Page 95 of Duke of Wickedness
“You’re staring at me!” she mentally returned.
“I’m allowed.” She fashioned him as unrepentant.
“It isn’t fair! The staring makes it seem like—” This, too, was something she could only admit privately. “—like you care. And that’s… It’s unkind, given everything.”
“I thought you were cross with me,” he said slyly. “Why does it matter to you if I care?”
Pivot, pace—this time with quite a bit of stomping involved.
This part of the argument was where things fell a bit apart. Because she didn’t want to care if he cared. She didn’t want to think about him at all, because every time she thought about him it hurt…
And yet she also didn’t want to stop thinking about him, even if it did hurt, most terribly so.
This was generally the point where Ariadne threw herself onto her bed in a fit of pique. But today, for some reason, she paused and stared moodily out her window. She was still wearing her ballgown from that evening; she’d need to summon her maid soon enough, as this wasn’t the kind of garment she could get off herself.
She’d spent the evening dancing with an endless stream of partners—and yes, itdidmake her angrier at David to notice that her time with him had, inexplicably, made her more popular among the gentlemen of theton—trying to pretend that she hadn’t seen David lurking off in one corner.
And then, she’d concluded the evening by trying to pretend she wasn’t sorry about it when he’d suddenly disappeared.
It wasn’tfair. Why did his absence bother her as much as his presence? Why hadn’t these feelings gone away? It had been more than a month since they’d called things off—it had been as long as the time they’d actually spent together.
Why does it bother you?
David’s voice was a taunt in her mind.
And then, with a sudden, horrible rush, it occurred to her. She watched the rain spatter on the windowpanes and was seized by a furious urge to smash something.
Because—damn it all—she cared for a very specific reason. A terrible reason. The worst, stupidest, most pathetic reason of all.
She was in love with the Duke of Wilds.
David was up to his usual tricks—which was to say, brooding and staring moonily at Ariadne—when he felt a jerk on his arm so forceful that it nearly toppled him off his feet.
David submitted to this treatment the same way he had submitted to every other thing of late: with weary resignation.
He couldn’t say whether being badgered back into Society was better or worse than sulking morosely around his house. On one hand, he now sulked morosely around various locales in London, which had caused his once-overflowing basket of invitations to dwindle dramatically. This was a blessing, by his accounting; he no longer had the wherewithal to decide between this ball and that musicale. Being excluded had its benefits.
On the other hand, he kept seeing Ariadne.
This was a rather mixed bag of its own. He loved seeing her. He hated seeing her. She had become mesmerizingly popular in the last few months, and while David felt that it was only just that the pathetic gentlemen of thetonfinally realized her glory, healso felt a distinct burning sensation in his stomach whenever he watched her dance with and smile at someone else.
It was probably dyspepsia, he told himself. Maybe it would kill him soon! There was a bracing thought.
There was also the problem that David was a man who prided himself on discretion. He’d made a name for himself by never revealing which ladies he had or had not seen unclothed. He had never ruined anyone. Notever.
But if he kept staring…
“We are leaving right now,” Percy said tersely from where he had grabbed David’s arm. He hadn’t released that arm, either. Evidently, David was either accompanying his friend or remaining in this ballroom without his right arm.
While David recognized that he had not been taking particularly good care of himself of late—half his wardrobe no longer fit properly because he’d been eating so infrequently—he did still wish to remain in possession of all his limbs, which he supposed meant there was still hope for him yet.
“Very well,” he said amiably, because he’d run out of energy to fight Percy weeks ago. “Do we need to find your wife?”
Percy scoffed. This was, David would realize later, the first sign of where this conversation was going to go, but he was tooshort on proper sleep or decent meals to come quickly to this conclusion.
“My wife is the last person you want to see right now,” Percy said forbiddingly.
David declined to ask any questions about this statement. He just let Percy tug him along, out of the ball, into David’s own carriage—another oddity, one about which he, similarly, did not comment. He let his friend load him up into the carriage, drive to Bacchus House, drag him back out of the carriage, and then haul him up into the house. Throughout all this, Percy was stonily silent.
