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
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 decolletage, 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—
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.”
“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.
“
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.
