t set my cap at anyone just yet.”

Helen pouted. “Not anyone? You can’t even tell me about one person?”

In a flash that suggested that the previous evening’s temporary madness might have some lingering effects, Ariadne thought of the Duke of Wilds, with his bronze hair and his wicked eyes.

“Lord Hershire,” she said instead. “He mentioned something yesterday about possibly coming to call upon me.”

Helen frowned thoughtfully.

“I don’t think I know him,” she said. “Or perhaps my brain just isn’t working because I haven’t slept in a hundred years. I’ll ask Xander.”

“Do not ask Xander,” Ariadne said at once. “He will get all big brotherly about it and drive us both mad. Leave that until there’s someone worth actually looking into.”

Helen wobbled her head, weighing the wisdom of this logic.

“Oh, I suppose you’re right,” she said. “Fine. I will not send him off on an investigative mission just yet.”

“You’re my favorite sister; don’t tell Catherine.”

Helen tsk ed. “I can really only keep one Lightholder secret at once, darling, so I think I will have to gloat about that one extensively, sorry to say.”

“I accept this as my due,” Ariadne said solemnly.

This conversation left Ariadne feeling slightly— slightly— better about things. She had just turned back to Purity and her misadventures when Edwards, the butler, knocked politely at the entrance to the parlor.

“The Duke of Wilds to see Lady Ariadne,” he said somberly.

“The Duke of--?”

It was Helen who yelped in shock, though she quickly cut off the exclamation. And yet Ariadne could not have expressed the panic that surged through her more perfectly if she had tried.

This was bad. This was very bad. This was very, very, very bad.

There weren’t enough very s in the world, honestly.

What was he doing here? Had someone seen her at his house? Goodness, how could she have been so stupid ? Why hadn’t it been in the gossip rags this morning? God help her, her entire plan had been predicated on not being a problem for her family, and now she was a disaster. A catastrophe .

Given all the noise in her mind, Ariadne was rather pleased with herself when her voice came out levelly.

“Oh?” she asked. “How surprising.”

Helen—whom Ariadne loved, despite her expression in this moment—looked as though Michaelmas had come early.

“Indeed, it is surprising,” she said gleefully. “Do show him in, Edwards.”

“Helen!”

It was too late, however. Edwards’ loyalty hierarchy was very clear, and Helen came in a close second after Catherine.

Ariadne was about tied with Xander, which had been a real drop for her, but the butler credited Xander with having the good sense to marry Helen, and Ariadne could hardly argue with the man’s sense of priorities.

Helen was a breath of fresh air around this place.

Still, it would have been nice, just this once, to be able to gainsay the duchess. It would have been nice to have a moment to collect herself—or figure out a way to send the duke away without speaking to him while still finding out what he knew and why he was here.

That was probably too much to hope for, even without her beloved sister by marriage’s interference.

“Your Grace, how good to see you.”

To Ariadne’s horror, just the sound of his voice sent a shiver down her spine. The sight of him, alas, did not help matters.

He should have looked less handsome in the daylight. Shadows were forgiving, but the light of day was meant to be harsh.

Yet it seemed to only illuminate all the ways the duke was lovely.

God, it was unfair.

“And you, as well,” Helen said brightly. “Has it been since Catherine’s wedding? That seems ages ago now.”

“And yet time hasn’t touched you in the least,” the Duke of Wilds said, bowing graciously over Helen’s hand. Ariadne struggled not to roll her eyes even as Helen, who was madly in love with her own husband, blushed slightly.

This man’s charm was a weapon. Someone should alert the military; if they could bottle it up and deploy it against the French, they’d never have another war again.

“You are a liar, but a good one,” Helen retorted.

“Ah, well.” The duke did a good impression of being bashful.

Ariadne would wager every penny of her pin money that the Duke of Wilds had never been bashful a day in his life.

“Good enough, you think,” he went on, “to steal a moment with your sister?”