Page 72 of Duke of Wickedness
“And as for you not being suited for it…” Percy offered another shrug. “I wasn’t either, not until I was. And now, look. I get the unending pleasure of absolutely disgusting you with my happiness.”
“Yes, well.” Once his mirth faded, David found that he did not feel improved at all. “You are the exception, I’m afraid. The rule is different. Most stories do not end happily.”
“You don’t know that?—”
“I do,” David interjected. “I understand that you have the light of your life and all that poetic nonsense. But go to any Society event on any night, and look at the nearest married couple and tell me whether they are happy or whether they feel as though they are shackled to one another and drowning for it.”
David couldn’t fight the flash of his mother’s bedroom door, closed and locked, no matter how often he pleaded with her to come out.
“Think of the bigger picture,” Percy urged. “The world is bigger than?—”
David interrupted again.
“None of it matters,” he said. “Even if I could—even if I wanted to…” He shook his head roughly. “She wants something different than what I can offer. She needs freedomandsecurity, and I can’t…”
“Don’t decide yet,” Percy said. “Just…think about it. Don’t decide yet. If you let fear be the thing that makes this choice for you, you’ll be sorry. Trust me. I know.”
David tried to give his friend a reassuring smile, but it felt stiff on his face. He couldn’t summon any real emotion, not when the flashes were coming back stronger. The rage he’d felt when he heard laughter from a woman who should not have been in hisfamily home. The horrible, horrible silence that enveloped them as they all pretended that nothing was amiss. The way he had felt the fractures grow, deepen, spread, until the bonds that held them together broke forever.
“I’ll think about it,” he lied.
He hadn’t convinced Percy; it was obvious.
“David,” his friend said.
David gave up trying to be reassuring. He let the melancholy in his smile come through.
“It will be all right,” he said, though he doubted that either of them believed it. “I just have one thing to do, and then it will all be fine.”
He left Percy’s house after that, desperately grateful that he didn’t run into Catherine. The two sisters didn’t resemble one another overmuch, but the little similarity that was there… Even that was too much.
Even before he’d truly made the decision, David found his feet taking him in the direction of Bond Street. He would do what Ariadne had asked him, no matter what it cost him. And if it was his pride that made him insist on giving her something of himself that she could keep, no matter how small…
Well, he would permit himself this one sin. It might be the only thing that got him through what came next with his sanity—and his honor—intact.
CHAPTER 19
The unsettled nature of things between her and David might have driven Ariadne to Bedlam if not for Phoebe, who proved amenable to offering distractions whenever Ariadne needed them.
“You are a dear, do you know that?” Ariadne asked as she and Phoebe strolled, arm in arm, for the third time that week. “I have been bothering you endlessly, and yet you haven’t uttered so much as a word of complaint.”
“Oh, please,” Phoebe scoffed. “Do you know how hard it is to find a good friend around here? Someone who won’t faint dead away if I accidentally let one of my more scandalous opinions slip? You, darling, are worth your weight in gold.”
“You know, that’s what people are usually after when they befriend a Lightholder,” Ariadne teased.
Phoebe’s eyes went wide with alarm for one second only before she made a sour face.
“Don’t tease me like that,” she ordered, though her laughter belied her sternness.
“I shall tease you plenty,” Ariadne said. “After all, as you just noted, we are dear friends. That, I have heard said, is a hallmark of friendship.”
Phoebe squeezed Ariadne’s arm. “I am so glad that you were also lonely and friendless without me,” she said, so cheerfully that Ariadne had to pause her steps in order to gasp with laughter.
It was when she was in this unflattering posture—her hands pressed to her ribs, half bent at the waist—that she saw David.
She stopped laughing and started choking on her own air.
“What has gotten into you?” Phoebe asked. Then, “Oh. Oh, it’shim.”
