Page 36 of Duke of Wickedness
CHAPTER 9
David…might have made an error.
He had planned this night down to its last detail. It was what had occupied the entirety of his afternoon after he had made the impromptu request that Ariadne meet him at midnight. He had felt that a performance at the Dreary Lane Theater—named not for its location, but for the allusion to the far more famous and far more respectable counterpart—was absolutely perfect.
Ariadne would see things that would shock her. That part was not in question. But she would see it at a distance, enough distance to provide a sense of safety. Besides, they would be in something of a public space, not that Ariadne seemed particularly worried about that, given how she’d turned up at his house in the dead of night. Even so.
He wanted to push her boundaries. He didn’t want to scare her off.
But what he had not considered washisboundaries.
And watching Ariadne Lightholder blush and laugh and gasp in delight atThe Castle Spectacle—a raunchy take onThe Castle Specter, which had taken Society theatergoers by storm when it had debuted some twenty years earlier—was more than he could take; he was learning.
“This isveryfunny,” she whispered to him for perhaps the twentieth time, sounding shocked at herself for thinking so.
“The actors change it nearly every performance,” he said, because perhaps talking Cheapside theatrical history would distract him from the way the dark neckline of Ariadne’s gown hugged the curve of her breasts. “It’s been going on and off the stage here for…hell, decades. It turns out that when most of the show is filthy puns, the appeal endures.”
“And tits,” Ariadne supplied helpfully, and goddamn him, David was never,evergoing to survive hearing Lady Ariadne Lightholder say the wordtits. “I imagine that looking at tits is an eternal pleasure.”
It took every single ounce of David’s self-control not to look directly down the front of her bodice. She was sittingright next to him. He was taller than her. She couldn’t have given him a more advantageous view if she had tried.
And then he saw the smirk on her lips, and he realized that shehadtried.
Several things rearranged themselves very quickly in David’s mind.
He had come here with the assumption that he had the upper hand in every aspect of this arrangement. As she had pointed out in the carriage, he was a man in control of his own fate—and she, as a woman, had far less freedom. Atop that, she had less experience and took on a great deal more risk if discovered in this little bargain of theirs.
Thus, he had all the power and she had none.
Except…
Except he had forgotten about that devilish streak of curiosity in her, which was another strike against him in the foolishness column, for wasn’t that what had gotten them into this situation in the first place?
As he watched her effortlessly wipe away that telltale smirk, another realization crashed in on the heels of the first.
She was doing it on purpose.
Ariadne might be a bad liar…except in the case of this one, practiced lie, the one that said she was nothing more than what you saw on the surface—the docile Society miss.
What a crafty, clever woman.
He, however, was the infamous Duke of Wilds. He would not be outplayed.
He let his arm snake over the back of Ariadne’s chair, his fingers reaching just far enough to drape over her far shoulder.
Reaching just far enough to brush against the upper swell of her breast.
“Tell me, little bird,” he asked, leaning in to whisper directly into her ear. It was a familiar pose, but in this crowd, it came off as downright chaste. “Where did you learn to have such a filthy mouth?”
That same smirk appeared, then vanished.
“Did you know,” she said tartly, though there was the slightest hitch in her voice, “that if you appear to be reading a book of sermons, nobody ever asks any questions about what else you might have hidden inside? They’re too afraid you will start to preach at them to intervene.”
“Genius,” he commended her. “A bit blasphemous, but who am I to judge?”
She shrugged, which had the happy consequence of letting his hand slip just a little bit lower. He traced a fingertip against the edge of her bodice, which made her shiver.
She turned resolutely forward, staring determinedly at the stage.
