The baby gurgled happily and grabbed Darius’s nose.

“None of that strong-arm business now.” Darius retrieved the paternal beak from the child’s grasp. “This is serious stuff, your lordship. Baby Baron, your mama calls you, and you probably like it, don’t you?”

The infant made another swipe at Darius’s nose, but Darius was getting wise to his son’s tricks.

“So you won’t mind too much if I marry your mama?” He settled into a rocking chair with the baby. “You won’t get colicky and difficult because I love you both until I’m mad with it? You have scared years off my life, boy, just by being precious and dear. Say something, why don’t you?”

Except Darius knew damned good and well the baby was far too young to offer any words of comfort or encouragement. A child this young didn’t even understand—

“By God, you’re smiling at me,” he whispered. “You’re grinning like a sailor hitting his first tavern on shore leave. You, sir, are a rascal.”

The child beamed at him some more, and the toothless grin was the greatest blessing a man bent on courtship might have wished for.

Vivian deserved better than the not-always-so-very-Honorable Darius Lindsey, there was no arguing that, but she was at least fond of her lover. She understood him, and the comfort of that was immeasurable.

“You have to know something,” Darius said to the child now drowsing in his arms. “I’m going to be a papa to you in every way that counts, provided your mama will have me. When you are a grown fellow, we may have to explain a few oddments to you, about why you resemble me but inherited all manner of wealth and consequence from dear William. He loved you too, and he loved your mama. I’d stake my life on that.”

Darius fell silent, sending up a prayer that William was reunited with Muriel and their sons, and beaming down from some happy cloud.

“Your mother and I will muddle through those details as best we can at the time—if she’ll have me.”

The child fell asleep, and Darius lingered a long while, admiring his son—and gathering his courage.

* * *

A new mother got used to the prodding of instinct, even in the middle of the night—maybe especially in the middle of the night. Vivian rose from her nice warm bed, slipped into her mules and night robe, and headed for the nursery down the hall. A glance at the eight-day clock told her Will had nursed not two hours earlier, but some awareness tickling at the back of her mind had awakened her.

She opened the door to the nursery and was greeted by a current of cozy air. The fire was kept going here, lest Baby Baron take a chill.

Baby Baron had taken something worse than a chill, for the child was not in his bassinet. Panic sent Vivian’s heart hammering against her ribs in an instant—until she noticed a long, dark form sprawled on the daybed against a shadowed wall.

Darius Lindsey lay fully clothed but for his boots, fast asleep without so much as a blanket to cover him. His hand cradled a small bundle on his chest, one wrapped in a pale receiving blanket with an embroidered hem of peacock feathers.

Her menfolk, no doubt worn out from exchanging confidences. The sight of them in slumber, both with hair of the exact same dark shade, did something queer to her heart.

“You have been out carousing on your papa’s chest long enough,” she crooned to the baby. She would have lifted him into her arms, except the instant she touched the child, Darius’s eyes flew open, and his grip on the child became implacable.

Then, “Vivvie.” He bundled the infant up and passed him to her. “I was telling Will a story. He wore me out.”

The baby yawned, a mighty effort from such a wee lad, and subsided into sleep.

“You’re worn out from riding out from London by moonlight,” Vivian chided. She took the rocking chair, while Darius rolled to his side and propped his head on his fist.

“What woke you?”

“You.”

“Should I have sent another note, Vivvie?”

“I rather liked the note you did send, and I wish I could have seen Ainsworthy off on his travels myself. Five felonies has a nice, permanently inspiring ring to it.”

Darius rolled to his back, his gaze on the ceiling until he turned his head to spear her with a look. “A permanently intimidating ring to it, I hope. I put out his lights first, Vivvie. Rather decisively, and he won’t be scribbling any fiction for the foreseeable future.”

This recitation of violence was another one of Darius’s tests of her understanding. Vivian cuddled the baby closer before she answered. “I hope you landed a few blows for me and for Angela. I should have liked to kick Ainsworthy in a particular location when you already had him retching in the dirt.”

Darius’s brows twitched. “Would you really?”

“Hard, repeatedly.”

He shifted around on the bed, sat up, and visually located his boots but didn’t put them on. “Why, Vivvie? You are the one person who was able to dodge Thurgood’s schemes, to outwit him and to equip yourself with allies who could best him.”

Vivian wanted to cuddle the baby closer, and then realized she’d commit the mortal sin of Waking the Baby if she didn’t put the little fellow in his bassinet soon. “Will you tuck him in?”

Darius rose and prowled out of the shadows to regard Vivian in the rocker. “He looks very content where he is. One is loathe to disturb a fellow at his pleasures.”

“One had best do as the fellow’s mother asks,” Vivian replied, handing Darius the baby, “unless one wants to answer for the consequences.”

Darius accepted the bundle of baby and cuddled him close enough to run his nose over a sleeping-baby cheek. “He bears your scent, Vivvie. I am jealous of a mere scrap of a lad.”

The tenderness of Darius’s smile as he beheld that lad was enough to break Vivian’s heart all over again. She had never thought to behold such a thing, not in the middle of the night, Darius in his stocking feet and looking so tousled and dear she could weep with it.

“If you two fellows are going to be up until all hours, I am not going to be a part of your folly.” She struggled to her feet, only to find Darius’s hand under her elbow.

He stood there next to her, the baby cradled against his chest, his expression unfathomable. “Vivvie, will you marry me?”

She sat right back down.

“You ask me that now? Here?” It was all she could think to say in reply, though he’d spoken words she’d longed to hear.

“I had to ask the baron’s permission—and there was that business with Ainsworthy.” Darius did not put the child in the bassinet, but rather, took up residence with the infant on the footstool beside Vivian’s rocker. “Our situation is all backward, you see, and the child was the only one I could think to ask.”

“For my hand?”

“For permission to court you, yes. You and I were intimate, though I could not court you. I hope we became friends, then the baby arrived, and we are lovers—you said that—and it’s all muddled, but I have the sense if you’ll marry me and be patient with me, then I can get it turned right at last.”

He fell silent, kissed the baby’s forehead, and said again more softly, “I can get myself turned right at last.”

Vivian stroked a hand over his hair. There was a flaw in his reasoning, somewhere, somewhere… but not in his conclusion.

Insight struck, but she took a minute to gather her courage. “Tuck the baby in, Darius.”

Darius rose, gently laid the child in his bassinet, and tucked in the blankets. “Good night, little baron. Sweet dreams, and know your papa loves you.” Rather than resume his perch on Vivian’s stool, Darius picked up his boots with his left hand and winged his right arm. “I will see you tucked in too, my lady. The hour is late, and you should be abed.”

What did that mean? She took his arm. She did not intend to simply capitulate, though it was tempting. If they got to expressing themselves emphatically over this will-you-marry-me business, then they needed privacy.

The corridor was chilly, and Vivian’s room not much warmer. “Come to bed, Darius, and we will discuss your latest question.”

“My proposal?” He sat on the side of the bed to pull off his stockings. “When you invite a fellow to bed to discuss his proposal, you do know he’s inclined to be encouraged?”

But cautious, too. The caution, the hesitation to presume, was there in his eyes.

“I cannot be held responsible for a new father’s queer starts.” Vivian took off both her night robe and her nightgown, and hopped onto the bed in a state of complete undress. In a moment, Darius joined her, equally unclad.

He made no move to take her in his arms. “Talk to me, Vivvie.”

Beneath the covers, Vivian reached across the cool expanse of the mattress and took his hand in hers. “I am the daughter of an earl. You are the son of an earl. A match between us would be seen as appropriate, if precipitous, given William’s recent death. I am a widow with a child to rear. You’re a spare. Nobody would raise an eyebrow at your becoming Will’s guardian, particularly not when Viscount Longstreet himself chose you for the child’s godfather.”

Darius’s fingers laced with hers. “You’re naked in bed with me, Vivvie, and spouting logic. I am not encouraged by that at all.”

“Hear me out, because you are inclined to spout logic, sir, to do the sensible, selfless thing when it makes no sense at all.”

She was getting ahead of herself. Vivian turned on her side to face him, keeping her hand in his. “You love your son. I have every conviction you loved the child before he was born, loved the idea of him and the possibility of him. Fiercely, without limit.”

A cautious nod, then Darius rolled to his side to face her too. “Go on.”

“If you are offering marriage to me because it ensures you become Will’s guardian, then be at peace, Darius, because Able will not contest your right to serve in his stead. He assured me of this before he and Portia took ship. If you are marrying me to keep me safe from Ainsworthy, then I think we need not fret he’ll trouble me from points unknown. If you are marrying me out of duty, as William did, then I can promise you, I have no interest in that sort of union, even with my lover.”

Darius traced her hairline with one finger. “I am not marrying you for any of those reasons, though they are sound enough, and I considered them. I hope you consider them too when you give me your answer.”

“Why do you want to marry me, Darius Lindsey?”

He brushed the pad of his thumb over her lips. “My reasons are selfish, Vivian. For once in my life, I must be selfish—purely self-interested. I have to be with you. You keep me safe from my worst impulses, from bad judgments and poor choices. You’ve hauled me out of a thicket where every turn was a wrong turn and I was contemplating dire alternatives far too soberly. I was so lost—”

He stopped and kissed her fingers one by one, and she waited for him to sort himself out.

“I cannot be the man I am supposed to be without you, Vivian. Unless I can love you, I will remain lost. I tried making my way on my own, relying solely on my own wits and wiles, and it was… you saw what I became. Please, Vivvie, let me love you. Let me be the one to love you as your husband, as your friend, as your lover, as anything—” He stopped and swallowed, closed his eyes, then opened them and looked straight at her. “I love you. I’m begging you to marry me because I love you and only because I love you.”

This time, his thumb brushed a tear from Vivian’s cheek. She scooted across the mattress, into his arms, and addressed the muscular expanse of his chest.

“I married William because he was my only option, and I was his best hope of companionship in his declining years. I married for duty and expedience. I could not bear another such marriage, Darius, not even with you. I was a biddable, unpaid nurse-companion in an ugly dress. I am not… I am not the woman I am supposed to be, unless I am with you. I had no courage. I had no fortitude. I had no trust. I was nobody’s mother, nobody’s lioness, nobody’s lover.”

She had to pause while he used the edge of the sheet to wipe her tears. “I want to marry you, Mr. Lindsey, desperately, to be all those things you showed me how to be, and to be your friend too, but mostly”—another pause, while she forced herself to look up and meet his gaze—“mostly, I want to marry you—I need to marry you—because you are the man I love, and the man who loves me.”

His embrace was fierce and cherishing as he shifted over her. “I do love you. I love you past all reason, to madness and past madness to unshakable sanity.” He kissed her forehead and her eyebrows. “I love you until I want to shout with it, until I could beat my chest for all to see.” He kissed her mouth, her nose, and again, more lingeringly, her mouth. “I love you until I could weep with it, Vivvie. I love you, I love—”