you because you want him to be happy.”
“Hush.” He stroked her back in slow circles, and Vivian felt her eyes grow heavy.
“I’m angry with you.”
“I know, love.” He brushed a kiss to her hair. “You’re furious and disappointed. You have every reason to be.”
She dozed off, and he held her, and when she woke up, he was still there, and when she’d managed not to cry for weeks, that made Vivian cry.
Had God in all His wisdom created a sweeter experience than to allow a man to simply hold the mother of his child? Darius hoped Vivian would sleep for hours, but in fact she dozed only for a few minutes.
She was angry with him, but all trust hadn’t been destroyed, or she would never have let down her guard to rest in his arms this way. He assured himself this was true, and assured himself she was in blooming good health as he took a cautious inventory of her appearance.
Her face was thinner, more mature, and more lovely than ever.
Her pregnancy was advancing visibly, and the sight was dear and erotic and amazing to him. He locked the eroticism away behind high walls of respect and guilt.
Her breasts were magnificent, her hips voluptuous, and her shape… Slowly, Darius slid a hand over her belly, his patience rewarded when the child shifted slightly, causing Vivian to move in his arms.
Ye gods, ye gods. A child, their child, alive and safe under his hand, under her heart. He had to blink and swallow and blink some more as he prayed Vivian didn’t choose that moment to wake up.
He wasn’t going to rush his fences this time. Vivian had been hurt enough by all his vacillation, and she wasn’t going to give up ground easily. But just to hold her… to hold her and know she was confiding in him and at least allowing herself the comfort of his embrace, it was enough.
It would have to be enough.
Vivian stirred, rubbed her cheek against his chest, then sat up and speared him with a look.
“You have to leave, Darius.” She tried to wiggle away. “I can’t tolerate any more of your hot-and-cold, here- and-gone treatment. It’s good of you to inquire about the child, but I’d appreciate it if you’d take yourself off now.”
“Able, not now.” Portia shoved him away and slid the letter she’d been writing off to the side—since coming home from London, Portia was doing a prodigious amount of letter writing. “You smell like a stable.”
“And here I thought breeding women were supposed to be affectionate.” Able obligingly withdrew, but he’d bothered to wash thoroughly before presuming to kiss his wife’s cheek, and the rebuke disappointed.
Portia gave him an exasperated look as she recapped the inkwell. “What do you mean, breeding women? Go maul Vivian if you’re attracted to breeding heifers.”
Able lowered himself into one of the chairs facing the desk, since Portia appeared unwilling to yield his proper place to him. “I’m not talking about Vivian. How far along are you, Portia?”
Her mouth opened as if to deliver another broadside then snapped shut with a click, and Able realized his wife hadn’t been being coy about her condition; she simply hadn’t known.
And now that she did, she wasn’t pleased.
“This is your fault.”
At least she was predictable. “I certainly hope so. The date of the child’s arrival will likely shed light on those particulars.”
She tidied a stack of green ledgers that needed no tidying. “And just what do you mean by that?”
“We’ve been married for years, Portia, and you’ve never caught before. A little trip up to Town, and there’s a blessed event in the offing. You don’t know how far along you are, do you?”
“I’m not… regular,” she hedged. “It’s hard to tell.”
She wasn’t
“It’s all right, Portia,” he said tiredly. “Children are easy to love, and Vivian’s baby will have someone to call family. That’s for the best.”
“Vivian’s…” Portia’s hand went to her throat, then her expression shuttered. “This is for the best, you’re right, and the child is yours, Able.”
He considered her and recalled she’d permitted him intimacies just before they’d left for London, but not since. If the child were his, she’d be better than three months along, and the signs Able had seen were as much behavioral as visible. She was rounder, in certain places particularly, but that was hardly conclusive.
This child was not likely his. In his life, in his marriage, with his Portia, such a happy occasion was improbable.
“You’ll want to warn whomever you dallied with,” he said, rising and moving toward the door. “If the child were mine, I’d want to know, even if some other man would have the raising of it.”
He left her sitting at his desk, for once silent, the expression on her face detached and calculating. Disappointingly so.
“What if I said I’m not going to leave you?” Darius let Vivian go and shifted to sit beside her. The question was only half in jest. “Would you have William summon the King’s man to take me off your property?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Vivian glared at him but ruined the effect entirely when she reached out to brush his hair off his forehead. “You’ve been in the sun.”
Her touch, freely given, eased something miserable and desperate in Darius’s chest. “I’m spending the summer at the Markham estate, which Valentine Windham is hell-bent on restoring to its former glory.”
“Markham?” Vivian’s brow puckered. “I thought nobody lived there.”
“Bats live there. When we started it was barely habitable, but it’s coming along.”
She plucked clover from the grass and began threading a chain. “So you thought you’d just pop over and see how I’m doing?”
“No.” He’d thought he’d lose his mind if he had to face never seeing her again. “I thought I’d beg a berth with Windham so I could make amends for how I treated you this spring.”
“I’m a married woman,” Vivian reminded him, staring at her clover. “And I love my husband.”
They needed to air this linen, of course, but not at length. “I am not seeking favors from you, Vivvie.”
“You’re not?” The little note of wistfulness in her voice had him smiling again, though he was gentleman enough to try to hide it.
White clover was for promises, so he’d give her a promise and revel in the pleasure of that small token. “You love your husband,” Darius said slowly. “I promise to respect that. You would be upset if I sought to dally with you now. It would upset me not to offer you my sincere friendship.”
Vivian smiled too and tossed the chain of clover flowers at him. “Everything upsets me. Tell me about Windham’s estate.”
He spent an hour with her on that blanket, not touching, but talking, and by the end of it, she was talking too. Talking, Darius hoped, as she might have talked to a trusted friend.
“William tries to hide it, but he’s not doing well,” she finally admitted.
“What does that mean, Vivvie?”
“He’s fading.” She said it softly, as if it were a relief to share the reality with someone. “He’s tired of living, and now that I’m to have a child, he can assure himself my welfare is taken care of.”
“You’ll miss him.” Darius said it for her.
“Terribly. When there was nobody between me and Ainsworthy’s vile schemes, William shook off his mourning and married me, facing down scandal and talk and possible political repercussions. I’m grateful to him, but I love him too, and when I asked him to come down here with me early, he shook his head and told me to run along and enjoy being in the country.”
She sounded bewildered and forlorn, and in this, at least, Darius could offer a male perspective.
“He has a kind of courage,” Darius said. “Not simply the courage of his religious faith, which assures him an honorable life will find a reward in the hereafter, but a courage for living in
