Darius: Lord of Pleasures

Nine

“So you’re just going to put the poor thing in the coach and wave her on her way?”

Darius scowled at Gracie, who had brought the usual morning tray while Vivian slept on beside him. “I’ll have the bricks heated first.”

“You were never cold before, Master Dare.” Gracie busied herself at the hearth. “I’m not proud of you, you know.”

Before this month with Vivian, he’d been cold all the time. Darius kept his voice to a whisper, lest Vivian wake up any sooner than necessary. “If you must know the truth, I’ll be relieved to get shut of her. It’s past time she was back in her William’s loving arms, and I can get back to my usual routine.”

If a man told a lie often enough, he might begin to believe it.

“Some routine.” Gracie snorted. “As if it was making you happy, to lark about in low places, consorting with those creatures.”

“Happy matters little compared to solvent.” Darius glared at her, and she had the grace to withdraw without further comment. He sipped his first cup of tea in silence, wishing he could put off the chore of waking Vivian and spare her their parting. She seemed to understand his warnings but not to take them to heart, and he mused in silence for some minutes on how, in truth, he was going to bear putting her into his traveling coach.

Vivian stirred sleepily beside him. “Tea?”

“Here you go.” He passed her his cup. “Slowly, as it’s hot.”

“Gracie’s been here.”

“Making trouble, as usual.” Darius offered her a smile. “Shall I pleasure you once again before you leave this bed?”

“Shut up, Darius.” Vivian sipped her tea.

“Cranky again, I see.” Darius’s smile faded. “My apologies.”

“You can stow that too.” Vivian set her cup aside. “I already hate this day, and you don’t need to be irritating to get me through it.” She flopped down onto her side. “It isn’t even snowing.”

“Why should it be snowing?”

“So I don’t have to leave you, you idiot.” Vivian settled her head against his thigh on a grumpy sigh.

His hand moved slowly on her hair, treasuring the silky feel of it. “Here’s how that works, Vivvie. You think this will be dreadful, this parting, which is very flattering but entirely unnecessary. You wish we could spend an indefinite amount of time romping like bunnies and oblivious to the rest of our obligations, but this is better.”

“Better?” She bit his hairy, muscular, male thigh, but not hard. “How can it be better to spend hours in a freezing cold coach, to be greeted by my elderly and dignified spouse, while I await the delivery of your child and you treat me as a perfect, and perfectly forgettable, stranger?” She turned her cheek against his leg and closed her eyes. “It’s going to be dreadful.”

“No, it is not.” Darius focused on the feel of her cheek against his thigh. “This day will be a nuisance, getting under way, and then putting up with the roads, but you’ll be in your own bed in Town tonight, and then on your way to Longchamps tomorrow. You think you’ll miss me, but you’ll be relieved to have this child conceived, Vivvie. William will be overjoyed, and the longer you’re parted from me and back to your own life, the less you’ll even think about me.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“Utterly.”

“Ass.” She nuzzled his cock. “I will miss you until my dying day.”

“No, you shall not.”

“Will too, and you know you want to send those women packing. You do. They have no business in your life, much less under the same roof as that dear child. You know this.” She swiped at him with her tongue, and he didn’t stop her.

Vivian stood in the freezing January air, while outside the stables, Darius’s traveling coach, complete with heated bricks, toddies, and a full hamper, waited for her.

“My lady.” Darius offered her his arm, but to her surprise, he walked her back into the barn and not up to the coach. She was wearing one of the new cloaks he’d had made for her, velvet, fur-lined, warm and lovely. Under that, her dress was one he’d designed, more velvet, a rich brown trimmed with green that felt as comfortable as it was elegant. Around her neck, though, he’d wrapped his cozy wool scarf, because she’d brought none of her own.

“I don’t want to go,” Vivian said, holding his gaze and swallowing against the pain in her chest. “You can’t make me want to go, Darius. That much, at least, I insist on.”

“I can’t, but I can warn you again, Vivvie. We’re strangers after this. Nothing but strangers. If you see me in the park, we’ll need to be introduced before you can acknowledge me, and I will all but cut you, for the sake of the child.”

“Oh, of course.” She knew he was trying to be decent, misguided lout that he was. “Unlike a few dozen other young men, you can’t be bothered with a little old bluestocking parliamentary wife like me for a passing acquaintance. I’ll recall that.”

“See that you do,” he warned, his voice stern. “Recall this as well, Vivvie. If you need anything—anything at all—you will discreetly apply to me.”

“I have a husband,” she said a little stiffly.

“For now, but during this child’s lifetime, you at some point likely won’t, and then you’ve only to ask, Vivvie, and whatever you need, if it’s within my power, I’ll see to it for you.”

“While you treat me like a stranger?”

He nodded, looking again like the grave man who’d joined her for dinner a lifetime ago in London.

“I want your promise, Vivvie. This is likely the only child I’ll have, and you have to let me do what I can, should the need arise.”

“This should not be your only child, Darius.” Of that she was certain, though she assuredly did not want him procreating with anybody else. “If I’m even pregnant.”

“You’re carrying.”

“How can you know that?”

“I just do.” His smile was smug and sad. “You are, and that means more coin for me, so well done, Vivvie Longstreet.”

“We’ll see,” she said, wanting to screech at him for bringing up their mercenary bargain yet again. “Was there anything else?”

She glanced at the coach, feeling as if it were some sort of hearse, only to find herself pulled into his arms and kissed, gently, fiercely, and thoroughly.

“Damn you.” She wiped a tear from her eyes with her new gloves, and went up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Damn you, Darius Lindsey, for that kiss and the lectures and all of it.”

He winked at her as he escorted her out to the coach. “May I roast in hell, and so on. That’s the spirit.” She smiled, and he looked relieved and desperate and dear as he handed her in.

“Godspeed, Vivvie, and from the bottom of my jaded and worthless heart, thank you.” He banged on the door, and the coach pulled out before Vivian could stop crying long enough to wonder what on earth he was thanking her for.

Darius’s traveling coach was comfortably conducive to crying, which was fortunate, because Vivian was disposed to indulge. She knew Darius had purchased the vehicle for a song, and probably kept it for himself because it was as luxuriously appointed on the inside as it was carefully unremarkable on the outside. She wasn’t a weeper by nature, but gracious, almighty, merciful, everlasting God…

She buried her nose in his scarf and missed him and hated him for his effortless savoir faire, and loved him for the excruciating tenderness with which he’d made love to her just two hours earlier. He hadn’t said a word; he’d just started in with the kissing and touching and loving, and she’d been… lost.

What was wrong with him, that he’d insist they part on such cool and rational terms, and what was wrong with her, that she couldn’t see the wisdom of his logic?

The trip into Town took longer than she’d liked, in part because she’d needed time to use the facilities at various inns along the way, but also because snow had started to fall—too late to do her any good, of course. When the coach gained the Longstreet townhouse, midday had come and gone and Vivian decided to allow herself a short nap while her trunks were being unloaded.

The idea of going back into William’s house, the one he’d shared with Muriel for several decades, was daunting. In just a few weeks, Vivian had become terribly attached to a man she’d met only once previously. How much closer must William and Muriel have become, making love, raising children, sharing his career…

Things she would never have. Not with Darius, not with anybody. A fresh wave of grief rose up to clog her throat, and Vivian went inside and accepted Dilquin’s solicitous greetings. She kept her new velvet cloak though, claiming the house was chilly, which it was. An hour later, her personal maid found her asleep in her own bed—without a stitch on, God have mercy—and with the velvet cloak spread over the counterpane for extra warmth, and a brown scarf jammed halfway under her pillow.

As Vivian slept away her afternoon, the unloading of Darius’s coach proceeded without incident, except that it was observed by one of the coach’s former owners. Thurgood Ainsworthy had had the thing built to order in one of his wealthier marriages, and it was a traveling coach fit for a man whose social life required a good deal of both discretion and mobility.

Thurgood had loved that coach and loved owning it. He’d seduced more than one lady in its cushy confines, and had only bet the thing because he’d been in his cups and unfamiliar with his gambling opponent. It had been years ago when he’d made the mistake of thinking some cocky younger son was acting as if his hand were poor, when in fact the bastard had been holding a full house, queens over knaves.

Rotten luck.

Apparently the younger son had come upon rotten luck now too, because Longstreet must have purchased the thing for his darling Vivian.

But as Ainsworthy watched, the coachy wheeled the empty vehicle not around to the alley that lead to the Longstreet carriage house, but rather back out into the street and off toward the nearest coaching inn.

Darius heard his traveling coach clatter back up the lane and realized he’d failed to drink himself into oblivion. Well, it was only just past dark. There was time for that.

“I miss her.” He passed that admission along to his great and good friend, the brandy decanter, which sat loyally guarding his right elbow where he sprawled before the fire in his study.

“I miss her in bed,” he began, finding his usual tolerance for pain serving him well. “I miss her over the dinner plates. I miss her out riding. I miss her arguing with me over stupid political questions nobody cares about except the bloody Lords. I miss her teasing John—I miss that a pissing damned lot. John misses her, God help us.”

He took another contemplative sip and regarded his companion.

“I miss having somebody, anybody, to talk about John with, and she was so kind.” He mentally relaxed before he could wind up for the next blow. “She was reassuring, telling me I’m doing a good job with the boy, when I’ve exposed him to all manner of depravity. I’m a grown man, and I’ve been raising that child for years. When did I sprout this need for reassurance?”

He veered off that perilous ditch and took off in a more familiar direction.

“She deserves so much better.” He was mumbling now, mumbling around the ache that had been in his throat for hours. “She says I deserve better, silly wench. And she smelled lovely, always. How did she do that?”

That question brought to mind the scent of stale powder and singed hair he associated with Blanche and Lucy. He was going to have to do something about those two. Vivian was carrying—carrying his child—and that meant the first and second installments of William’s payment would come due. The first one should be on its way as soon as Vivian rejoined William at Longchamps, and the second when she’d missed her second menses. The third, if there was a third, would arrive when she was safely delivered of a child, and then, by God, Darius’s finances would be in the closest thing to good repair he’d ever known.

“And then what will I do?” He scowled at the decanter. “Raise bloody pigeons to bill and coo their way across England while I grow old selling pigeon shit?”

Such a question signaled inebriation, even Darius knew that, as unaccustomed as he was to overindulging. He rose unsteadily, saluted the decanter, and went up to his room. He spent the night fully clothed in a chair by the fire, alternately missing Vivian and cursing his stupid, useless, pointless life.

Vivian took an extra day in London to regain her energy, though her energy wasn’t very cooperative. Her clothes were repacked, the townhouse closed up, the baggage loaded, Dilquin and her lady’s maid loaded with it, and off they went.

And with each mile, Vivian’s emotions grew more confusing and unhappy.

William greeted her with a smile and a kiss to her cheek, then took her hands and stepped back to study her.

“You’re well?”

“I am in good health,” she said, not wanting to remove her cloak. Reluctantly, she undid the frogs herself—thank goodness William would not be so presumptuous—and passed the garment to the waiting footman. “And yourself?”

“Getting over a little cold, my dear.” William’s eyes skimmed over her new dress and the way she’d styled her hair with a part down the middle, not pulled straight back into a governess’s bun. “Will you join me in a cup of tea?”

She didn’t want to, but she kept her expression pleasant.

“Of course, William.” She took his proffered arm as she had a thousand times before, but missed, badly, the strength of Darius’s escort as she did. William’s arm was a prop. In truth, she supported him more than he supported her.

They sat down to tea in the library and began the ritual conversation that signaled each of their various reunions over five years of marriage. William was polite, Vivian was polite, and it was all… wrong.

“Shall we speak of your time in Kent, Vivian?” William had waited until the tea tray was removed and they were guaranteed privacy. “Or would you rather we pretend you were merely visiting your sister while I passed the holidays down here?”

His old eyes held nothing but a banked, patient kindness when Vivian finally met them. “I wouldn’t know what to say, William.”

“The trip did you good. You might not see it yet, but it did.”

“If you say so.” Vivian wished the tea tray were still there, so she could at least occupy her hands. William missed little, and his scrutiny weighed on her.

William patted her knuckles. “It’s all right to be infatuated with the man, probably better, in fact.”

She looked away, feeling her throat closing. “William, hush.”

She’d never told him to hush once in five years, but he was apparently able to weather the shock. He passed her his handkerchief.

“Vivian, you’re young, and he will be the father of your child,” William said. “We didn’t choose him because he was the Scourge of the High Toby. Lindsey is comely, he has a certain dash, and he no doubt charmed you. Some feelings for him were inevitable.”

“I said hush.” She let the tears come, not realizing William had shifted until the familiar scent of bay rum grew stronger and she felt his arm around her shoulders. He said nothing, but for the first time in her marriage, she merely tolerated his embrace, finding no comfort in it at all.

She wanted to smack him, in fact, and shout at him to stop reasoning with her.

“You are angry with me,” William said. “I’m sorry for that, but you won’t be so angry when you hold that child, Vivian. I promise you.”

“I know.” She agreed out of a need to shut him up. They’d never been this personal with each other in all their years of marriage, and she wasn’t about to start now. Maybe not ever, given what had passed in the last month.

“Can I assume your lunation is late?”

“You can.” She blotted the last of her tears and folded his handkerchief into a small, tidy square. “Just a little.”

“That’s enough for now.” William rose off the arm of her chair. “We’ll not speak of your visit in Kent again, for it upsets you, and we must take the best care of you now, Vivian. Early days can be chancy.”

“Yes, William.”

“You’re tired. Shall I send Portia to you?”

Vivian rose, though fatigue and sadness dragged at her. “Everlasting God, please, not that. I’ll see her at dinner, and we can trade veiled barbs over a decent meal.” Except Vivian had no appetite. “I think I’ll take a walk while the sun is at least shining.”

“As you wish.” William stepped in and kissed her forehead. “You know, Vivian, I do realize what a toll this has taken on you, what a toll it will take, and I am appreciative.”

“As I am,” she said, “of all you’ve done for me.” She withdrew, wrestling with her first-ever bout of anger at William Longstreet. Oh, she’d been exasperated with him in the past, irritated, cross, annoyed—they were married, after all—and he was two generations her senior, but she’d never felt this burning, resentful rage at him.

So she took her walk in the cold sunshine. A long walk was an excuse to wrap Darius’s scarf around her neck, and the pretty, warm cloak he’d bought her around her body, and to be alone with his scent.

“I need the name of a good solicitor.” Darius put the question to his older brother, who was for once looking reasonably well put together.

“I thought you used a firm you were happy with,” Trent replied, pouring his guest a cup of tea.

“I do, for my commercial interests. This is personal, and requires… discretion.”

“Anything I can do?” The question was posed with studied casualness, but the offer was sincere, and Darius knew a pang of… something. There was loneliness in it and love for his brother and despair.

“A small matter”—Darius’s lips quirked at the private joke—“requiring a delicate hand. I won’t get my ears blown off though, so you needn’t worry.”

“One does, you know.” Trent sipped his tea with the equanimity Darius had long associated with him. “In your absence over the past couple of months, I’ve had to do the pretty with Leah a time or two, and I’d forgotten how exhausting it is.”

“It’s not so bad. You learn to bow and smile and twirl down the room without putting anything into it.” And you looked for the well-padded chairs, of which Trent’s modest library sported an adequate number.

“Well, I haven’t yet acquired the knack. Your return to Town is most welcome. In terms of solicitors, I use Kettering. He’s young, but absolutely discreet and shrewd as hell.”

“He’ll not go tattling to Wilton?”

“I’d shoot him on sight if he did,” Trent said, no smile in evidence. “And likely miss. The man is quick in every sense.”

Darius studied his brother, who was drinking tea for a change. “You seem to be a little more the thing. Maybe you needed to put off mourning.”

“Having to go out with our sister on my arm required a certain reestablishing of my own routines.”

Routines, Darius surmised, like having one’s hair trimmed, shaving regularly, putting together a proper suit of clothes, and getting them on one’s person. Making conversation, those sorts of routines. Well, bless Leah’s social calendar, if it had given Trent a toehold on regaining his balance.

“Uncle Dare!” A little dark-haired boy shot across the library, his face wreathed in glee.

“Nephew Ford!” Dare barely set down his teacup in time to snatch his nephew into his lap. “Is my best nephew in the whole world ready to go riding?”

“I’ll get my boots and my coat and my hat and my gloves too!” He was off at a dead run, the library door slamming shut behind him.

“You don’t mind?” Trent asked, setting his teacup aside. “I could go with you, but I’d have to take Michael up before me.”

Darius smiled. “Droit du Uncle, to fuss over one child at a time. Michael and I can plot an outing on some fine spring day when it won’t send his nurses into the vapors to think of him in the nasty cold air.”

Ford came charging back into the room, once again banging the door in his wake. “Ready, Uncle Dare!”

Darius scooped his nephew into a piggyback perch, and soon had him up on the pommel of Skunk’s saddle. The day was cold but sunny, and there was little wind, so a short ride through the park was a pleasant outing for uncle and nephew.

“Papa’s not mourning anymore,” Ford reported.

“How do you know this?”

“His breath doesn’t always smell like brandy when he kisses us good night. Are the ducks cold?”

“They waddle about with featherbeds on, so no, I don’t think they’re cold. They even go swimming, for pity’s sake.”

“Maybe they have to, to eat.”

“We all do things we’d rather not when it comes to the necessity of eating.”

“Why, Mr. Lindsey!” A soft female voice cut through Darius’s musings. “Won’t you introduce me to your handsome companion?”

And there she was, just like that, as if sprung from Darius’s constant, unhappy thoughts. Except Vivian looked… wonderful. She was wearing one of the fur-lined cloaks he’d bought her, and her face was lit with a soft, eager smile. She sat Bernice like a princess, and beamed a sense of joy at all she surveyed.

“Madam?” Darius was relieved his tone was civil—merely civil—when his heart was thumping in his chest like a kettledrum. “You have me at a disadvantage.”

“Lady Vivian Longstreet,” she supplied, though around her eyes, her smile faltered, and Darius’s thumping heart skipped several miserable beats. “My husband introduced us last fall.”

“Your husband?”

“Lord William Longstreet,” Vivian countered gamely, and Darius knew the meaning of self-hatred in a whole new way. “We’re back in Town for the opening of Parliament.”

“You’ll give him my regards, then. Good day.” Darius tipped his hat just as Ford spoke up.

“I like your horse. Good bone and a kind eye.”

He sounded just like John, and Darius saw the hurt that did Vivian.

“I am remiss,” Darius said, knowing it was a Bad Idea. “My lady, may I make known to you my nephew, Fordham Lindsey.”

“Good day, Master Fordham.” Vivian’s smile expanded to include the boy. “You sit that big horse quite well. I’m sure your uncle is very proud to be seen with you before him.”

Ford sat up straighter. “I’m the oldest. Skunk likes me.”

“I can see that, but it’s chilly out.” She shifted her gaze to Darius. “I mustn’t keep you, or your mama will fret.”

“She’s dead.” Ford didn’t seem the least concerned about this. “We’re not mourning anymore.”

Vivian’s brow puckered. “My condolences.”

“My sister-in-law did not enjoy good health,” Darius said, and then, because his chest hurt ferociously to think he’d nearly snubbed her, he added, “But you do?”

“I do, Mr. Lindsey. The very best of health.” Her smile became radiant, and Darius realized he’d trumped his Bad Idea royally, for that smile would haunt him into his dotage.

“Well, good day, then, my lady. Safe journey home.”

“Safe journey to you, too, Mr. Lindsey, Master Fordham.” She nudged her mare along, still beaming as she and her groom passed out of sight around a bend in the bridle path. This told Darius two things. First, she was still safely carrying, which was a good thing. Second, she wasn’t going to exercise plain common sense and ignore him when their paths crossed, which was a bad thing. A very bad, stupid thing, which pleased him far more than it should.

“Can you keep a secret?” Vivian kept her voice down, though she and Angela were alone.

“I am the mother of three,” Angela replied, not even glancing up from her embroidery hoop. “I can keep secrets, though not from my husband.”

Vivian smiled at her sister, whose impending addition to the family was growing increasingly apparent.

“I believe I am in an interesting condition,” Vivian said softly, eyeing the closed door to the family parlor. “Though not yet very far along.”

Angela set her hoop down. “How not very far along?”

“I likely conceived around Christmas, so about six weeks.” Perhaps five, perhaps seven, possibly as much as eight. “I know that’s early, but I haven’t had any real trouble.”

“Oh, Viv…” Angela rose and hugged Vivian hard. “I am so pleased for you and for William. He must be over the moon.”

“I think he’s relieved, but pleased too, for us both. The thought of a baby has eased his grief over Algernon’s death. I’m hoping it will chase off the last of the cold he brought back from Longchamps.”

“Best watch that,” Angela said, resuming her seat. “A cold can become a lung fever, and then you’re a widow with a baby on the way.”

“You will cease that grim talk, Angela Ventnor.” Vivian poured them both more tea, though lately she had come to loathe the stuff. “I’m weepy enough as it is.”

Angela grinned. “That’s quite normal, as is casting up your accounts, weaving a little on your feet, and taking naps at the oddest times. Jared says he suspected we were carrying again when I started needing more cuddling.”

We were carrying… Angela had been married for ten years, and Vivian could not recall her sister ever previously referring to her husband and cuddling in the same sentence. Impending motherhood was indeed an interesting condition.

“Your husband notices more than I thought he did.”

“You must let William spoil you too, Viv.” Scolding came naturally to the mother of three. “For once, let him take care of you, and not just the other way ’round.”

“Yes, Mother.” Vivian smiled but tried not to consider her sister’s words too closely. William wasn’t the taking-care-of kind of husband. He was considerate, when he wasn’t out all evening arguing with his cronies, or up late reading draft bills and correspondence, or distracted because it approached the anniversary of his marriage to Muriel, or her death, or Algernon’s death, or Aldous’s…

As Vivian saw her sister out, she admitted to a sense of furtive relief that she could again seek the solitude of her bedroom. Ever since she’d run into Darius in the park with that little boy who looked like him, and like John, Vivian’s attempts to forget her winter idyll and move on had been completely unsuccessful.

She didn’t want to forget; she wanted to remember. She kept Darius’s scarf in the back of her wardrobe and took it out to sniff it at least once a day. She wore her new wardrobe, admiring the woman in the mirror far more than she had the one she’d seen last November. She visited with her mare first thing in the day, because it was a good way to start the morning, even when they couldn’t get to the park for a brisk canter.

And she missed him.

She didn’t flatter herself he missed her, but she hoped, in a small, honest, very private corner of her heart, he at least thought of her from time to time.

She climbed onto her bed, knowing a short nap was in order—another short nap. Maybe next time her path crossed with Darius’s, there wouldn’t be a curious child underfoot, and they could even exchange a few more words.