Darius: Lord of Pleasures

Seventeen

“You are as nervous as a bridegroom,” Valentine Windham said. “Hold still, or you’ll be looking as tumbled as one.”

“Men are not tumbled,” Darius retorted, but he raised his chin so Val could retie the knot in Darius’s cravat. “Nothing elaborate, if you please. This is a sober occasion.”

“You’re not the kind to show it when you fret.” Val finished with the knot, then moved on to reposition the boutonniere gracing Darius’s lapel. “What has you so nervous?”

Darius remained silent until Val had stepped back.

“This will sound… peculiar, but I feel as if I’m the one being christened.” Darius surveyed himself in the mirror, finding a sober, reasonably good-looking fellow staring back at him. If Valentine thought that fellow daft, so be it. “This is the first thing I’ve done to participate in the proper rituals of Polite Society for many years. Maybe since I was a lad squirming in church. It matters to me.”

They took his traveling coach—the only conveyance Darius owned with pretensions to elegance—and all the way to St. George’s, Darius pondered the pleasures of a life where he was free to act on the things that mattered to him.

This morning mattered a great deal.

He would see Vivian again.

And he would meet his godson.

His only child.

His and Vivian’s child.

A feeling not unlike anxiety welled, but Darius considered it as they approached the church. Upon examination, worry was only part of the sentiment. The day was pretty, the air crisp, the sun warm. Not too cold a day for his son to be out greeting society. He spied Vivian holding the baby at the church door, her sister and likely her sister’s husband at her elbow. When Vivian smiled at him, arms around their child, Darius put a name to what he was experiencing.

Joy.

Simple, uncomplicated joy, to be here this day, celebrating this event, particularly with this woman.

And more than joy, love.

He loved Vivian, loved her courage and integrity, her humor and passion, and loved her all the more because she would bring those qualities to being the mother of his child. He loved the child, sight unseen, loved the goodness inherent in all new life, the hope and potential.

He loved his own life, he reflected in some wonder as he made his way through the crowd gathered in anticipation of the service. There were regrets, of course, many and considerable, but right now, the gratitude far outweighed the sorrows.

“Lady Longstreet.” There in front of half the titles in London, he leaned in and kissed her cheek. She beamed up at him, because such behavior was permitted on this most special occasion.

“Mr. Lindsey,” Vivian replied, and while she still looked fatigued, she also looked happy. “May I do the introductions?” She did the pretty for her sister and Mr. Ventnor. Darius greeted the sister, a more matronly version of Vivian, and as for the brother-in-law, Ventnor was a handsome, dapper, dark-haired man in his prime, just a couple of inches shorter than Darius. His eyes were shrewd, but his manner was friendly enough.

“And will you introduce me to the young man in your arms?”

Vivian glanced down at the baby then up at Darius, her expression full of emotions shifting too quickly for him to read.

“I’ll do better than that,” she said, tucking up the child’s receiving blankets. “He’s a right little porker, in Dilquin’s estimation, so you can relieve me of the burden of his weight. Darius Lindsey, may I make known to you Baron Longchamps, Master Wilhelm Fordham Zacharias Josef Longstreet.” She passed the child to Darius, who received the little burden as carefully as he would the most precious of gifts.

Darius blinked down at the child, who was gurgling happily in his arms. He snugged the blankets around that cherubic little face and resisted mightily the urge to hug the infant in a crushing embrace. When he looked up, he saw Val Windham grinning at him from across the church’s front terrace, and the sight was bracing.

“Greetings,” Darius addressed the baby. Welcome to life. I’m your father, and the luckiest, most blessed man alive. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You look to be in good spirits today, my lord.”

The baby caught Darius’s nose in a little mitt, and while the other adults babbled on about God knew what, Darius stood there, falling in love and loving it.

Which, before such a crowd, would not do.

“He’s strong,” Darius said while Vivian reached over and removed the baby’s hand.

“He’s a little beast,” Mrs. Ventnor agreed. “Viv spoils him terribly, but if we’re not to while away the day on these steps, we’d best put the baron in his christening gown.”

“We’ll be along shortly,” Ventnor promised. “Mind you don’t rile the boy, as it will be a long day for him.”

Mrs. Ventnor took the baby from Darius, and it was all he could do not to knock her aside and clutch the child to his chest. “Come, Viv,” Mrs. Ventnor said. “We’ll explain to the guest of honor he’s not to cast his accounts all over Mr. Lindsey’s lovely attire.”

The women moved off, while Darius wondered how much of being a parent to Wilhelm Fordham was going to be about partings—from the boy, from his mother, from dreams and other possibilities.

For the service, Will was a little saint, going to sleep in his father’s arms, the trust of such a thing being enough to fell Darius all over with its sweetness and gravity. Mrs. Ventnor had to nudge Darius to say his little parts, so fascinated was he by the baby he held. Vivvie had been right; the child was perfect.

Perfect, healthy, adorable, and asleep.

And so small. When it was over, Mrs. Ventnor excused herself to find her husband and sister, leaving Darius, lucky, lucky Darius, holding the baby.

“Makes a fellow pause,” Val Windham said, peering down at the child. “To think you and I were once that small, that vulnerable.”

“That innocent,” Darius said. “That precious.”

“I’m still precious,” Val said, looking oddly sober. “To Their Graces, my siblings, their spouses and children, I’m precious to them, and they are to me.”

This child and his mother were precious to Darius, and if God were merciful, Darius would have a chance to be a meaningful, if minor, presence in his child’s life as well.

Precious. He could be a little precious to someone else, and even the idea was enough to make his chest hurt.

“Mr. Lindsey?” Angela Ventnor bustled up to him. “We’re off to host the breakfast for the nearest and dearest at our townhouse. If you would see Viv and the baron back to Longstreet House, Viv said she’d try to convince the baby to nap so she could spend a little time off her feet with friends and family.”

“I’d be happy to,” Darius said. “Lord Val, will you accompany us?”

Val gave him a fleeting look of puzzlement, but nodded. “You carry Himself. He’s been too good for too long, and there will be consequences.”

“Viv brought extra nappies for the baron,” Angela said, patting the baby’s blanket. “You two gentlemen must come along with her and put your appetites to the test. Mr. Ventnor has laid in sufficient provisions for a campaigning army.”

“It’s always my fault.” Ventnor smiled at his wife, a man in love ten years after speaking his vows. “Come along, my dear. Christenings work up an appetite.”

Such casual domesticity, and yet to hear it and know these people would be part of Will’s life was comforting. Darius lifted his gaze from the baby in his arms to see Val regarding him with a curious smile.

“Do not smirk at me, Windham. Go fetch my coach, and I’ll retrieve Vivvie.”

“Vivvie?” The smile turned into a grin, while Darius grimaced at his mistake.

“Her ladyship. We’ll meet you outside.”

Val peered down at the baby and back up at Darius, as if looking for resemblance. Darius bore the scrutiny, both dreading and hoping Val might see some.

“On second thought, give me the baron,” Val said. “He and I will be outside, charming the ladies. This does not mean you are to be inside doing likewise.”

“Go.” Darius said, parting with his son—that he should give the boy into Valentine’s keeping made it marginally less difficult. He spotted Vivian sitting at the back of the church. A nattily dressed middle-aged man was bent low, whispering in her ear, and Vivian’s expression was carefully blank.

A parliamentary crony of William’s, haranguing her over her husband’s absence, perhaps? But no, Vivian would handle that easily. This had to be her stepfather. Darius quickened his pace.

“Lady Longstreet?” He inserted himself beside her pew, causing the man bothering her to take a step back. “If you’re ready to go, the carriage and your son are waiting.”

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” the other man said. “I consider my daughter’s welfare my concern, so all in her ambit are of interest to me.”

Vivian rose and handled the introductions, but Darius barely heard her words. She was pale, more pale than she’d been earlier in the morning, and a mask was over her features that spoke more to upset than fatigue.

“If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Ainsworthy.” Darius tucked Vivian’s hand over his arm. “Her ladyship is anxious to get the baron home.”

“Vivian.” Ainsworthy lifted her other hand and bowed over it, so each man had a grasp of one of her hands. “You will take my words to heart this time.”

The fool made it sound like a scold, which was reason enough for Darius to loathe him.

“Thurgood. My thanks for your felicitations.”

Darius led her away, though he could feel Ainsworthy’s stare boring into his back. “What an unfortunate example of a stepfather,” Darius remarked. “Is he always given to such melodrama?”

She ignored him, or hadn’t heard him. Unease crept across the warmth in Darius’s heart, an emotional cloud on an otherwise sunny morning. A superstitious man would have said somebody walked over his grave.

They collected the baby from Val, who elected to ride up with the coachy, and Darius situated mother and baby in his conveyance. He presumed on the day’s benevolence by taking a place beside Vivian on the forward-facing seat.

“I can take the baby, Vivvie, and you can close your eyes for a bit.”

Paternal of him, but William’s admonition to look after mother and child rang in Darius’s ears. He’d take care of them, he’d love them, and when the coach got to Longstreet House, he’d somehow find a way to say good-bye to them too.

“Darius—” Vivian turned her face into his shoulder.

He didn’t think. He wrapped an arm around her, the only comfort he had to offer. “Don’t cry, Vivvie. The day has been trying, I know, but we’ll get you off your feet…”

She was shaking her head from side to side, and to Darius she didn’t look like she was holding the baby so much as clutching the infant to her chest. Alarm threatened his composure, but he kept his voice steady. “Vivvie, talk to me. Tell me what’s amiss.”

“Thurgood. Thurgood recognized your coach. He knows I visited you last year, and he says you’re Will’s father. He says he knows you’re Will’s father, and, Darius, he’ll use that knowledge to take this baby from me.”

Childbirth was painful, but that pain was productive, bringing forth a precious new life. The suffering that engulfed Vivian in that comfortable traveling coach had no purpose and no end.

She cried while Darius held her, and then cried because he was holding her, the child tucked between them. Her tears were for William, for Darius, and for herself—most of them were for herself.

Darius passed her a handkerchief, one with his soothing, exotic scent. She let him take the child—perhaps the last time he’d hold his own son—and tried to sit up.

“I can hold you both, Vivvie.”

Vivvie. Nobody called her that, in just that caressing tone, except Darius.

“I’m sorry. I’m not typically lachrymose.” She would be apologizing for a lot before she got out of the coach.

“You are exhausted, William is dying, and your reptile of a former stepfather has overset you. Talk to me.”

How fierce he sounded. That fierceness had drawn her to him; it would let him hate her eventually. “I understand something now.”

He waited. He was ever patient with her.

“I understand how hard it was for you to turn away from me, to show me indifference and disdain because it was the only way you could protect me.” She glanced at the baby sleeping in the crook of Darius’s arm. “To protect the child.”

“Our child.” He spoke softly but not casually.

Vivian closed her eyes and inhaled Darius’s scent. The moment called for ruthlessness, not sentiment, and certainly not honest sentiments like Darius had just uttered.

“Thurgood has acquired literary aspirations. He is penning a tale about an aging lord’s young wife being taken advantage of by her husband and a dashing rake. He will share this tale with any number of publishers and scandal sheets. He is considering drafting a second version, about a young wife rescued by a noble old peer from a dire fate, only to play her husband false. When the truth of her selfish folly is revealed, all of Society condemns her, as well they should.”

She expected Darius to withdraw his arm. If anything, his hold became more secure. This suggested he had yet to grasp her point.

“Darius, William told me last night that his will is written such that whomever I marry in the first three months following William’s death will become Wilhelm’s guardian. If I fail to marry in that time, Able becomes the guardian by default. William is confident Able will not take the child from me, but I think—” She stopped. This was Darius. “I fear William underestimates the mischief Portia could wreak. She became quite close with Thurgood during her stay in London.”

A beat of quiet went by while the horses clip-clopped along. Vivian noticed they’d slowed to a sedate walk, indicating Darius had signaled the coachy at some point in her fit of the weeps.

“So you will permit Ainsworthy to choose your next husband, Vivian, is that it?”

Now his tone conveyed the detached consideration of a man who’d endured many beatings—all without flinching—while Vivian’s throat ached with more tears. The consequences Ainsworthy would bring down on them all if she married Darius were unthinkable, and yet Darius was the only man she could envision sharing her life with.

“Thurgood says it will be a decent match, and unless my husband sets me aside, I’m likely to share a household with my son. If it means I see the child for fifteen minutes before tea each day, Darius, if it means I get letters from him when he’s at school… I will not abandon my son. I cannot.”

“Our son.” He imbued the words with a touch more steel. “It seems you have become a lioness, Vivian.”

“I have become a mother.” Darius had given her that, and now she must refuse him even the crumbs of the paternal banquet due a child’s father.

More silence. The coach made yet another turn, confirming Vivian’s suspicion they were walking in a circle.

“I have been a whore, Vivian”—the chill in Darius’s voice was arctic—“and I have learned things plying my trade, so please heed me: your husband will be Thurgood’s creature entirely. Thurgood will hold the man’s vowels, his secrets, something, and through this husband of yours, all of your wealth and all of your happiness will rest in Thurgood’s hands.”

Darius paused and surveyed her with what looked like pity. “Your husband will resent that, and he will be the man to sire your other children. Count on that. He will couple with you because it is his right, and the only way he can compete with Thurgood’s influence under his own roof. This is how sexual commerce works in the hands of those who trade in such things.”

“You must not—”

He went on speaking with a precision and gravity that might have been gentle, except for the meaning of his words. “These men will control your fate, which may be your choice to make, but they will also control the welfare of an innocent child—his wealth, his happiness. We brought that child into the world, and his welfare is our responsibility.”

Ah, God. She had bargained for this. She had chosen Darius Lindsey because he would protect his loved ones, and now she would destroy him as none of his harpies ever could.

“Darius, listen to me. Thurgood already has that control. He saw me getting out of this coach when I left Surrey. He knows this coach, he can describe the brass fittings on the lamps, and now he knows the coach is yours. If I thwart him, he will ruin you, me, William, and the child’s entire life. I cannot allow that.”

“So what you want is for me to slink away, a dog whipped by Thurgood’s threats? A man who abandons the people entrusted to his care?”

She could not make her mouth form the word “yes,” not when it struck her like a thunderclap that Darius had prostituted himself to provide for John and the collection of castoffs that formed the staff at Averett Hill. There was nothing, nothing Darius would not do to protect his loved ones.

“This is how it will be, Vivian: Someday, years hence, you will manage to get word to me that I might see the boy playing in the park with his governess. After lurking like a smuggler awaiting the wrecker’s signal, I will have a few minutes to observe the child from a distance, and your husband will learn of it. You will not be punished directly—the child will be. Why do you think my father beat me so enthusiastically every time my mother danced with the wrong man?”

She turned her face into his shoulder, wishing she could bolt from the coach. The magnitude of the suffering he’d endured, the magnitude of the suffering he forecast, was unfathomable. “Then you must not lurk, and I must not signal you.”

He heaved up a sigh. She knew, from their first month together, the exact contours and rhythm of his sighs. She both hoped and feared that his sigh had held the beginning of capitulation, maybe not total—the looming loss must be grieved—though it was the start of a consideration of surrender.

Why did she feel only despair where relief ought to be? “You can tell the coachy to take us home, Darius. I think we’ve said all there is to say on the matter.” All they could bear to say.

He made no sign he’d heard her. He was instead regarding the baby, who’d whimpered with some baby-dream-induced distress.

“Hush, child.” Darius cradled the child closer and ran his nose over Will’s little cheek—when had she surrendered the baby into Darius’s embrace? “You’re safe. I’m here.”

A heart could break over and over. Vivian had known that, watching William miss his beloved spouse, day after day, night after night. She’d gained a deeper understanding of it since meeting Darius, and today heartbreak pressed in on her from all sides.

“You trusted me, Vivian, as the man who could hold confidences that would affect the life of an innocent child.” He glanced down at her, then back at the baby, his expression pensive. “You trusted me as your paramour. I think you trusted me as your friend—I hope you did.”

What was he about? “I did—I do.”

Another silence, while Vivian wished and wished and told herself to give up wishing once and for all.

“Do you recall a certain night?” He swallowed and glanced away, out the window to where the lovely streets of Mayfair were showing to good advantage on a mild fall day.

She knew immediately where his thoughts had gone. “I gave you pleasure. You barely allowed it.”

He nodded once. “That night, I could not allow it, because I was not worthy of such a gift. My shame was without limit, eating at me like a disease. As a sop to my pride—and isn’t it curious how shame and pride can get along so well?—you pretended you were taking liberties. I knew better.”

This had something to do with calling himself a prostitute and with a lurking accusation that Thurgood was going to back Vivian into the same role—the same fate.

“Go on.”

“You were not on a casual erotic adventure, Vivian. You were making love to me. You were stating, in unequivocal terms, that no matter what I thought of myself, you would hold me in higher regard. I wanted, I want, that regard. Your generosity, your stubbornness, your goodness have prompted all manner of changes in my life—hard changes, but changes for the good. I am determined to be worthy of your regard, and for this reason—”

He closed his eyes. His throat worked. Vivian wanted to stop his words, and yet he spoke his truth to her, a truth she rejoiced to hear.

“For this reason, I can abandon neither the child nor you to Thurgood’s avarice and perversity. You trusted me before Vivian, in many regards, but can’t you trust me as the father of your child?”

Vivian was watching his mouth, probably marveling at the fancies a grown man could spew when he was desperate and holding his only child for what could be the last time.

“What are you asking me, Darius? I would trust you with my life, and with Will’s. I think William has done exactly that, but Thurgood is depraved. My mother couldn’t see it, but he forged her signature on a power of attorney as casually as you’d scrawl your regrets to a Venetian breakfast.”

And that was the man Vivian would entrust herself to for the sake of the child?

“I have consulted the finest legal minds in the City, Vivian. There is nothing Thurgood can do to affect Will’s claim on the title. William posted a birth notice in every newspaper in the capital, signed birth announcements with his own hand, sent personal correspondence to his friends and familiars rejoicing at the birth of his son.”

“How do you know this?”

“He wrote to me too, couching the letter as a request to serve as the boy’s godfather, based on the friendship and respect earned in all our varied dealings.” Those were William’s words: your honorable comportment in all our varied dealings. Darius carried the letter with him everywhere and read it frequently.

“William said I was not to worry. I wish he’d told me.”

Would she have agreed to such a letter? It argued loudly for allowing Darius to at least visit his godson, if nothing else.

“William does not want this child raised by a stranger of Thurgood’s choosing.” He had no right to add his own protestation, though it killed him to keep the words behind his teeth.

“We are going in circles, Darius. Angela and Jared will wonder if you’ve abducted me.”

The thought had fleeting appeal. Darius thumped on the roof twice, and the horses shifted into a trot. He resettled his arm around Vivian’s shoulders. “You’ll allow me to deal with Thurgood?”

She was quiet for so long he wondered if she’d answer. Her gaze was on the child, who—bless the boy—had slept for the entire journey. “You love that child, Darius Lindsey. You just met him today, and you love him.”

He loved the child and the child’s mother. The two loves were tangled up, reinforcing each other and lighting dim places in a soul that had dwelt too long in shadows. To say such a thing to her in those words would be unfair, also unwise.

“I tried not to, Vivvie. You were a new roof. Will was fresh marl for all my pastures, and security for John. I find I am not as resolute in these matters as I ought to be.”

A hint, the barest dawn-streak of a smile graced her features then faded. She spoke slowly, her gaze returning to the baby. “We have some time. William yet lives. Thurgood will do nothing while my husband is alive, and Dr. Garner assured me it’s quite possible William will make a full recovery.”

No, it was not. The handwriting and content of last month’s letter from William had conveyed waning strength of will as much as waning health.

“We can but hope.” That from a man who regarded hope as the last monster to escape from Pandora’s box, at least until recently.

“No pistols or swords, Darius. Thurgood will not observe any rules of fair conduct. He’ll have you stabbed in the back in some dark alley, and then be all sympathy and smiles at your bad fortune.”

“He has no honor. I’ve learned to recognize the type.” And he’d learned how to deal with them. “Promise me you won’t be alone with him, Vivian. Not in your own front parlor, not on the steps of the church, nowhere. If he comes to call, then the baby is fussy and you cannot spare a moment from the nursery. Promise me.”

The expression on her features reminded him of the day he’d stood behind her when she’d faced the mirror, forcing herself to truly see the hideous, calf-scours dress. “I will be from home, I will not let him accost me, and I will give you some time, Darius, to deal with him. I will give you whatever time William can spare us.”

The coach bumped around the turn into the alley that led to the Longstreet mews, while Darius tried to content himself with a partial victory. Vivian did not want to put herself in Thurgood’s hands, clearly. She wanted Darius to send the bounder packing, but she had to be a lioness in her decisions. Darius had only as long as William lived to find a way to rescue the lady and the child from the grasp of unrelenting evil.

As it happened, this meant he had no time at all.

Muriel’s death had been different, or maybe each death was different. When Muriel had died, Vivian’s grief had been absorbed in concern for William and his sons. Vivian had been the one fretting over the surviving spouse, the one trying to tend to logistics so Muriel’s family could manage their bereavement.

Now Vivian was stumbling through the day, seeing all the places William wasn’t, hearing the silences that should have been filled with his voice or the sound of his shuffling gait. Letters of condolence poured in, and Vivian would have sat staring at them except that Darius’s sister had shown up and taken Vivian in hand.

Leah, Countess of Bellefonte, embraced Vivian with the sturdy snugness Vivian had associated exclusively with Darius, whom she’d seen only fleetingly in the week since the christening. They’d arrived at Longstreet house to find Dilquin quietly distrait, William having slipped away during the christening itself.

Darius had managed the immediate, unthinkable logistics, instructed the servants to find the black armbands and air the crepe, ordered the death notice delayed by a day so as not to overshadow the christening, and arranged for Angela to come to Vivian’s side.

And then he had disappeared, though Leah assured her he would attend the final services out in Oxfordshire.

This was some comfort, but not enough. Not when twice Vivian had remained above stairs while Dilquin had turned Thurgood away. The strictures applicable to early mourning meant she wouldn’t be venturing onto the street such that he could waylay her in public, but even those strictures expected a woman to attend services.

Thurgood had already accosted her in a house of worship once, putting Vivian in mind of all the times the women Darius so loathed had come upon him without warning.

How had he borne it? How had he borne it without doing them bodily harm?

Vivian missed Darius terribly with a low, ferocious ache that included fear for his welfare and abject terror regarding the future. She missed William, too, even as she admitted relief that his suffering was at an end, and greater relief that Darius had sent Lady Leah and her exceptionally robust husband to stand watch over Vivian—and over the baby. From a woman, there was a different kind of comfort, and Vivian treasured the generosity of it.

Lady Leah made lists: There were notes to write, flowers to order, notices to send out, and crepe to arrange about the house on mirrors, portraits, and windows. Leah also oversaw the transformation of Vivian’s wardrobe, and prevented the entire lot from being dyed an ugly, flat black.

She gave the servants orders Vivian could only guess at, and had Vivian’s trunks packed for the journey to Longchamps, where William would be buried with his wife and sons.

“This is perfect.”

Thurgood Ainsworthy looked over the letter supposedly sent by Mr. Able Springer, though the hand was Portia’s.

“Did you say something, Good?” His wife rolled over and blinked innocent blue eyes at him, but at thirty-three, Ariadne was showing some wear. Fine lines radiated out from her eyes when the morning sun hit her face, and a softness would soon creep in under her chin.

Ah, well, another year or two and Thurgood could be looking for a bride elsewhere, his pockets full of the settlements Vivian would bring him when he sold her to her next spouse. A cit this time, or a nabob. Some grasping fellow who needed the cachet of a pretty, fertile, titled wife.

Thurgood set the letter aside and settled back among the pillows of a truly enormous bed. On more than one occasion—Ariadne occasionally visited her sister in Hampshire—Thurgood had been joined in that bed by no less than three other women at the same time. A man needed ingenuity to keep them all occupied, and Thurgood prided himself on an abundance of ingenuity.

He ran a hand over Ariadne’s plump breast. “Would you mind if Vivian came to stay with us for a bit once William’s will has been read? She’s a new widow, and all the Longstreet properties hold sad memories for her. The boy will likely be in Able Springer’s keeping, and Vivian will be at loose ends.”

“Vivian?” Another blink. “Whatever you say, Good. You’re decent to look out for her this way.”

“She’s family,” Thurgood said, giving Ariadne’s nipple a tweak. “Our duty is clear, and I wouldn’t think of turning my back on her. Now, roll over, love, get that pillow under you, and spread your legs for me.”

“My stomach, Good?” There was a hint of peevishness in her tone, just a hint.

“Unless you want more children to spoil your lovely figure, my sweet.”

He’d realized long ago that his wife looked a little like Vivian, though Ariadne was afflicted with neither Vivian’s independence of spirit nor much native intelligence. She could bear a prodigious grudge, though, which meant the marriage offered at least a nominal challenge to a man of broad and varied amorous interests.

Thurgood passed her a pillow, closed his eyes, pictured his stepdaughter’s lush figure, and envisioned a pleasant and well-heeled future drawing ever closer—for him.