Page 51 of Duke of Wickedness

She should have ended things with the viscount far before this, but she’d been distracted. She gathered her resolve.

“My lord,” she began.

But the viscount was still talking. “And I woke up this morning and thought that, given that today was such a fine day, I really ought to come by and see you.” He paused, though not long enough for Ariadne to get a word in edgewise. “Not that I mean to mention something inappropriate, of course. My apologies.”

It took Ariadne a moment to realize that bysomething inappropriate, he had meantthe very concept of having a bed.

If she hadn’t already been resolved to end things between them, this would have done it. It was simply a step too far. Maybe a fewweeks prior, she could have looked at a man who foundhaving a bedto be improper—although, honestly, maybe not, because itwasabsurd—but no longer.

She knew things now. She’d seen things.

She’d talked to a man who told her that having desires didn’t make her cheap or unworthy, a man who had said that she mattered not because she waspureor any other such nonsense, but because everyone mattered.

She knew that the viscount had his own secret desires; he had said as much from the start. He wanted a woman separate from that to put on a pedestal.

But she wasn’t truly separate from that. And she didn’t like to think about how he treated the women who he saw as less than pure.

It all painted a picture that she found…distasteful.

“My lord,” she tried again. “I really think…”

“But,” the viscount went on, apparently too wrapped up in his speech to pay her any real notice, “I suppose we shall have to find a way to talk about matters that are a little less delicate going forward, so perhaps it isn’t so uncouth of me, after all.”

“We will?” Ariadne asked. She was starting to get a bad feeling about all this, but maybe it was just nerves. She’d never sent a suitor away before, after all.

“Well yes, of course,” the viscount said. “A husband and wife must converse openly with one another about matters—within the bounds of propriety, of course.”

“Awhat?” It was a yelp. Ariadne couldn’t deny it. It was nothing short of a yelp.

“These things are delicate, I know,” the viscount said, and Ariadne couldn’t tell if he was purposefully misunderstanding her or if he was a bit dense. “But please do rest assured that it isn’t about the money. Your dowry shall be for your especial use—well, mostly. There are some things—but don’t fret. My estate is solvent, I assure you.”

“My dowry?” Ariadne was descending rapidly into a full-blown panic. “No, my lord, you see, I can’t?—”

“What I am trying to say,” he went on quickly, as though overcome by nerves, barreling straight through her objection, “is that I would be most honored to make you my wife.”

It wasn’t a question. Somewhere in the back of Ariadne’s mind, she noticed that it wasn’t a question.

The rest of her, however, was shrieking refusals.

No. No, no, no.

The viscount let out a contented sigh, like he had gotten out what he needed to say, and was now entirely at his leisure.

It was that sigh that made Ariadne grow just a little bit angry. He was socertain. He was so confident that she—the demure, proper,purelittle lady that she was—would do exactly what he wanted.

She didn’t let that anger out. He really wasn’t worth it.

But she did let it motivate her, let it push her forward, let it make her immovable as iron.

“My lord,” she said briskly. “I appreciate the offer. But I must decline.”

There was a silence, a cavernous, echoing silence. The viscount stared at her.

“You…what?” he asked, looking so genuinely perplexed that it was as though she’d spoken in tongues.

“I cannot marry you,” she said, which felt a bit blunt, but she didn’t want to leave room for him to mistake her meaning.

“But—” He broke off, glancing around the room, as if an answer might suddenly appear to make this all make sense. “But why?”