He hated—hated—entertaining her under his roof and insisted on using a guest room at the back of the house to see her. Lucy, thank God, wasn’t inclined to stir so far from Town in search of her pleasures, but rather, delighted in demanding that Darius go always to her at the hour of her choosing.
“Darius?”
“Here.” He curled around Vivian’s back, fitting his groin to her derriere and snugging his arm around her waist. “Go back to sleep, love.”
“Where were you?”
“Making sure you’re packed.” He kissed her nape. In truth, he’d been sitting among her things, touching them, lifting them to his nose and wishing. Pathetic, but after tomorrow, the opportunity to be pathetic wouldn’t be within reach, so he allowed it.
“Gracie helped me.” Vivian brought his hand up to her lips and kissed his knuckles. “Have you any advice?”
“Name the baby William,” Darius said on a sigh.
“My menses should have started by now. I’m not myself of late, so perhaps they’re just delayed.”
“You’ll be sure William tells me if there’s a child?”
“Yes.” She tucked his hand over her naked breast. “I won’t have to make him. William keeps his word.”
“Do you know what to look for?”
“Regarding?”
She wouldn’t just ask him. “Conception. You’ll be tender here.” He gently closed his hand over her breast. “You might be sleepy, queasy, or faint. Your sister can tell you more.”
“How do you know these things?”
“John’s mother was under my roof for much of her pregnancy. I became familiar with her various complaints.”
“I envy you that.” Vivian shifted to her back and hiked a leg over Darius’s hips. “You know more what to expect than I do. Will you write to me?”
“Of course not.”
“And I’m not to write to you?”
His finger traced down the side of her face. “You know we cannot, and it wouldn’t be kind, either. Neither to you, nor to me, nor to William. Mostly, it wouldn’t be smart.”
“Because this means nothing, you mean nothing, I mean nothing.”
“You’re learning.” Darius leaned over and kissed her mouth, but it wasn’t to shut her up; it was gratitude for not belaboring the miserable point.
“Darius, I really, really want you to stop dealing with those women.” She scooted so she was right up against his length, on her back and able to regard him by the firelight.
“You don’t get a say, love.” He kept his tone light. “It won’t be of any moment to you after tomorrow, because we’ll rarely see each other.”
“Rarely?”
“I’m to attend the christening if there’s a child, and I’ll be squiring my sister around this year’s Season, which means our paths might cross.”
“You don’t want me to say this, but I’ll look forward to that.”
“Vivvie.” He rose up over her and braced himself on his arms. “You can’t. You cannot. You should be relieved to be getting back to the safety of William’s arms. Relieved to be done with such a one as I. You can’t go… getting sentimental on me.”
“If you didn’t want me getting sentimental, then why create a perfume for me? Why let me meet John, why insist on sending Bernice along home with me? Why, Darius Lindsey?”
“Because you are a lady,” he said, lowering himself to his forearms and gathering her in his embrace. “You were supposed to be a damned new roof, and you turned out to be a lady. One doesn’t treat ladies with less than consideration.”
“And you are a gentleman.” Vivian stroked his hair. “And yet you let those infernal women beat you and humiliate you, and I cannot abide it, Darius.”
“It isn’t yours to abide or not,” he said softly, kissing the side of her neck. “I don’t want to argue with you, Vivvie.”
“Yes, you do. You want to insist coin alone is adequate justification for letting them abuse you. I could just shake you.”
“If you meet me at some Venetian breakfast, Vivvie, you’re to look down your lovely nose at me, as if I’m a bug on the walkway, and ignore me thereafter.”
“Ignore the father of my child?”
“Ignore the conniving bastard who took coin for swiving you,” he whispered, letting her feel his growing arousal. “The man who got a child on you and walked away without a backward glance. The idiot who…”
But he stopped himself by sealing his mouth over hers, and for the last time, sliding himself home into her body. He wanted to rush, wanted to pound into her so she’d recall him for the rest of her life, so she’d never make love again without remembering what it had felt like with him.
For her, he held himself back. For her, he went slowly and tenderly until she was begging and writhing and her nails digging into his back with a sharp, sweet little pain. When she was near tears, he let her come, joining her one last time in the sexual pleasure that he, love-struck idiot, had tried to insist was of no more moment than a cold ice on a hot day.
And when the tears came, he kissed them away and started all over again, but in the morning, he would send her away just the same.
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.”