“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 Th
urgood 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.
Eighteen
A tap on Vivian’s door interrupted her midpace before her fire.
“Vivvie?” Very softly.
She went to the door and drew Darius into her sitting room by the wrist when he would have malingered in the corridor. For the three days since William’s interment, the dratted man had lurked at Longchamps like a curate in training, barely addressing her and never lingering in the same room with her. She had stooped to desperate measures and put a note in his hand before retiring after dinner.
“I wasn’t sure you would come, blast you and all your decorum.” Perhaps a widow ought not to speak thus, and perhaps a widow ought not to plaster herself against a man with whom she was wroth.
His arms tightened around her with comforting speed. “Are you well, Vivvie? You barely said a word at tea. Is the baby all right?”
She put her hand over his mouth and resumed clinging to him. “You’re leaving tomorrow. Were you simply going to bow over my hand and condole me on my loss again, Darius?”
In her own voice, Vivian heard exasperation bordering on panic. Even lionesses were entitled to exasperation.
He stepped back and kept his hands on her shoulders. “My condolences are sincere. You’re up and down all night with the baby, you have my sister and her husband underfoot as guests, Thurgood lurks we know not where, and I would not trespass on your bereavement.”
She searched his gaze, but he enfolded her against him before her scrutiny revealed any new insights. “You spend a great deal of time in the nursery, Darius.”
“Nicholas does too. He likes babies.” There was bemusement in this observation, suggesting the baby enjoyed having two grown men fuss at him.
“Will is sleeping more, going longer without waking at night.”
Darius turned her under his arm and walked her toward her bedroom. “He’s growing, so he can take more at a feeding, but you did not summon me here to brag about your son, Vivvie.”
“You called him our son, not long ago.”
Without her quite intending it, they ended up sitting on the bed. Or maybe she had intended, had wished for it—for almost a year.
Darius laced his fingers with hers. “In my heart, he is our son. He’s William’s son too, and yours. I have not yet put Thurgood to rout, Vivvie, if that’s the point of this interview. I have plans in train, and I’m repairing to Town to see to their completion.”
“I do not want a status report, Darius.” She was being cranky, like a teething baby, turning away every attempt at solace.
He pushed her braid back over her shoulder, not a caress, more of a comfort. “What do you want, Vivian?”
You.
She didn’t apologize for the notion. William was gone, and while she had loved him, she’d never loved him the way a wife loved a husband. William—so devoted to his Muriel—was the last person who’d castigate her for her feelings.
“I want to see something in your eyes other than concern, Darius. I don’t want you watching me carefully, as if I might lapse into strong hysterics over my tea.” And damn the catch in her voice that said his concern wasn’t misplaced. If Darius could not silence Thurgood and his threats, strong hysterics were a certainty.
“Your room is chilly, Vivvie. Let’s get you under the covers.” He rose off the bed all too easily.
He was attempting to cosset her. She was going to wallop him. “I’m not getting under these covers without you.”
He paused in the act of lifting her covers. Paused and swallowed, then swung his gaze back to her face, carefully, as if not sure what he’d find there. “You’re bereaved, Vivian. I would not want to take advantage.”
His gaze moved over her, a blink-and-she’d-miss-it inventory that for just two consecutive instants revealed banked longing.
“You’re grieving, too.” That longing—so stark and sincere—had been a balm to Vivian’s soul and restored to her heaps of patience and understanding she hadn’t been able to locate a minute earlier. “All I’m asking is that you hold me, Darius.”
She had the sense that was all she could ask, that if she begged him to take off his clothes, to bring the candles closer to the bed, to make passionate love to her, she would exceed the fragile limits of his self-imposed standards of… something.
Decency? For he was decent.
Or perhaps they were the standards of martyrdom—which thought made her ill on his behalf.
He moved around the room, dousing candles, banking the fire, pouring a glass of water from the pitcher and setting it on the night table while Vivian watched him.
Darius Lindsey was a man like any other, one whom exigencies had forced into indecent bargains, but underneath it all, a highly decent man, a painfully decent man. Maybe that was why she’d given her heart, her happiness, and the well-being of her child into his keeping.
“Come to bed, Darius. I will think you have taken me into dislike now that I am no longer married to another.” The jest fell utterly flat, an occasion when bald truth arrived uninvited to the middle of a conversation.
He paused, two buttons away from removing his waistcoat. “Is that what you think? You think because I attempt to demonstrate my respect for your loss that my regard has changed?”
The idea intrigued him, clearly.
“I think I have lost William, and he was ready to go and deserving of a peaceful end, but I do not want—”
Oh, damn. Damn, and damn, and if she’d known any worse words, she would have thought them too. Bad enough when truth appeared uninvited in a conversation, how much worse when it popped up in the middle of a very sentence.
“Vivvie?” He was there next to her, that fear-of-strong-hysterics look replaced by simple, tender concern. “You can tell me, Vivvie. You can tell me anything.”
She could. She could bear his child; she could put herself under his protection; she could give him her truths. “I do not want to lose you too. Not for anything, and yet Thurgood will ruin Will’s life unless I give you up—unless we give each other up.”
His reply was gratifyingly swift and certain. “You won’t lose me.” He lifted his waistcoat over his head, tossed it toward the clothespress, and started on his shirt buttons. “You will never, ever lose me. Even if you tried, you could not lose me. You shall not lose me.”
Vows. He was spouting vows and tossing his clothing in all directions, both of which reassured Vivian mightily. “You should have a care for your clothing, Darius.”
His stockings went sailing. One caught on a chair; the other landed on her vanity. “Hang
the bloody clothing, Vivvie. I can afford new now. That dressing gown can go. Shall I help you with it?”
Would he also remove his breeches? “No, thank you.”
She was out of her dressing gown and sitting on the bed by the time he stood before her, naked, beautiful, and smiling at her. “It’s up to you, Vivvie. The nightgown can go or it can stay, but be assured, what’s under it now is far more dear to me than what lay beneath it last December.”
She looked away, deprived herself of all that masculine pulchritude in the interests of preserving a smidgen of dignity. “You are entirely too knowing, Mr. Lindsey. I have borne a child and am not—”
He stepped closer, close enough that the unique, soothing, spicy scent of him came to her, and close enough that his groin appeared in her line of sight. He was becoming aroused. This reassured too, but it intimidated a trifle as well.
“You’re not,” he said, tipping her chin up. “You’re not that young woman, and I’m not that man. Did you find me attractive all those months ago, Vivian?”
“Yes.” Intimidatingly so.
“Am I more attractive now? You know exactly the manner of person with whom I consorted, you know exactly how I allowed them to use me, you know what I took coin for, though it was arguably criminal of me to do so and certainly stupid. Am I attractive to you now?”
She did as she had once before, sat on the bed and wrapped her arms around his waist so she could press her face to the place beneath his heart. “If I knew more bad words, Darius Lindsey, I would be saying them to make you hush. You are not a criminal. You are not stupid. Yes, you are more attractive to me than ever. I look at you and lose my wits. I look at you and thank God you indulged in all those things you said—with me.”
Confession enough, apparently. His hand landed on her nape. “Then, you ridiculous, lovely woman, do you think my desire for you could ever be less than consuming? You risked your life to bring my child into the world, Vivian. You are beautiful to me, and you always will be.”
He was holding something back, though Vivian was too muddled to parse it out exactly. She let it go, lest he make an inspection tour of her lactating breasts, the slight belly she still sported, the circles of fatigue more prone to show up under her eyes. His argument could be made in the general case rather than example by example.
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