Darius: Lord of Pleasures

Eleven

Blanche lay on the bed, replete and rosy, watching Darius while he got dressed as quickly as he could without giving away how desperately he wanted to be away from this place and this woman.

“Lucy won’t stand for this,” she said, twiddling a bed tassel around her finger. “She’ll be wroth you’d even think of ending our arrangement.”

“She’ll be wroth whether I end it or not.” Darius wrapped his cravat around his neck once, rather like a linen noose. “She was born unhappy, Blanche, and the less you have to do with her, the more likely you are to find some peace in this life.”

“Peace is boring.” She rolled up on her side and regarded him through slumberous eyes. “She’ll make you think twice about throwing us over.”

His temper would not be silent. He turned and glowered at her. “Are you threatening me?”

“I’m warning you, Darius.” For once, Blanche looked like the tired, nearly middle-aged woman she was. “Lucy doesn’t see straight where you’re concerned. I can understand if you’re bored with the whips and bindings, and I’ll speak to Lucy, but she won’t give you up without a fight.”

“I’m not a juicy bone to be scrabbled over.” Darius yanked on his boots. “And you are exactly correct: I’ll have no more of the bindings, whips, and stupid games. I’m done with it, and done with Lucy’s airs and pouts. You may kindly tell her for me to go swive herself if she can’t accept that.”

Blanche sat up and shrugged into a dressing gown. “She’d rather be swiving you. As would I.”

“No, you only think you would. You want to believe you’re wicked, naughty, and sophisticated in your pleasures, but you’re not, and neither is Lucy. What we do is nothing short of pathetic, and I’m through with it.”

“You’re not. You’re not done until Lucy says you’re done.”

Darius barely resisted offering her a rude gesture, but instead bowed and took his leave, the long walk in the chilly night air serving to calm him only marginally.

Sleep, unfortunately, eluded him, leaving him to the torment of his thoughts. He didn’t want to think about Vivian; his mind felt too dirty for even her mental presence, but she beckoned to his thoughts like a siren.

How was she feeling?

Was William taking good care of her?

Was she anxious over the prospect of giving birth?

Did she think of Darius?

He flattered himself she did, as her obvious pleasure in their two chance encounters suggested, but this was not a good thing at all for several reasons.

Having had hours to ponder his dealings with Blanche Cowell, Darius concluded he’d tactically erred, and this could eventually devolve to Vivian’s detriment.

Lucy Templeton would be on notice now that Darius was abandoning the kennel where she’d tried to tie him. She’d have time to plan her countermoves, which meant the element of surprise was on her side. Stupid of him, but he’d been so damned tired lately…

He fell into restless slumber then, and dreamed of Vivian making snow angels with John while Wags sat on the fence, licking his paws.

“You have to rest.” Vivian crossed her arms and prepared to lay siege to William’s stubbornness. “You’re just over that cold, William, and you’ve been pushing yourself ever since you got back to Town.”

“We’ve been here weeks, Vivian. Months, in fact.” William’s smile was patient and pained. “I am resting. I do little else but rest.”

And read Muriel’s old letters and diaries. That, more than his pallor or the persistent weakness dogging him, alarmed her. She knew her husband occasionally communed with his first wife’s personal effects, but it had become a nightly ritual, and she suspected he carried one or two of Muriel’s letters around with him too.

“You work,” Vivian said, hands on hips, “and while we aren’t entertaining as much, you attend one supper meeting after another, William.”

“It’s my duty.” He met her gaze only fleetingly, twitching at the blanket over his knees. “There’s a sense of urgency, Vivian, when one feels time is running out.”

“Hush.” She poured him a finger of brandy and brought it to him. “You’re simply tired and fretting over me and the fate of an entire nation. Fret a little for yourself, William Longstreet. I’ve no wish to become your widow.”

“You fret enough for both of us.” William sipped the brandy, but Vivian sensed it was more to placate her than because he enjoyed it. “There’s something else to fret about in the mail today, Vivian.”

“Anything serious?”

“One hopes not. Portia has taken it into her head to come up to Town for the Season.”

Gracious, everlasting, immortal, avenging God. “Portia is to be our guest?”

“I’ll refuse if you insist.” William’s tone was noncommittal. He did not want to refuse—did not want Portia’s enmity, probably. “Nothing must be allowed to upset you now, Vivian. Nothing.”

“You upset me.” She softened her words by patting the back of his veined hand. “I can’t face having this child without you, William, so no more late nights, and no more tearing around the city at all hours on foot. Please.”

“If you insist, my dear.”

Vivian’s alarm notched up at his complacent tone. “Don’t humor me, William.”

“I’ll be a good boy, Viv.” He smiled at her, a sincere smile that hinted at the charm he’d traded on as a younger man. “With Portia underfoot here, it will be hard not to haunt the offices of government.”

“She can help me sew baby clothes.”

William’s smile widened. “That’s diabolical. Muriel would have approved. You’re feeling well?”

He asked often, and she replied the same as she always did. “I’m fine. A little more prone to fatigue, but even that’s passing.”

William eyed her. “What does the physician say?”

“First babies show later.” Vivian busied her hands by poking at the fire. With Darius, she had discussed bodily functions and female biology openly and often. “In all other regards, things appear to be progressing normally.”

“Shall I convey that sentiment to young Mr. Lindsey?”

Vivian set the poker back on the hearth carefully, so as not to make a racket—also to buy her an instant to hide any reaction. “William?”

“I was young once too, Vivian.” William peered at the rejuvenated fire. “In his place, I’d want to know that my firstborn child, however conceived, was being carried in good health.”

Vivian’s conscience pricked her hard every time she kept her encounters with Darius to herself. There was no reason to tell William, even though there was no reason not to, either.

“You must do as you see fit, William.” Vivian rose from the hearth, considering William. Considering her husband. “If you think it would be kind, then pass along what you must. I honestly don’t know if he’d prefer to know or be left in ignorance. He’ll know when the child’s born, and perhaps that’s enough.”

“I shall ruminate on this.” William took another sip of his brandy. “Ruminating is one activity my great age leaves me suited for.”

“Don’t ruminate too hard.” Vivian tucked his lap robe around him and took herself to her chambers, knowing William would spend the shank of the evening reading Muriel’s letters and diaries, while Vivian dreamed of Darius Lindsey.

Before he opened his late wife’s diary—he was up to old George’s second bout of madness, about which Muriel had written plenty—William Longstreet gave some thought to his present wife.

Vivian had fallen hard for the Lindsey rascal, and since coming to Town, she’d contrived to run into the man at least twice that William knew of. Dilquin wouldn’t peach on his mistress, but the grooms were mostly up from Longchamps, and they were loyal exclusively to William.

Lindsey had behaved with perfect propriety toward Vivian on both occasions. No covert letters were being exchanged, no tokens dropped, no steaming glances or bald innuendos passed around.

Young people didn’t realize how quickly years slipped away, and then there you were, sitting alone with a brandy you didn’t want, laboring for each breath, and trying to recall the laughter of the only woman you’d truly loved in all your days on earth. It was sad and lonely, and made the prospect of death almost a comfort—almost a reward.

One he couldn’t claim just yet, not with the young people being so buffle-brained about what should be perfectly obvious to any save themselves.

“Darius says Reston’s coming back to Town for the Season.” Blanche offered that tidbit in hopes of placating Lucy, who was stomping from one end of her boudoir to the other.

“What interest would I have in that great, strutting lout?”

Blanche’s mouth curved. “You had an interest once, Lucy. As did I.”

“Reston is fine for a simple romp,” Lucy conceded. “I graduated from simple romps years ago, and so did you.”

“A simple romp has its place.” Blanche set her teacup down—the taste was off, as if the leaves had been reused and the tea boiled. “At least with a man built like Reston. I wish Cowell understood even a simple romp.”

“He still bothers you?”

“We have only the one son.” Blanche went to the window and regarded the wet, cold day outside. “I’m not that old.”

“One must occasionally tolerate a husband to cover one’s tracks, so to speak.” Lucy turned to regard her. “I’m sorry, Blanche. I’ll bring Lindsey to heel for you, see if I don’t.”

“Maybe I’m bored with him.” Blanche felt Lucy’s arm go around her waist and leaned her head on the other woman’s shoulder. “He’s so… ungracious. Mercenary.”

“You still want hearts and flowers, my girl. That’s not what men are for.”

“So you say.” Blanche slipped away. “What have you in mind for Darius?”

“Just a little pressure, applied in the right places. You said his sister is up for a husband this Season, and we can queer her chances easily enough.”

Lucy in a plotting mood was unpredictable. Brilliant, but unpredictable. “Some have mentioned Hellerington in context with his sister.”

Lucy’s smile broadened. “A truly dreadful specimen. Wasn’t there some scandal involving the sister years ago? She must be quite the antique.”

“She’s younger than we are by a decade,” Blanche chided. “But yes, she ran off with a younger son, and there was rumor of a duel and then a long stay on the Continent.”

“How do you learn these things?”

“Her papa is hard on the help,” Blanche explained. “The help will talk, if induced sufficiently, particularly when they’ve been turned off without cause and a quarter’s wages wanting.”

“So Darius comes by his sour nature honestly. Well, don’t fret, my dear. Darius will be eating out of our hands once again, so to speak. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Don’t go to any trouble on my behalf.” Blanche sat on the bed and began to peel down her stockings. “He’s just… the thing you cleanse your palate with between the substantial courses. Inconsequential. Largely decorative.”

“What a lovely analogy.” Lucy sat beside her and stroked Blanche’s hair back with a slow caress. “But what does that make me?”

“If there is a benefit to all this socializing,” Darius informed his sister Leah one cool April evening, “it’s that you at least get out of that house and away from Wilton. Where are we off to tonight?”

“The Winterthurs’ ball,” Leah said, fluffing her skirts as she settled into the Wilton town coach.

“You look fine,” Darius assured her. “You’ll be fine.”

“I’ll be whispered about.” She might have leaned against him on that sentiment, but Darius’s sister was not complaining. “You’ll dance with me, and a few other stalwarts will, but it will mostly be an evening to endure.”

“I saw Val Windham standing up with the ladies the other night. He wouldn’t make a bad husband.”

“He’s a duke’s son.” Leah smoothed her skirts again. “He can do much better.”

“Dance with him anyway. He’s decent company, and it can’t hurt to be seen on his arm.”

“Suppose not, and it passes the time. What about you? Any prospective brides on the horizon?”

Sisters knew exactly how to turn the tables on a fellow. “A bad joke, Leah. I’ll leave the hunting to you and Trent.”

“And Emily,” Leah added. “She’s making lists, scouring Debrett’s, and ranking prospects by title.”

“A right little scientist. Has Hellerington pestered you?”

“He’s too infirm to dance,” Leah said, though her eyes narrowed tellingly. “So far, he just breathes on me, ogles me, and hints he’s in discussions with Wilton.”

“Which he well could be.”

“How do you know this?”

“Men talk.” Darius studied the passing street lamps, hoping Leah would accept that explanation. He’d put Kettering on to keeping an eye out at Hellerington’s solicitors, and clerks talked over a pint more than old women at a quilting party.

“Should I be worried?”

He wanted to offer her reassuring platitudes, about providing for her no matter what, dowering her if necessary, but he’d gotten another summons from Lucy Templeton, and the tone was overtly threatening. Before he took on his siblings’ troubles, Darius admonished himself to put his own house in order.

“You should be cautious,” Darius said, but that increased the anxiety in her eyes, which called for a change in topic. “What do you recall of a Vivian Longstreet? She said she came out with you.”

And thank the angels, the trepidation in Leah’s gaze became curiosity. “You ran into her in the park with Emily last month. I knew her as Lady Vivian Islington. She’s an earl’s daughter, and we’re of an age, so we were thrown together a great deal. We lost touch, though, when I went to Italy. I recall her as quiet, kind, and more sensible than the average debutante. Pretty too. Why do you ask?”

Darius did not take his sister’s hand, though he wanted to—to comfort her, but maybe also to comfort himself. “She was kind to Em, and a girl making her come out can use every ally. Speaking of allies, shall I remain at your side tonight?”

“Only if you spot Hellerington. I’ll find a place among the wallflowers and dowagers, and be content enough.”

Darius shot her an exasperated look. “You have to at least try. You’re pretty, intelligent, you run Wilton’s household on tuppence or less, and you’d make some fellow a wonderful wife. A husband would be an escape from Wilton and from whatever mischief he plans for you.”

Leah rummaged in her reticule, extracting a pair of long white evening gloves and slipping them on. “I’m used goods. Wilton has seen to it the world knows what low esteem he holds me in, Darius, and yet, you’re right: I should at least try. If I don’t, that will be reported to Wilton as well.”

“True enough.”

He danced the opening set with her then gave in to her pleading when they’d seen no sight of Hellerington, and left her among the companions and chaperones.

“Mr. Lindsey? Ah, it is you. A pleasure to see you again.”

Darius turned slowly, not initially placing the dry, aged voice. William Longstreet stood near a pillar under the minstrels’ gallery, looking pale, alert, and… genuinely friendly.

“Lord Longstreet.”

“A little bird told me that you might be interested in raising pigeons at your estate in Kent. Might we repair to the card room and discuss such a venture?”

Darius wanted to ask the old blighter what he was up to. A challenge lurked in Lord Longstreet’s rheumy eyes, a suggestion of a dare.

“May I fetch some punch for you first, sir?”

“For God’s sake, Lindsey, I’m old, I’m not doddering. That punch is for giddy children and tippling companions. Now, have you ever done contract work for the military?”

The question was peculiar enough to have Darius’s entire concentration, which explained why, when a soft, beguiling scent crept into his awareness, it took him a moment to realize that right at his elbow, a woman—

“My lady.” He bowed, while William turned a smile on Vivian.

“Dearest Vivian, I was wondering if Lady Chinwag was ever going to turn loose of you. I was interrogating young Lindsey here about raising pigeons for His Majesty’s military. Intriguing notion, and one we can pursue later, Lindsey.”

“Lady Chinwag, William? You are being curmudgeonly, and in public too.” Vivian’s smile for her husband was perfectly sweet, while her figure was…

Some queer sensation thrummed through Darius’s chest at the sight of Vivian in a high-waisted gown of shimmering brown velvet. Her hair was half caught up off her neck, half tumbling over her shoulders, while her bosom…

Carrying a child did marvelous things for a lady’s décolletage, though Darius could hardly allow himself to appreciate those things with William Longstreet looking on. And it wasn’t just the fullness of her breasts Darius noticed. Vivian had a glow about her, both a softness and a new substance that made him want to… linger in her ambit, though that was a thoroughly, exceedingly Bad Idea.

William cleared his throat, which turned into a fit of dry coughing. Vivian patted the old fellow’s back, Darius found him a glass of champagne, but William waved them both off.

“Perhaps you will take pity on an old man’s frail bones and take Vivian for a turn on the terrace, Mr. Lindsey? While the warmth of the ballroom might be stifling to you young people, the night breezes hold no appeal for me.”

William’s expression was saintly, a definition of the absence of guile, which suggested strongly to Darius that guile was at work. Vivian’s gaze was trained on the parquet flooring—no help would be forthcoming from her. Knowing it to be a Worse Idea Yet, Darius winged his arm.

“Come along, my lady. The ballroom is indeed stifling.”

Without so much as a backward glance at her husband—should Darius be pleased or alarmed?—Vivian laced her fingers over Darius’s arm.

“Do you think William is pale?” she asked when they’d left William to banter politics with a crony. The honest concern in her tone was a bracing reminder of the realities.

Vivvie—Vivian—was married to William Longstreet and cared for him sincerely. “I’ve met his lordship on only two occasions. He didn’t strike me as any more pale tonight than he did months ago.”

They exchanged no more words until they’d reached the relatively quiet terrace overlooking torch-lit gardens.

“The moon is about to come up,” Vivian said. “Shall we find a seat?”

Darius gave up cataloguing what an ill-advised turn the evening was taking and escorted Vivian to a stone bench in a shadowed corner of the terrace. Shadows were appropriate for them, and always would be.

The thought steadied even as it frustrated.

“How do you fare, my lady?”

She scuffed her dancing slipper against the flagstone, and though they were sitting, she did not disentangle her arm from his. “I am growing fat, Darius Lindsey.”

“You sound pleased enough with this state of affairs.” She sounded smug, in fact. Wonderfully, femininely smug.

“I am…” She turned her face up to the stars. “There are not words, Darius.”

Mr. Lindsey. He needed to be nothing more than Mr. Lindsey to her.

“Tell me anyway.”

“I’m a little worried, of course. Things can go wrong.”

Darius stroked his fingers over her knuckles. If she’d been worried, he’d been nigh cataleptic with concern. “You will have the best doctors. William assured me of this.”

“It’s a bigger worry than that. I worry the child won’t be healthy, that I won’t know what to do, that I’ll drop him, that he won’t like the names William chooses.”

Darius wanted desperately to pursue that topic—what would his child be called? He hadn’t the right. But he did have the right to offer Vivian comfort, even as his heart broke for what he could not offer her.

“You will be a wonderful mother, Vivvie. You’ll be a lioness, and all will know that your child has his mother’s love and devotion.” Or hers. A daughter with Vivian’s smile and her tender heart… Darius snapped that thought off like an errant daisy growing among thorny roses where it had no business being.

He’d apparently found the right thing to say, though. Vivian went silent, but perhaps—just perhaps—she leaned a little more heavily against his arm.

He’d taught her that. The thought was both a comfort and a torment. While he pondered the subtleties of the torment, the moon crested the horizon.

“The light of a full moon is so beautiful,” Vivian said. “There’s peace in it, benevolence. It comforts one just to behold it.”

She was trying to tell him something, something sweet, painful, and well intended. “It’s the most beautiful sight I’ve seen in several months. I thank you for showing it to me, my lady. I would have missed it otherwise.”

A lean. A definite lean of a full, soft breast against his arm. He cherished the torture of it. “Give me your hand, Darius.”

He’d taken off his gloves in anticipation of playing some whist. Her excuse for being barehanded was a mystery. He let her take his left hand in her right, but nearly shot off the bench when she settled his hand, quite firmly, low on her belly.

“I’m fat, getting fatter by the day.”

He said nothing, too stunned by the shape of her. She wasn’t fat—of course she wasn’t—but where her waist had been was a soft bulge, a change, a whisper of movement.

“Good God. The child has quickened.”

She kept her hand over his. “In the past couple of weeks. I lie down at night, and for half an hour, I simply marvel at the sensation. It’s like… a soft breeze fluttering my insides.”

The little breeze came again and again. The feeling at once unmanned him and made him want to conquer armies barehanded for the woman beside him. He wanted to go down on his knees, to bow his head, to pen sonnets and ballads and proclaim them from every street corner.

“I am happy for you, Vivvie. Profoundly, indescribably happy.” Not enough, but a truth, nonetheless. He brought her fingers to his lips, offered her a kiss, and withdrew his hand.

“I wanted you to be happy too, Darius.”

So she’d put William up to this outing, engineered a stroll on the patio, and utterly ambushed Darius’s best intentions. He loved her for it, even as he knew the rest of his life wouldn’t be adequate for him to recover from the emotions her sharing of happiness had engendered in his breast.

Vivian had composed all manner of foolish speeches once she’d decided Darius ought to know his child was thriving in the womb.

She and Darius could be friends—she was friends of a sort with some MPs who shared William’s politics.

She and Darius could be cordial—she was an earl’s daughter; he was an earl’s son. No one would remark it, much.

He might call on William just to be polite, and Vivian would pour. She’d poured a thousand cups of tea in aid of lesser ends, such as the good of the realm and the glory of old England.

Only to find, when Darius said not one word but merely shared a moonrise with her—the most beautiful thing he’d seen in months—that Darius had the right of it. They could be nothing cordial, friendly, or polite to each other. He might have the savoir faire and stamina for it; she did not.

William had said a little infatuation was acceptable, to be expected even, but part of Vivian’s wonder at her pregnancy had to do with becoming a person William knew not at all. For the first time, she had a privacy in her marriage to rival what William had in his memories of Muriel.

She respected his privacy now more than she had, and William extended to Vivian the same courtesy. He was all those things Vivian had tried to tell herself Darius could be—cordial, friendly, polite—which was fine. Vivian loved her husband, was grateful to him, and wished him only the best.

But for Darius Lindsey, the father of her child, her feelings were so much more complicated, inconvenient, and precious. She would accept every instance when their paths crossed and treasure the pain and delight of each meeting, for in Darius Lindsey, she’d found not just a man to respect and appreciate, but a man whom she could love.

The moon was clearing the horizon, spreading light in all directions even as its size seemed to diminish, when a woman’s laughter sounded out in the shadowed garden.

Beside her, right immediately beside her, Vivian felt Darius stiffen. Before he could make some polite comment to reestablish the picket lines, Vivian slipped her arm from his and rose.

“Shall we go in, Mr. Lindsey? The best of the moon’s display is over, and I would not want to cause my husband undue concern over my absence.”

His eyes widened, suggesting Vivian might have overstated her point. “I would never want Lord Longstreet to worry unnecessarily. A lady is always safe in my care.”

Safe. The slight emphasis on the word made it clear Darius would not use tonight’s shared moment to encroach in the future—which ought to be a relief rather than a cause of sorrow. The laughter came again from the garden, a raucous taunt, reminding Vivian that she’d gotten more than she’d bargained for in this rendezvous.

And much less.

“Shall we go in?” Darius managed to put some pugnacity into the way he offered her his arm. In no time at all, Vivian was back at William’s side, and Darius had disappeared into the smiling, bejeweled crowd.

“How fares Mr. Lindsey, Vivian?”

William’s question was kindly, his expression suggesting concern for Vivian—and even some for young Mr. Lindsey.

“He is all that is correct, William.”

William patted her hand and said nothing while the orchestra took up a gavotte. When the knot in Vivian’s chest was threatening to choke her, William said, without glancing down at her, “I’ll have the carriage brought around.”