“Every few hours?” She huddled down into the covers on a moan of horror.
“Sweetheart.” He scooted closer. “Talk to me. I can’t address whatever’s bothering you unless you tell me what it is.”
Just when Vivian thought she’d die of mortification, a knock sounded on the door, followed by Gracie’s cheerful presence bearing a tray.
“Morning, all.” Gracie beamed in the general direction of the bed. “Looks to be snowing out again, and Master John’s already up and about.”
“I’ll take the tray, Gracie.” Darius reached out long arms. “You see to the fire.”
“I take it milady likes to sleep in.” Gracie eyed Vivian, who had all but scooted under the covers.
“I wore her out.”
Vivian poked her head up enough to catch his smile, whipped a pillow from under her head, and smacked him with it.
“Wakes up cranky,” Darius said, shielding the tray with his body. “Best be quick, Gracie, if you don’t want to be the victim of violence.”
Gracie winked at Vivian. “Smack him again, milady. It’s the only way with the cheeky ones.” The maid was gone before Vivian could fashion a reply, and then Darius passed her a cup of tea.
“She’ll leave us in peace until we leave your room,” he said, pouring his own cup and setting the tray on the nightstand. “Now what are these maidenly vapors about?”
The tea was hot and strong and as much fortification as she was likely to find anywhere.
“Every few hours?”
“’Fraid so, love.” He sipped calmly. “I’m looking forward to it more than I thought I would.”
“You’re looking…” She finished her tea in two gulps, feeling a sudden empathy for foxes set upon by hounds. “I cannot do this.”
“You haven’t even tried, Vivvie.” His tone was chiding, and he was right, damn him. “Don’t you want a baby? A wee little fellow to cuddle and coo at?”
“Yes, I want a baby.” She set her cup aside, because he was right about this too. “But I’m… scared.”
“Ah.” He set his cup next to hers, and Vivian wasn’t sure that was a good thing. “Then we’ll put your fears behind us tonight, and you’ll see it won’t be so bad. I promised you pleasure, remember? I’ll take care of you, Vivvie. I’m good for that, if nothing else.”
And what was that supposed to mean?
“Come here.” He looped an arm across her shoulders and pulled her to his side. “Relax. Last night, you slept like a soldier after a forced march.”
“You wear me out.” She sighed at the feel of his hand massaging her scalp.
“Just distracting you from your imagined fate.” His lips grazed her temple, and Vivian had the oddest notion it had been a kiss for comfort—her comfort. “You like to cuddle, you know.”
“I am not in a position to argue.” She was, in fact, plastered to his side, her cheek pillowed on his chest. “I can hope it’s a passing tendency.”
“I gather William isn’t a cozy type of husband?”
“How would I…?” She closed her eyes and turned her face into his warmth. “William is dignified.”
“Dignity in the bedroom is almost impossible to imagine. You’re afraid I’ll hurt you?”
She nodded, relieved he could say what she couldn’t.
“I’ve never physically hurt a woman, Vivian.” His grip shifted to her nape, where he was squeezing the tension right out of her. “Never, nor will I.”
“But you let them hurt you,” Vivian pointed out because it bothered her, exceedingly.
“A few whacks with a crop is hardly worth quibbling about, and they enjoy it sufficiently to make it worth my while. It’s of no moment.”
The teasing tone was gone from his voice, and Vivian had the sense she was now in bed with the real Darius Lindsey, not the strutting, teasing, flirting facade he’d offered her earlier.
“Do you bring them here?”
“We’re not going to discuss this.” He kissed her cheek this time, in apology for his words—she hoped.
“I don’t want to be like them, Darius.” She felt him closing himself off from her, and surprised herself—him too, based on his expression—by hiking a leg across his thighs then straddling him. Her nightgown made the whole business more complicated, but when she was snuggled down onto his chest, the effort had been worth it.
His arms came around her, and his cheek rested against her hair. “How is it you don’t want to be ‘like them’?”
“You let them take advantage of you,” she said. “If they weren’t whacking at you, they’d just find some other man to abuse. You aren’t a person to them.”
“Another naughty pony,” Darius said. “Perhaps.”
“Not perhaps.” She nuzzled at his sternum, then shifted up and slipped a hand around the back of his head. “I want to beat them with a crop for treating you thus.” She clasped him to her chest and put a name to what she was feeling: protective. Protective of a great, strapping lout with no sense whatsoever.
“Vivvie.” He wrestled her away a little. “Look at me.”
She turned her face from him—she was straddling him, and nightgown or not, there was nowhere to hide.
“Look at me.”
He brushed her hair back with such tenderness she wanted to cry, but then he anchored his hand in her hair to turn her face back to his.
“You have to learn, Vivian Longstreet, not to let your heart get tangled up in the physical sensations. We’re going to be repeatedly, gloriously intimate. I’ve promised you pleasure, and I can assure you I’ll be sharing in it abundantly. But you have to decide right now it’s only pleasure, like an ice on a hot day, a good gallop on a fall morning. It means nothing more than that. It can’t.”
“You decide that,” she accused, “or those beatings would have significance you can’t allow them.”
“Hush.” He brought her back down to his chest. “You’re disconcerted and tenderhearted, and you’ll see the sense in what I’m saying.”
He fell silent, and Vivian lay there in his arms, listening to the steady beat of his heart and wanting to cry—for herself, but also, incongruously, for him.
“For pity’s sake, Able, you have to ask him.” Portia Springer set her teacup down with the sharp bang of fine porcelain used roughly.
“You’re ghoulish, Portia.” Able rose from the kitchen table. “I can’t ask my own father what’s in his will.”
“Whyever not?” She rose too, and paced behind him across the kitchen. “You’ve managed this estate for him for years, Able, and shown one handsome profit after another, and the land is entailed. Entailed. You’re his only living child, and it would be the work of a moment to legitimate you. Truly legitimate you.”
“Not the work of a moment.” Able rinsed his cup off then went back to the table for hers. “The work of several moments, felonious, expensive moments, and I am not in the habit of forging marriage lines. The person providing that service would be in a position to blackmail me and all my children, Portia—your children.”
Which they were unlikely to have, the silence around them declared, as long as she was so parsimonious with her marital favors.
“I’m twenty-eight,” she spat. “There’s plenty of time for that.”
“I’ll not see thirty-eight again,” he countered, using a thumbnail to scrub at the sugar stuck to the bottom of her cup. “I’d like to be on hand to raise my children, Portia. I’ve no doubt William has left his current viscountess in peace, in part because he understands the need for a father to raise his own children.”
“You’d raise his children,” Portia muttered, though Able knew by her tone she was regrouping.
“He hasn’t any other children left. This is a moot discussion, and I cannot relish the task of raising half siblings four decades my junior. Leave it, Portia, please.”