Grace Burrowes - Darius: Lord of Pleasures

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 this life, without you, without his first wife, without the faculties he had as a younger man.”

Vivian studied him for a moment, while the breeze riffled the branches of the ripening orchard above them and a fat bumblebee went lazily about its business.

“You admire him.”

“Of course I admire him.” Though he was only now realizing it. “He’s put aside his own convenience to do what was necessary to protect you, Vivian. How could I not admire a man with that much practical honor?”

She frowned as she digested this description of her husband. “Practical honor is a good term. William would understand it.”

“Remind me who Ainsworthy is.”

“My former stepfather.”

Darius watched emotions play across her features. “Given your expression, Vivian, I do not care for the fellow.”

She retrieved the chain of clover and wound it through her fingers. “When my mother died, he took it upon himself to launch my sister, except I saw what he did to Angela, and I wasn’t about to allow him to do that to me.”

“I thought you said Angela was happy with her… publisher?”

Vivian stretched her feet out and regarded her bare toes. Darius kept his gaze on her face lest he recall too clearly the taste of those toes when Vivian had been fresh from her bath.

“Angela is married to Jared Ventnor,” Vivian said. “They are happy now, but Jared essentially outbid the titles competing for Angie’s hand. It wasn’t a love match on her part. Angela barely knew her husband when they wed, and Ainsworthy was willing to use any means to secure the match.”

“And you.” Darius tapped her nose. “You consider your sister resigned herself to her fate so she’d have a household for you to come to when your turn arose.”

She frowned at the clover wrapped around her fingers. “Except I crossed paths with Muriel, who saw what was what and offered me a position as her companion.”

The bumblebee came around again, a reminder that time spent on a blanket with Vivian was time bartered for the sustenance of Darius’s soul from other responsibilities. “I will remember Muriel in my prayers. Shall I escort you back to the house?”

To make that offer openly and to mean it was a small moment of grace.

“Gracious, everlasting God, no. Portia is likely spying out of windows and bribing the servants to report my every move. The last thing she needs is to find some basis for her suspicions that I’ve played William false.”

“You’re going to have to explain me somehow.” Darius rose and offered Vivian a hand. “I’ll show up at the christening, and thereafter, and that is at William’s request.”

“Then William can explain you,” Vivian retorted. She let Darius pick up her book, fold the blanket over his shoulder, and offer her his arm.

Vivian scowled—even her scowls were dear—and accepted his escort. “You can’t walk me back to the house.”

“Let me see you across the stream.” He wrapped the reins of his courage around his wrists, and ambled along beside her. “I’d like to meet you here again on Friday.”

“Friday? This is not wise, Darius.”

He paused and looked down at her. “Your welfare concerns me. I know you don’t trust me, I know you’ve been disappointed in me and hurt by me. I am sorry, more sorry than you can possibly know. But if you’d allow it, I’d like to be your friend.”

To be her friend, a man she could rely upon for kindness, honesty, and decency, was the highest aspiration he’d ever held.

“What do friends do?”

She hadn’t ordered him off the property for his presumption. He took heart. “They occasionally pass the time together,” Darius said, resuming their progress. “They care for each other, and keep each other’s confidences, and they acknowledge each other in social situations.”

“Like you didn’t acknowledge me. On several notable occasions.”

“It won’t happen again,” he said quietly. “And I am abjectly sorry.”

“I believe you, but I don’t understand you, Darius. If you detest those women so much, why are they in your life? William has compensated you, hasn’t he?”

“We can talk more about that on Friday,” he replied, reluctant to explain that he’d used dirty weapons on dirty opponents, and been shown a curious grace by unlikely angels. “Weather permitting. And if the weather doesn’t permit, I’ll try on Monday, and so forth.”

“You’re determined on this, aren’t you?”

Was she trying to hide a smile—or a frown? “Yes. I am determined to be your friend.”

More silence as they approached a little rill babbling happily along toward the sea. “Very well, but for pity’s sake be discreet.”

“I’ll be careful, but my attentions are not going to be of a nature you’ll need to hide,” he replied, swinging her up into his arms and carrying her over the stream bordering the trees. “You be well, Vivian, and know I’m thinking of you.” He brushed a kiss to her cheek before setting her down and kept his hands on her upper arms for a moment.

“You can leave the blanket here,” Vivian said. “I’ll send a footman for it.”

“Until Friday then.” He bowed and smiled at her again, a soft, remembering smile—but a determined smile too.

Darius passed a card to the dignified little person who served as the Longchamps butler.

“The Honorable Darius Lindsey?”

“Lady Longstreet came out with my sister, Lady Leah Lindsey, now Countess of Bellefonte.” Darius smiled the smile of a man who doesn’t owe his inferiors an explanation but might be entitled to sympathy from them in any case. “Women must keep up their gossip, and I am a dutiful brother.”

“Very good, sir.” The man bowed himself out the door and left Darius listening to the rain on the mullioned windows. He’d ridden the length and breadth of Longchamps in recent days and had seen it was a well-run, old-fashioned estate. Whoever had been tending it for William had done a good job and had been doing a good job for some years. The house was well kept too, not a speck of dust, not a wilted flower, not a dingy window to be seen.

The door opened, and there Vivian stood in her gravid glory, her expression conveying both reluctant pleasure at seeing him and exasperation.

“Lady Longstreet.” Darius bowed, not even taking her hand. He had to do this by the rules or he’d lose his nerve—and Vivvie would toss him out on his ear.

“Mr. Lindsey?” She advanced into the room, leaving the door open—of course—and extending her bare hand to him. He bowed over it, resisting the urge to lay his cheek against her knuckles, and straightened.

“I bring felicitations from Lady Leah, now Countess of Bellefonte.” He assayed a smile, a cordial smile. “And I can pass along to her the news that you are in great good looks. Greetings as well from Lord Valentine Windham’s summer abode, where I am a guest for the season.”

Vivian’s lips quirked at his formality, but she sailed on, lady that she was. “Please have a seat. I’ll ring for tea.”

“Tea would be lovely.” He gave the last word the barest hint of an emphasis, and added a discreet look at his hostess’s person that conveyed what or who, exactly, he thought was lovely. “Is his lordship in residence?”

“No. He remains in London until Parliament adjourns, but I’ll pass your greetings along to him. How is your sister, and when did she wed?”

Darius offered a brief and somewhat edited recounting of the odd courtship of Nick and Leah Haddonfield. “There is suspicion that Leah might already be in anticipation of a happy event. May I tell my sister you’re well, my lady?”

Vivian dipped her chin, abruptly shy. “You may.”

“Vivvie”—he dropped his voice—“we’ve had this discussion.”

“But not”—she glanced around—“not inside, with walls and carpets and a tea tray on the way. What can you be thinking, Darius?”

He’d been thinking that friends called on each other, a precious, prosaic thought. “If I’m not a stranger on the day of the christening, it will be easier to explain my interest in the child.” Her eyebrows rose at that, but he wasn’t done. “Besides, Leah and Emily have both asked after you. Do you know Mrs. Stoneleigh?”

“The late colonel’s widow?”

“She’s Axel Belmont’s wife now, and not an hour distant in the direction of Town. She’s similarly anticipating a happy event.”

Vivian studied her hands, upon which, Darius noted, she no longer wore rings. “You know a prodigious number of expecting women.”

He could sense the speculation in her observation—a penance he’d serve until he’d regained her trust. He rose and spoke barely above a whisper. “You’re the only one expecting my child, Vivian.”

“You’re certain?”

“Positive.” And what a fine thing it was to be able to say that to her with absolute sincerity.

She chewed on his assurances while the tea tray arrived, piled high with scones, butter, jam, cheese, and fruit. The look he gave the tray must have communicated easily.

“Don’t stand on ceremony.” She passed him a cup of tea. “The kitchen cooks for Able, me, and Portia, but guests are a rarity.”

“Because you require peace and quiet.”

While he watched, she split him a scone, spread a thick layer of butter on one half and jam on the other, and arranged it on a plate with strawberries and cherries.

“I can pass on the cheese,” he said, putting his hand over hers when she’d reached for a few slices. “It figures prominently in our camp fare.”

“Camp fare, Mr. Lindsey?” She eyed him up and down, rose, and went to the door to speak with a footman. As she resumed her seat, she aimed a question at him. “What are a duke’s son and an earl’s son doing subsisting on camp fare?”

He overstayed the requisite social call by half an hour, which a man might do when bringing news from a long-out-of-touch acquaintance, and the same man was intent on demolishing the flaky pastries and fresh fruit before him. In that time, he told Vivvie about his brother’s progress down in Surrey, and about Valentine Windham’s struggles with the Markham estate, and with the widow Markham as well.

Vivian’s brow knitted. “I don’t know her. She’s a baroness?”

“She keeps a very circumspect existence, for reasons known to her.” Darius surveyed the crumbs on his plate. “Valentine will get her sorted out, and she’ll sort him out too, unless I miss my guess.”

“A summer idyll.” Vivian’s tone was wistful, and Darius knew he had to take his leave of her before he put his arms around her and offered the kind of comfort an acquaintance would never offer.

Though a friend… “Walk me to my horse?”

“Of course.”

He could not resist putting a hand under her elbow and assisting her to her feet. It was dear, sweet, and vaguely worrisome that in her condition such assistance was genuinely appropriate.

“I miss my feet,” Vivian said as she took his arm and progressed through the house. “I recall them, though, and trust they are still in their assigned location.”