Page 50 of Duke of Wickedness
He bit his lip slightly. “More like impure coincidence, I would say.”
David edged in next to her. When they stood side by side, she couldn’t quite see his expression, but she could somehow practicallyfeelhis smile.
“In any case, this is the one I find the most fascinating,” he said, flipping another page to an image that made Ariadne’s heart stop in her throat.
There had been more than two people in many of the other images, so it wasn’t just the numbers that were alluring.
No, it was that the people in the image were nearly all men. And they were all focused on the one woman, who lounged in the middle of the page, luxuriating in the many hands that caressed her arms, her legs, her breasts…
And her stomach was rounded with pregnancy.
“I find that many of my contemporaries put women into distinct categories,” he says. “They act as though women are either wives and mothersorthey are the women with whom we seek pleasure—actresses, courtesans, the women of the demimonde.”
He chuckled mirthlessly. “They hold that these two categories are entirely separate—must be entirely separate—even when it completely disregards any logic about how wivesbecomemothers in the first place.”
She thought, for just a flash, about Lord Hershire, about his desire for apurewife, how he thought that so-called puritywould makehimbetter than he was. It was easy to see how men might be tempted into making this stark division if they told themselves that they were the ones who would benefit, when they were the ones who didn’t pay the cost.
“Or how demimondaines end up being born,” Ariadne added, eyes gazing over the worshipful look on the face of a man who was kissing the inside of the central woman’s wrist.
“Precisely,” David agreed. “They may say that such thoughts are to protect ladies, as if being desired makes you cheap. As if courtesans and actresses don’t need protection. As if keeping these things separate isn’t just condescension and cruelty in another name.”
Ariadne looked up at him, slightly surprised by the vehemence in his tone. The hint of bitterness there.
But, for the first time all evening, David wasn’t meeting her eye, and so she didn’t press. She just let him talk.
“Our antecedents didn’t hold with such ideas. They knew that a woman lost to her pleasure was a beautiful thing, and that she could be not only a sensual creature, but also a mother, a wife—she could be everything. They adored her for it. They treated her as a marvel.”
He delivered this last bit in a silky tone as he came back to his original position behind her, his hands on her hips, his chin hovering just above her shoulder.
“What do you think, little bird?” he crooned into her ear. “Would you like to be treated like the marvel you are? Would you like to be worshipped as you took your pleasure?”
“Not bymultiplemen,” she said at once, so alarmed by the mere prospect that it took her a moment to realize the other implication to what she had said.
The implication that she would like being worshipped byoneman very much, indeed.
Neither of them had to ask about which man that might be.
“Good to know, little bird,” he said, kissing the back of her neck. “Very, very good to know.”
CHAPTER 13
One of the very worst fates to befall a little sister was to learn that her elder sibling was, in fact, completely right.
But Catherine had been absolutely, profoundly, and completely right about Lord Hershire.
“Lady Ariadne!” he greeted exuberantly. He was, Ariadne decided even before she turned around, like a puppy. He was just so inescapablyearnestin a way that it made it difficult to put him off.
However, just like a puppy that kept piddling on the rug, sometimes viscounts needed a strong hand, too.
Ariadne turned from the vase of flowers that she’d been casually arranging while half her mind was still on ancient Roman fertility ceremonies.
“My lord,” she said, striving to strike the right balance between suitably polite and not excessively warm. “Good morning.”
He nodded so emphatically that she wondered if she should worry about it bobbling right off his shoulders.
“It is a good morning; it really is. A fine day. The finest.”
Well, he was even more uncommonly exuberant this morning. She struggled to keep a wince from her face. It was harder than usual, as if her recent experiences away from Society’s stiff and prim rules had diminished her ability to play herproper young ladyrole.
