Page 69 of Duke of Wickedness
“Who is it?” she asked tiredly, looking up at her sister by marriage.
But Helen didn’t answer. Instead, a bright-eyed face with a big grin popped out from behind Helen’s shoulder.
“Hello!” Phoebe called. “It’s me!”
“Oh!” Ariadne’s mood flipped in an instant. “Phoebe, hello!” And then, belatedly remembering her manners, she said, “Helen,please allow me to introduce my friend, Miss Phoebe Turner. Phoebe, this is my sister by marriage, Her Grace, the Duchess of Godwin.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Your Grace,” Phoebe said, her curtsey extremely proper and demure, given…well, everything Ariadne knew about her.
Phoebe’s efforts were, alas, lost on Helen, who was giving Ariadne a very soft, very maternal sort of look.
“I didn’t know you had a new friend,” she cooed.
“Stop that immediately,” Ariadne commanded. “Go flutter over your own child.”
“Oh, very well,” Helen sighed dramatically. “Miss Turner, a pleasure.”
The moment Helen was out of sight, Phoebe dropped her veneer of propriety. She flounced across to Ariadne, not waiting for an invitation before she plopped down on the settee. It made Ariadne feel wonderful, that familiarity.
“I had an idea,” she said without preamble. “I thought about our conversation last night, and then I thought about how we could not speak freely. AndthenI thought that if we had a private place to speak, then wecouldspeak freely, and then maybe you would know what to do next about your, ahem,escort.”
“Phoebe Turner,” Ariadne said, grinning. “You are brilliant.”
“Iknow,” Phoebe said, beaming. “It’s merely that other people so rarely notice. Anyway, let’s ring for some tea, close the door—and then you can tell me everything.”
So, Ariadne did just that.
She was discreet, of course. She didn’t use David’s name, though it wouldn’t be that hard for Phoebe to figure out his identity, not after seeing him at the ballandthe theater. But when Ariadne said that he was a gentleman who preferred temporary attachments, Phoebe didn’t seek any further information, something that emboldened Ariadne to say more.
Without giving away too much in terms of details, she explained their arrangement and how things had grown progressively more intimate—and progressively more consuming—as they had gone on.
“Hm,” Phoebe said thoughtfully, her face devoid of judgment, when Ariadne finished. “And now you’re going to?—”
She made an extremely vague gesture with her arm that, somehow, Ariadne understood perfectly.
“Yes,” she said, trying to sound neutral and level-headed about it. She must not have succeeded, because Phoebe gave her a little smile and shook her head.
“Well, I can see there’s no shaking your resolve there—not that I necessarily intended to,” she added, holding up a hand. “I was just going to make certain that you really knew this was what you wanted, but you very obviously do know that.”
Ariadne pressed a hand over her burning cheek, but she didn’t duck away from Phoebe’s gaze.
“You don’t think I’m being foolish?” she asked.
“No, not foolish,” Phoebe said, and Ariadne was as grateful for the speed of that response as she was for the thoughtful pause that followed. “I wouldn’t necessarily say Iunderstandit, but I don’t have to. I have a cousin who loves fishing. Just hours and hours sitting on a little boat in a lake, with a stick and a string. He doesn’t even like it when youtalk. Just sitting.”
She sounded so baffled by this that Ariadne had to grin.
“But,” Phoebe went on, “just because I think that this is complete madness, doesn’t mean that I think he iswrongto want to sit with a stick and a string?—”
“It does rather sound as though you might, though,” Ariadne teased.
“—so,” Phoebe went on, giving no further acknowledgment to Ariadne’s interjection than a slight emphasis on the word, “even thoughIthink men are approximately as interesting as fish, itdoesn’t mean I thinkyouought to feel the same. I just want to know that you’re being careful.”
“I told you, he’s very discreet?—”
Phoebe was shaking her head.
“No, not with your reputation…though that, too, I suppose, if you care about it. I meant more—and let me assure you that I amverydispleased to say something so sentimental—with your heart.”
