Page 2 of Duke of Wickedness

“I am quite certain,” Ariadne told her sister honestly. “Enjoy your day. We shall go shopping another day.”

“Tomorrow,” Catherine said firmly.

“Tomorrow,” Ariadne agreed.

Thank you, Percy mouthed to Ariadne before pressing a loving kiss to the top of his wife’s head.

Ariadne gave him a covert nod, then quickly bussed her sister on the cheek.

“See you later,” she told the couple, who had already returned to looking at one another with more adoration than Ariadne could stomach.

“I love you, darling,” Catherine called absently over her shoulder.

Again, Ariadne’s smile came easily.

“I love you, as well,” she said, meaning it.

That was the crux of it, she thought as she got back into the carriage that would take her home, which was to say, back to her brother’s house. She loved her siblings. She wanted them to be happy. That was why she’d made her decision to have this Season be the one where she found her match, where she beganher own life. This would be the year that Ariadne set her family free to pursue their own happiness without worrying about her.

No matter who she had to become in order to make it happen.

CHAPTER 1

“If you will forgive me for making personal observations, you are a very proper and polite young lady, Lady Ariadne.”

Ariadne, accordingly, gave a very proper and polite smile to George Stunton, Viscount Hershire. She sipped the ratafia that he had fetched her after they had danced together earlier. It was too sweet, but, then again, ratafia always was.

Besides, Ariadne had long since learned that having a drink in her hand was a useful prop in Society ballrooms. It allowed her to pause in conversation in a socially acceptable way and provided her with an excuse to not be dancing without suggesting that she was standing aside because she had not been able to secure herself a dance partner.

It was all part of her strategy. And the Season was all about strategy.

She gave Lord Hershire a winsome but demure smile.

“I shall find a way to abide the compliment, my lord,” she said, just teasing enough that she couldn’t be called dull, not so teasing that she would be considered sarcastic. “Thank you.”

“Well said, my lady,” the viscount said with more of a chuckle than her words warranted. “Are you enjoying the ratafia?”

“Oh, yes,” Ariadne said, taking another sip, not even wincing at the sickly sweetness. “Thank you so much for getting it for me.”

The viscount puffed his chest, clearly pleased.

And, as boring as this conversation was, Ariadne felt a flicker of pleasure, too. Her plan wasworking.

Ariadne had spent her first Season struggling to find her place amongst the frantic pace, the strange balance between the unspoken competition and the professed camaraderie, and—God help her—the long, long,longnights.

Ariadne had always been a night owl, but even she had been exhausted by night after night when she’d been expected to dance until dawn.

It wasn’tnatural. Humans were meant to see thesun.

The viscount coughed a touch awkwardly. “I do not wish to seem, ah, indelicate, Lady Ariadne, but there is something I wish to say to you.”

“Oh?” Ariadne kept her tone intentionally light, making sure the sound was noncommittal. She didn’tthinkthe viscount was trying to trick her; he didn’t seem the type. But still. Best to be cautious.

She had learned this lesson when her first Season had brought her nothing but misery. No proposals. Not even a serious suitor.

So, she had spent the second Season watching. Listening. Planning.

What she had learned was this: she didn’t need to find her place within Society. If she tried that, she would be searching for decades. Instead, she had to become what Society demanded of its unmarried young women.