Page 93 of Duke of Wickedness
“Because it’s so very strange,” she said happily. “The world is full of so many strange and wonderful things, and I intend to see as many of them as possible. Who knows what I’ll miss out on if I don’t?”
Later, after promising to meet with Phoebe the following evening for the ball, Ariadne reflected on these words. What was she missing out on by letting herself get so brutally beaten down by her sadness? What might she experience if she gathered her courage and went out into the world again? It was, after all, precisely that logic that had led her to her bargain with David in the first place—and thathadbeen worth it, no matter how she was feeling now.
Tomorrow, she decided, she would be courageous again. Because there was a world full of things to see.
She would find happiness again. She would, even if she did not quite yet understand how such a thing was possible.
CHAPTER 24
“If there’s a collection of anything strange in this house, I cannot find it,” Phoebe said, abjectly disappointed, as she sipped sulkily at her lemonade. “And I snuck into all kinds of places that I oughtn’t.”
Ariadne smiled, a touch tightly, at her friend. It wasn’t Phoebe’s fault, obviously; if Ariadne had any complaint to level against her friend, it was that Phoebe hadn’t taken her along to sneak into disreputable places, but it simply hadn’t been possible. Ariadne’s return to the ballroom after several weeks of limited appearances had been annoyingly well-feted. Her dance card was well and truly full.
Ariadne hadn’t been so bothered by such a thing since her very first Season. Now, however, she was cursing the notable Lightholder name. Her cheeks were aching from so much forced smiling.
This, she decided sourly, was another reason to be annoyed at David. She’d hadmuchbetter tolerance for inane conversationsabout the weather before he’d come along and obliterated that particular skill.
Tonight, it seemed, she’d vacillated back toward anger.
She latched her attention onto Phoebe.
“I can’t believe that you foundnothingof note,” she said. “You have such a fine nose for chaos, you’re practically a bloodhound.”
Most young ladies of thetonwould have been furious to find themselves compared to a dog. Phoebe was visibly delighted.
“Well, I did catch glimpses offourseparate couples in amorous embraces,” she said with a touch of pride. “But I left them to it. Nobody wants to see that sort of thing.”
You would be surprised, actually.
The words sprang to Ariadne’s mind, but, fortunately, they did not make it past her lips. Thinking about them—and about the parties, so different from this one, that had shown her just how false Phoebe’s statement was—wasnota good idea.
Not ever, and certainly not here.
Instead, she gave Phoebe another lackluster smile.
“Your discretion is noted,” she praised. “If any of those eight people knew you’d seen them, I am certain they would have appreciated it.”
Phoebe sighed in an exaggeratedly dreamy sort of way.
“I really am unsung for my generosity,” she lamented, batting her eyelashes outrageously. It was a patently absurd expression, and yet, given Phoebe’s angelic looks, Ariadne suspected that her friend could convince at least a quarter of the gentlemen of thetonof its sincerity. Maybe more. It wasn’t as though most of them were known for their high regard of women’s intelligence.
Except for…
Ariadne squashed that thought before it could come to fruition, but it was too late, for she felt a prickling sense ofsomethingnagging at her senses, and when she turned to investigate?—
David.
Ariadne’s breath hitched at the sight of him, and, in an instant, she was of two minds, because he looked so beautiful. She’d forgotten how beautiful he was, too beautiful for a man, honestly. Dangerously beautiful.
But also… He did not look at all well. He had heavy, dark bags under his eyes, as though he hadn’t been sleeping. And there was just an aura of…weariness about him. One that she understood somewhere deep inside herself.
Even so, he was looking directly at her. And there was nothing weary or worn about the look in his eyes. Those eyes—they burned. They burned the same way she burned, in those rare moments that she wasn’t heartbroken or furious.
And she couldn’t look away. It was achingly painful to look at him, but it felt far worse to look away. She looked back, and the thread that bound them trembled and quivered with the tension.
“Ari…”
Phoebe’s voice sounded at her elbow, uncommonly cautious.
