Page 4 of Duke of Wickedness
After receiving Ariadne’s approval, Catherine smiled kindly at the man. “I quite agree with you, my lord. Would you forgive me, in turn, if I steal her back?”
“Of course,” the viscount said affably. He bowed over Ariadne’s hand. It was a touch too obsequious, that bow, but not egregiously so.
If Ariadne wrote off everyone who was made nervous by the Lightholder name, she would never find anyone to talk to. She gave him as sincere a smile as she could manage as he drifted into the ballroom’s bustle.
Catherine looped her arm through her younger sister’s.
“A potential suitor?” she asked lightly as she and Ariadne moved through the throngs of well-dressed members of theton.
Ariadne recognized the careful lack of judgment in her sister’s voice and bit back a chuckle.
“Yes, possibly,” she told her sister. “He seems amiable enough.”
This was true, even if it implied that Ariadne wasslightlymore interested in the viscount than she actually was.Unobjectionablemight have been a better word thanamiable.
But Catherine, bless her, had transformed from a woman contented with anticipating spinsterhood to one who was blissfully happy in her marriage. Her desires for her sister had likewise shifted. No longer did Catherine hope for a merelygoodmatch for Ariadne. She wanted Ariadne to be as happy as she was.
And while Ariadne wouldn’t say no to love and joy and all that nonsense, she didn’t see it as a particularly likely outcome, either.
The one time she had said as much to Helen, her sister by marriage, however, Helen had looked at her as though Ariadne had suggested she resign herself to marriage with a murderer.
A murderer who killed dogs. Or kittens. Or sweet, fluffy little bunny rabbits.
“But Ari,” she’d gasped. “Don’t you want to fall inlove?”
Ariadne had learned a valuable lesson that day: people who were in love needed managing from the rest of the world, as that love had made them—and she said this with affection—idiots.
Kind, well-meaning idiots, but still.
Indeed, Catherine looked as though the word tasted disgusting as she echoed, “Amiable. Right.”
Ariadne laughed. She didn’t often deploy her Society mask against her siblings—they knew her too well to be fooled by it very frequently, for one, and for another, Ariadne didn’t wish to have such a barrier between herself and the people she loved best—but sometimes it was warranted.
“You needn’t look so pained, Kitty,” she admonished. “I am not rushing off to the altar tomorrow. I shall do my due diligence—and that’sifthe courtship goes anywhere.”
Ariadne was fairly certain, given the viscount’s comments, that it would, but that wasn’t her point at the moment. “I shall askabout his reputation, get to know him—you do realize that not all of us go off to a house party and immediately attach ourselves to one of the people there,” she added teasingly.
Catherine shot her little sister a look at this not-so-veiled reference to how she and Percy had come to know one another.
“I wouldn’t say it was immediate,” she sniffed, making Ariadne laugh even harder.
“No?”
Ariadne tugged Catherine ahead; they were only a few paces from Percy by this point, approaching where he stood with his friend, David Nightingale, Duke of Wilds. This was rather perfect, actually, as the Duke of Wilds had been the host of that fated house party.
“Percy,” she called before Catherine could say anything—or use that stealthy mental communication that Ariadne’s married siblings had all seemed to develop with their spouses. “How long did it take you to fall in love with Catherine after you met her?”
Percy, who always looked as though he was poised to dash off somewhere, turned at the sound of Ariadne’s voice—but it wasn’t until he saw his wife that that chaotic energy inside him seemed to subside, a soul-deep peace taking its place.
“How long did it take me to love her, or how long did it take me to admit it?” he asked, entirely unbothered by the admission of his feelings.
“That question actually makes my point far better than any answer could,” Ariadne told him sweetly, shooting Catherine a knowing smile. Her sister rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.
“Ariadne is trying to convince me of the merits of a slow courtship,” Catherine explained to her husband and his friends. “I, apparently, have not shown myself to be particular to that method.”
“We were perfectly reasonable about it,” Percy said to his wife reassuringly.
“No, you weren’t.” This came from both Ariadne and the Duke of Wilds, who looked at one another in amused surprise upon finding themselves so effortlessly in agreement.
