Page 41 of Duke of Wickedness
She ducked her face against his shoulder, letting herself take her comfort where she could. If disaster were to come, it would wait for tomorrow.
David stared at the amber liquid in his glass. He had been at his club for more than an hour now, but he had barely made a dent in his drink.
He’d come here to distract himself, but he found that his usual distractions didn’t appeal.
“Drinking already? You do realize it’s only half noon, don’t you?”
David tried to paste on his typical carefree smile at the sound of Percy’s voice, but it felt brittle.
“Ah, well, you know me,” he said. “What is time but man’s constraint…” He waved a hand as if to sayet cetera. “Liquor is eternal, however.”
Percy sat down across from him, which wasnotwhat David had signed up for when he’d come to unsuccessfully drink away his sorrows.
“You only wax foolishly poetic when you’re not actually drunk,” Percy observed. “You developed that move when the constables tried to stop us in that unsavory neighborhood, back in university.”
David rolled his eyes and set his drink on a nearby side table.
“I hate being friends with you,” he complained.
Percy stole his drink. David felt this was fair—he’d done the same to Percy dozens of times—but for the purposes of appearances, he kept a scowl on his face.
“Do you know what’s interesting?” Percy asked, clearly enjoying himself as he took a swig of the drink and then made a face—he’d never liked port. It was, as far as David was concerned, proof that he had a guardian angel somewhere that Percy enjoyed such instant retribution.
“I assume you’re going to tell me whether I want you to or not,” David drawled.
“It is that you do not hate me at all,” Percy said, looking intently at his friend. “And that you only say so when you are trying to distract me from something.”
Goddamn. That was also bloody accurate.
“That is not accurate,” David said. Unlike some ladies—ladies about whom David wasnotthinking,especiallynot in front of Percy—he knew how to lie properly.
There was a difference, however, between lying to your average person and lying to the man who likely knew him better than anybody else in London.
“It’s fascinating,” Percy mused, not even bothering to hide his grin. “Because I feel that the last time you tried to hide something from me like this, it was because you were trying to set me up with my wife.”
David had never and would never admit to doing any such thing.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said—just as he always did.
“See, that’salsowhat you said when you just so happened to invite me to a house party, one where Catherine was also in attendance.”
“Coincidences exist, Percival.” Percival was not actually Percy’s full name, but it was what David called him when he was trying to annoy his fr?—
Damn. Maybe hewaspredictable.
Percy leaned forward, an intent look crossing his features.
“Really, David,” he said. “You’ve… you haven’t seemed quite yourself recently. Is everything good?”
Part of David wanted nothing more than to unburden himself to his friend. How good would it feel to tell the truth, to tell Percy that there was a woman who had wormed herself into David’s brain, that he could not stop thinking about her, that she had driven him absolutely mad with wanting.
But Percywasthe person who knew David better than anyone else, and so Percy knew that David was not the kind of man that one wished to see involved with his little sister. David knew too much about how Percy and Catherine had come to be together—although, thank Christ, not the details; he would never be able to look Catherine in the eye, otherwise—to believe that Percy had any of the usual archaic views about ladies’purityandvalue.
But David, for all that he was always,alwaystransparent about his intentions, had left a trail of broken hearts behind him. There would always be people who, for all their protestations otherwise, conflated physical intimacy with love, and no matter how much David took pains to explain himself as kindly as he could…
Well, that wasn’t that much of a condolence when one’s heart—not to mention one’s pride—was feeling bruised and battered.
And Ariadne…
