“Oh, sweetheart,” she sighed, “You are too young to attend tomorrow’s ball.”
Her face fell as she clutched her dress to her chest. “Why? I won’t be any trouble. I won’t be mischievous, I promise.”
Taking a seat, Ariadne said, “This ball is for… significantly older ladies than you are, Emily.”
“Papa told me your sisters are here.” Emily pouted. “They cannot be that older than me.”
“They are,” she said reluctantly. “My youngest sister is ten years older than you are, but don’t be too disappointed, Emily. Everything that we are going to do tomorrow is boring.”
Putting the dress over her shoulder, Emily scrambled onto her bed and asked, “Why is it boring?”
“Everything adults do is boring,” Ariadne told her, “The ton is a set of boring adults who do boring things for boring reasons. We dance, talk about the weather, complement each other on our dresses and do it all over again.”
Emily’s brow now wrinkled, “That does sound boring.”
“How about this—” Ariadne took up the book on Emily’s nightstand, “—I will ask your papa to make a day for young ladies, and we’ll do fun things.”
“Like what?” Emily asked.
“We’ll have tea, go to a menagerie, see some acrobats?—”
“Like a lady riding a horse while juggling balls and balancing a teacup on her nose,” Emily gasped while leaning forward and clapping. “I would love that. I wish I were old enough to go,” she said wistfully. “I would love to see the beautiful gowns and the dancing.”
“It’ll be your turn one day.” Even as Ariadne said the words, she wondered what Emily’s future would hold. “Shall we start?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
It was almost midnight when Ariadne realized Cedric was not returning to his room to join her in bed. Slipping from the bed, she donned her robe and left for his study.
When she entered the room, the lights were low, but the fire was flickering high enough that she saw where Cedric was softly snoring from the couch; he was lying on his side with his head tucked into the corner at an unnatural angle.
For a moment, Ariadne observed her sleeping husband with wry levity. She could only imagine that he had worked himself to exhaustion and then told himself,a quick ten-minute nap, then back to business.
Then she sighed. If he were to work himself into exhaustion, he might as well do so comfortably. She bent over and lifted her husband’s legs one by one onto the seat cushions.
Her breath puffed out with the effort it required to move his muscular limbs, and as she undid his boots, Mr. Hunt came inside to drop off another cup of coffee. She gave him a single look and found the butler’s eyes on the table, his concentration worthy of a scholar perfecting his equation.
Snorting, she asked, “Is he normally like this?”
“Too many times, actually,” Hunt replied as he placed the used cups on a tray. “Before you came along and reintroduced him to the concept of breakfast, we all feared he would subsist on coffee alone.”
Laughing softly, Ariadne maneuvered a couch cushion under his head as he continued to sleep, undisturbed, and even placed a soft blanket from the back of another couch over him.
Her fingers brushed softly over his bristly jaw and in his sleep, she admired how sleep smoothed out the ever-present lines between his brows. Without that notch, he looked so young; sometimes she forgot that he was in his thirties.
“Don’t wake him too early tomorrow.” She told Hunt while getting to her feet. “Let him rest.”
“So should you, Your Grace,” Hunt said. “You do have an important day tomorrow. And if you don’t take offense to this, you must be prepared, as the harpies will be out from their roost.”
Ariadne sobered, “I expected as much and no, Mr. Hunt, no offense taken.” As she headed to the door, she added, “Take care of him.”
The stabbing rays of midmorning sun force Cedric to open his eyes. For a blessed moment, he thought he was in his bedchamber…until the crook in his neck told him otherwise.
He was in his study, damn well contorted in half on the small, lumpy couch that he should have replaced ten years ago.
He fell back on the pillow with a groan and belatedly realized he was covered with a blanket—something he decisively remembered being over the back of a chair across the room.
It was the day of this dratted ball that he was not the slightest eager for; in actuality, he wished to cancel this thing altogether—but he didn’t want to disappoint Ariadne.
