Page 106 of Duke of Wickedness

Ariadne decided to accept this with aplomb, however. It was her wedding day. Nothing would distract her from her happiness.

Xander had gotten his way in the matter of the special license—or, rather, Ariadne had let him continue to think that it was all his idea, when, really, she’d been as eager to marry David as quickly as possible as Xander had been to see her safely married.

Part of Ariadne had worried that the rush might cause David some distress—he was so wonderfully determined to always do the right thing, after all—but he had shaken his head, dismissing her fears with that heart-stopping, beautiful grin of his.

He had been grinning an awful lot since they had declared themselves to one another. She loved it.

“The sooner we are wed, the better,” he said, demonstrating yet another way in which they were in perfect accord with one another.

“Peoplewilltalk,” she cautioned him.

But he’d just grinned again. “Indeed, they will,” he said proudly. “They’ll say ‘Oh, that Ariadne Lightholder must be something special, to finally pin down that reckless ne’er-do-well of a man.’ And they’ll be right, except for the fact that you’ll be Ariadne Nightingale, and I’ll be the luckiest husband in London.”

They had held this conversation at Catherine and Percy’s house, as Catherine was determined to squeeze in as many last-minute chaperoning opportunities as possible, and Ariadne lacked the heart to deny her.

“I take umbrage at that,” Percy said mildly from across the room. “I consider myself rather lucky, indeed.”

David had made a rude gesture at his friend, which made Percy scoff.

“Ariadne,” he said, turning to his sister by marriage, “let me tell you this: you are about to marry a liar. Because David will tell you that he did not arrange for me to meet Catherine?—”

“No, I did,” David said.

Percy had fallen silent and stared for several long moments.

“I…beg your pardon,” he had said, startled into politeness.

“I did it,” David allowed. “I invited Ariadne to the party, but I really did it to get Catherine there—apologies, my darling,” he added in an aside to Ariadne. “I didn’t know you yet.”

“That’s quite all right,” she reassured him, absolutely enthralled by this exchange.

“But I’d met Catherine at a party and thought the two of you might suit.” David shrugged, then took a sip of whisky. “I was right.”

“But—” Percy stammered. “But—but you’ve denied it. For years.”

David shrugged again. “I did that to annoy you,” he admitted easily.

“But now you justadmit it?” Percy sounded outraged.

A third shrug. “Well, this time you wanted me to deny it. So I confessed. This, alas, was also to annoy you.”

Percy sputtered, stared, then rose to his feet.

“Catherine?” he called, sounding a touch desperate as he ventured deeper into the house, seeking his wife. “Catherine, you will notbelievewhat David has just admitted!”

Ariadne giggled as Percy departed.

“Do you realize that the two of you will be brothers in truth after the wedding?” she asked.

David’s eyes went wide with wonder. “Oh, no, I hadnotthought of that,” she said gleefully. “Oh, the possibilities…they simply boggle the mind.”

And though Percy had spent the rest of the evening furiously cross with David, he had, in true brotherly fashion, entirely forgotten the slight when it came time to stand up at the altar for his oldest friend.

Xander had also, in a vaguely threatening manner, insisted that he, too, would stand up for David.

“I think he’s starting to like me,” David had said. Ariadne suspected that this was correct, just as she suspected that David didn’t truly believe it.

“I just can’t believe our little Ariadne is going to be married,” Helen sniffed now, dabbing at her eyes.