Thurgood beamed at her. “Portia, my love, you are a woman after my own heart.”
He undid his falls again and filled his hand with the soft abundance of her breasts. She truly would be a woman after his own heart, if he had one.
***
The note made no sense.
My Lady,
You left this behind. I trust, having seen it into your keeping, our paths will not cross again.
Lindsey
The little bottle of scent sat on Vivian’s dressing table, silent and mocking. Darius had been so… loving in the bookstore, and now this. Whatever game he was playing, Vivian wanted no part of it. Maybe he enjoyed the torment, maneuvering, and manipulation he indulged in with those other women, but it left Vivian feeling sick, sad, and heartsore.
The baby shifted, no longer the little fluttering sensation of months ago but a noticeable movement that applied a passing pressure to her innards.
Darius Lindsey was the father of her child, he’d brought her more pleasure and more joy than any other man, and he was hurting her in equal proportions. For the sake of their child, Vivian resolved to forget Darius Lindsey, to put him from her life, her mind, her hopes.
That kiss… and now this.
If he liked playing hot and cold, come here and go away, he could play it with his other women. Vivian had seen him a handful of times in the past five months, and he’d been cool to her on all but two occasions, and now this.
Enough. She had a child to think of, a husband in ailing health, and better things to do than hope she caught Darius Lindsey in an approachable mood.
***
Darius had felt a moment’s panic when Lucy had accosted him outside the bookshop.
“Portia Springer,” he’d said, thanking a gift for recalling details. “She isn’t up from the country often. Her husband is steward to a large estate.”
“She looks like your type.” Lucy’s frown was thoughtful. “A little used but holding up, and intent on getting what she wants. Can a steward’s wife afford to pay you well?”
She would ask that. Darius turned a frigid stare on her right there in the street. “None of your business, Lucy. I suppose since you’ve taken to following me, you expect me to escort you somewhere? It will give me a chance to tell you I’m off to Averett Hill and wish you a pleasant summer while I’m at it.”
“Why go there now?”
“Because London in the summer is pestilentially hot. Because I need to tend what few acres I have, and it’s almost time for haying. Because I damned well please to go.”
She attached herself to his arm and minced along beside him. “I forbid you to go.”
“Too damned bad,” he muttered, feeling her stiffen with outrage beside him. “Lucy, you do not own me, and my sister is safely married to Bellefonte, so sheathe your claws.”
“You have another sister,” Lucy snarled. “She can be tarred with the same brush.”
He resisted a flood of curses, because this vulnerability had not occurred to him. “Emily is as pure as the driven snow, and Wilton would call you out, did you offer her insult.”
“Wilton is an ass. Maybe Hellerington can be persuaded to take an interest in Emily. He likes little girls.”
Merciful God. “Go to hell, Lucy.” Darius pried her fingers off his arm. “And take Blanche with you.”
He left her there, glaring daggers at his back in broad daylight, but then he’d gone home and written the most difficult note he’d ever penned, and it hadn’t even taken a single rough draft to get it right.
The confrontation solidified a resolve Darius had felt growing ever since he’d tucked Vivian into his traveling coach bound for London. She’d seen clearly what Darius himself only now grasped: The price of disporting with Lucy and Blanche was not his honor, but rather, his soul. Every single person Darius cared for—John, Leah, Trent, Vivian, and even the child she carried—was imperiled by Darius’s association with two women who regarded him as nothing more than an animated toy.
He had the determination; he had the courage; he had the desperation. He lacked only one final resource to see his plan set into motion, and he knew exactly where to find it. The time had come to ransom his soul back from hell.
***
So vast and varied were London’s commercial offerings that one no longer needed to make with one’s own hands each and every item a baby required. Vivian had embroidered receiving blankets and caps, knitted booties and shawls, and sewn dresses upon dresses for the unborn child, but there were a few things she had yet to procure.
A rattle. Every child needed a rattle, or several rattles.
A baby spoon, something in silver, not too ornate, but sized for a tiny mouth.
A little baby cup, also in silver, so it could be engraved upon the occasion of the child’s birth.
These purchases were of sufficient import to justify delaying a remove to Longchamps—these purchases, a growing concern for William’s health, and a reluctance to share a household again so soon with Portia.
That Darius Lindsey might yet be in Town was of no moment—unless Vivian were alone in her room late at night, sharing her bed with a particular brown scarf.
Vivian’s gaze traveled across a shop she’d patronized frequently to where a gentleman and a clerk were in conversation near a handsome bay hobbyhorse. The hairs on her nape prickled before her mind identified the speaker.
“The boy has been riding since I took him up before me as a babe. He needs…”
Vivian spoke up, though clearly Darius hadn’t spotted her yet. “He needs books, full of excellent stories about dragons and witches and trolls. He needs things to draw with, and a basket with a great fluffy pillow for his cat.”
Darius turned to her, expression inscrutable. “Madam?”
Today he was cool-Darius, though not cold-Darius. For an instant, she considered trying to be cold-Vivian.
Then discarded the notion. He looked thin to her, and tired, but not… she didn’t know what, but he was different. “Mr. Lindsey, isn’t it?”
“At your service, Lady Longstreet.” He bowed, and Vivian was very much aware of the shopkeeper watching their exchange.
“How old is the child you’re shopping for, Mr. Lindsey?”
He relaxed at her civil tone, and why not? His harpies were unlikely to accost him in a shop for children. Vivian would skewer them where they stood if they tried to.
Another queer start attributable to her delicate condition.
Darius took a step closer to her then checked himself. “John is rising seven and a curious fellow. I think you’d like him very much. He tries to exhibit the best manners possible under all circumstances.”
Oh, not this. Not veiled innuendos backed up by dark, pleading eyes.
“And does he succeed often enough to merit a lady’s praise?”
“I pray he does, and I’m sure his lapses are all well intended.”
She had no riposte sufficiently clever to convey that the lady’s feelings were slighted regardless of the well-mannered fellow’s intentions. When she might have signaled to her maid to gather up her purchases and complete her transactions, Darius took another step closer, and this was her undoing.
Carrying a child caused all manner of havoc with a lady’s sensibilities. She might be queasy, light-headed, fatigued, or unduly energized, wear a path to the necessary, and wake up at all hours with odd cravings.
In Vivian’s case, she had also acquired an astonishingly acute sense of smell. Darius’s unique scent came to her, promising pleasure, comfort, and passion in the middle of a children’s shop.
I’m fat, she’d said, quite proud of the fact several months ago. She had the proportions and maneuverability of a coal barge now, and in the space of a moment, she was seized with belated self-consciousness. That he, the only man to see her unclothed, sho
uld regard her in this state…
“My lady, are you well?” He took the last step to her side and slipped an arm around where her waist used to be. “When did you last eat, Lady Longstreet?”
Darius as a paramour was a force of nature, an overwhelmingly skilled and astute bed partner who could swamp a woman’s sense completely by conjuring pleasure upon pleasure. Darius as the worried father of her child had Vivian wishing she could manufacture a convincing swoon just to keep the potent concern simmering in his dark eyes.
“I had a proper breakfast.” A light breakfast, the most prudent way to start her day when the very scent of William’s bacon still made her queasy.
“You nibbled dry toast hours ago and washed it down with weak tea. You.” Darius waved a hand at the maid. “Her ladyship and I are going for an ice. Take her purchases back to Longstreet House and meet us at Gunter’s.” He passed the girl enough coin for hackney fare halfway to Paris, and paused to inspect Vivian.
“You’re not arguing with me, Lady Longstreet. One is encouraged to think impending motherhood might have turned you up biddable.”
He did not sound as if he were entirely teasing, but an ice… she’d been longing for a nice tart barberry ice, craving one, and she hadn’t even known it. “An ice would be acceptable.”
He escorted her from the shop, the picture of a young man performing a friendly courtesy, while Vivian tried to put a label on what she was feeling.
“Cheated.”
“Viv—I beg your pardon, Lady Longstreet?”
As they sauntered toward Berkeley Square, the street was not particularly busy, and for some reason Darius appeared willing to stroll along, arm in arm, despite any harpies who might pop out of doorways or passing coaches.
“I feel cheated.”
No immediate reply, though Vivian could feel Darius thinking. Then, very softly, “By me, Vivvie?”
He would leap to that conclusion. “Not by you, by the circumstances. I should have gone to that shop with you, to choose something for John, to find a baby spoon, rattle, and a silver cup. I should be complaining to you about not being able to see my feet, and I should be wrinkling my nose at your bacon every morning.”
He gave her an odd smile as they walked along, suggesting this was not a queer start, it was something else, something dear to him.
“Don’t stop there,” he said, patting her knuckles. “I should be rubbing your feet and your aching back at the end of the day. You should curse me roundly for costing you your figure and then ask me if you’re still beautiful—you are, you know. More beautiful than ever, which shouldn’t be possible.”
They got the entire way to Berkeley Square, cataloging her inconveniences and insecurities, and the listing of them—to him, only to him—eased something in Vivian’s soul even as the entire conversation made her ache terribly for what would never be.
“I positively loathe the scent of William’s bacon, but he’s gotten so thin I can hardly deny him what sustenance he takes.”
“Take a tray in your room before you come down to breakfast, Vivvie. Join him for tea, and he probably won’t notice you’re not eating.”
Good advice. Over two ices served under the maples—one barberry and one vanilla for her, from which Darius poached not a single bite, and one raspberry for him—Vivian learned to put her feet up as much as possible, to use pillows creatively to assist her to more comfortable sleep, and to walk as much as possible to prepare for the birth.
“How do you know these things, Darius? Did you learn them with John’s mother?”
His expression shifted, becoming sad.
Why had it never occurred to Vivian that Darius might have been in love with the boy’s mother? And yet… something he’d said about Vivian’s child being the only child he’d sire came back to her.
“The Continent is a more enlightened place regarding childbirth.” He held up a forkful of his raspberry ice. “One bite, Vivvie, to bring the color back to your cheeks.”
She obliged, knowing he was distracting her. By the look in his eyes, he knew she knew. For a few minutes, he pushed raspberry ice around with his fork.
“John has gone to spend the summer with Leah and Bellefonte.”
The way he said it, softly, as if the words hurt to even speak, broke Vivian’s heart.
“Darius, I am so sorry. To send your own—”
He shook his head and set the little bowl of ice from him. “He’s not my son, which is what you were about to say, and he’s not Leah’s or Trent’s either.” He glanced around, maybe taking inventory of the other customers, maybe looking for courage. “John is a half brother. Wilton mustn’t know that, not ever, and Reston—or rather, Bellefonte, now that his father has died—can keep him safer than I can. I did what I thought was best for the boy, at least for now.”
He’d no doubt repeated that litany to himself endlessly. The only person he’d allowed close, the person he seemed to love most in the whole world, and now this.
“I need your handkerchief, Mr. Lindsey.”
He smiled a sweet smile and waved a little square of linen at her. “You are the dearest woman. John is very happy. Trent is sending his children out to Belle Maison for a summer outing too. I’m promised regular letters.”
“But you’re alone,” she said, blotting at her eyes even as the scent on the handkerchief ripped at her composure further. “I hate being in this condition. I have no dignity, I have no airs and graces, I have—”
Cold and sweetness bumped against her lips. “Your ice is melting, Lady Longstreet. It will taste sweeter for thawing a little.”
Damn him. Bless him. She took the bite he offered and took courage from the simple affection with which Darius regarded her. “Do not lecture me about queer starts, Darius Lindsey. I will not have it.”
“When do you repair to Longchamps?”
The change of subject was intended as a kindness. Vivian wasn’t having any of that either. “Are those women still plaguing you, sir?”
The look he sent her was chilly indeed. “I have every confidence my path will depart from theirs very, very soon, though at present I’m told they’re each rusticating.”
It wasn’t what she had expected to hear and wasn’t at all what she’d wanted to hear, either. The entire encounter palled, because very soon was no comfort at all, and had those women not been rusticating, Vivian would not now be enjoying Darius’s company.
He sent John away but did not put from him the women who tormented him, and to all appearances, he avoided Vivian except for chance encounters.
She should have him summon a cab immediately and hope they didn’t run into each other again for a good long while.
“I’d like another ice. Chocolate, I think, and you’re not to steal even a bite of my treat.”
His gaze dropped to her belly, and his smile was not sweet in the least. Nor was it cool. “Bit late for that, isn’t it, Vivvie?”
He crossed the street to order her a third ice without further comment, only to stop in his tracks as he reemerged from the shop and a stylish lady with reddish hair came swanning up to his side.
“Why, Mr. Lindsey! What a lovely surprise.”
He did not even glance at Vivian, seemed determined not to glance at her, in fact. Vivian balled his handkerchief up and stuffed it into her reticule, signaled for her maid, and quitted the square without sparing him a glance either.
The prudent course was obvious: there could be no more meetings with Darius Lindsey, not by chance, not by design, and not by anything in between. Vivian vowed she’d leave for Longchamps in the morning—and stay there.
Fourteen
“This is an unexpected pleasure.” Blanche eyed Darius up and down, the way she’d look at a decadent dessert or expensive pair of new shoes. Darius’s flesh crawled at her inspection, but no more than it had a week previous, when
he’d barely been able to leave Gunter’s without ripping her to shreds in public.
And then pelting after Vivian for all the world to see.
“Unexpected, perhaps, a pleasure, most definitely not.” He handed his hat and gloves to one of the handsome footmen Blanche insisted on employing and met his hostess’s gaze. “You will want to hear me out in private.”
“I want you in private,” she agreed, “but as for listening to you carp and bark, I think not. You have more worthy attributes than your speaking voice.”
Darius let her shut the parlor door behind them, but when she moved to embrace him, he stepped back.
“Playing hard to get has limited charm between well-acquainted lovers.” Her tone was reproving, and again Darius felt a spike of nausea.
“We are not,” Darius said softly, “nor will we ever be, nor have we ever been, lovers. I accommodated you for a price. Your usefulness is at an end, and I am doing you the courtesy of informing you of this in private. I will do likewise with Lucy Templeton.”
“This straining at the leash is ill-mannered, Darius,” Blanche said, smiling as if anticipating a rousing argument. “You will continue to accommodate me and Lucy, and whomever else we choose to direct you to. Have you no sense of what Wilton would do to you were he to learn of your nocturnal schemes? Cease your nonsense, or there will be consequences.”
Darius crossed the room, his back to her for a long moment while he marshaled his temper and tried to calm the turmoil in his gut. This was what hatred felt like, corrosive, heavy, and lethal.
When he turned to face her, he saw the first flicker of real fear on her face, but it gave him no satisfaction.
“For all intents and purposes, Blanche, I have whored for you, but it is a whore’s prerogative to accept or decline the customer or the encounter. Even those rules you’ve disrespected in your dealings with me. I went to my own kind, to the streetwalkers and courtesans and prostitutes, and found what I needed to enforce the rules.”
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