Darius: Lord of Pleasures ll-1

by Grace Burrowes

  He relaxed at her civil tone, and why not? His harpies were unlikely to accost him in a shop for children. Vivian would skewer them where they stood if they tried to.

  Another queer start attributable to her delicate condition.

  Darius took a step closer to her then checked himself. “John is rising seven and a curious fellow. I think you’d like him very much. He tries to exhibit the best manners possible under all circumstances.”

  Oh, not this. Not veiled innuendos backed up by dark, pleading eyes.

  “And does he succeed often enough to merit a lady’s praise?”

  “I pray he does, and I’m sure his lapses are all well intended.”

  She had no riposte sufficiently clever to convey that the lady’s feelings were slighted regardless of the well-mannered fellow’s intentions. When she might have signaled to her maid to gather up her purchases and complete her transactions, Darius took another step closer, and this was her undoing.

  Carrying a child caused all manner of havoc with a lady’s sensibilities. She might be queasy, light-headed, fatigued, or unduly energized, wear a path to the necessary, and wake up at all hours with odd cravings.

  In Vivian’s case, she had also acquired an astonishingly acute sense of smell. Darius’s unique scent came to her, promising pleasure, comfort, and passion in the middle of a children’s shop.

  I’m fat, she’d said, quite proud of the fact several months ago. She had the proportions and maneuverability of a coal barge now, and in the space of a moment, she was seized with belated self-consciousness. That he, the only man to see her unclothed, should regard her in this state…

  “My lady, are you well?” He took the last step to her side and slipped an arm around where her waist used to be. “When did you last eat, Lady Longstreet?”

  Darius as a paramour was a force of nature, an overwhelmingly skilled and astute bed partner who could swamp a woman’s sense completely by conjuring pleasure upon pleasure. Darius as the worried father of her child had Vivian wishing she could manufacture a convincing swoon just to keep the potent concern simmering in his dark eyes.

  “I had a proper breakfast.” A light breakfast, the most prudent way to start her day when the very scent of William’s bacon still made her queasy.

  “You nibbled dry toast hours ago and washed it down with weak tea. You.” Darius waved a hand at the maid. “Her ladyship and I are going for an ice. Take her purchases back to Longstreet House and meet us at Gunter’s.” He passed the girl enough coin for hackney fare halfway to Paris, and paused to inspect Vivian.

  “You’re not arguing with me, Lady Longstreet. One is encouraged to think impending motherhood might have turned you up biddable.”

  He did not sound as if he were entirely teasing, but an ice… she’d been longing for a nice tart barberry ice, craving one, and she hadn’t even known it. “An ice would be acceptable.”

  He escorted her from the shop, the picture of a young man performing a friendly courtesy, while Vivian tried to put a label on what she was feeling.

  “Cheated.”

  “Viv—I beg your pardon, Lady Longstreet?”

  As they sauntered toward Berkeley Square, the street was not particularly busy, and for some reason Darius appeared willing to stroll along, arm in arm, despite any harpies who might pop out of doorways or passing coaches.

  “I feel cheated.”

  No immediate reply, though Vivian could feel Darius thinking. Then, very softly, “By me, Vivvie?”

  He would leap to that conclusion. “Not by you, by the circumstances. I should have gone to that shop with you, to choose something for John, to find a baby spoon, rattle, and a silver cup. I should be complaining to you about not being able to see my feet, and I should be wrinkling my nose at your bacon every morning.”

  He gave her an odd smile as they walked along, suggesting this was not a queer start, it was something else, something dear to him.

  “Don’t stop there,” he said, patting her knuckles. “I should be rubbing your feet and your aching back at the end of the day. You should curse me roundly for costing you your figure and then ask me if you’re still beautiful—you are, you know. More beautiful than ever, which shouldn’t be possible.”

  They got the entire way to Berkeley Square, cataloging her inconveniences and insecurities, and the listing of them—to him, only to him—eased something in Vivian’s soul even as the entire conversation made her ache terribly for what would never be.

  “I positively loathe the scent of William’s bacon, but he’s gotten so thin I can hardly deny him what sustenance he takes.”

  “Take a tray in your room before you come down to breakfast, Vivvie. Join him for tea, and he probably won’t notice you’re not eating.”

  Good advice. Over two ices served under the maples—one barberry and one vanilla for her, from which Darius poached not a single bite, and one raspberry for him—Vivian learned to put her feet up as much as possible, to use pillows creatively to assist her to more comfortable sleep, and to walk as much as possible to prepare for the birth.

  “How do you know these things, Darius? Did you learn them with John’s mother?”

  His expression shifted, becoming sad.

  Why had it never occurred to Vivian that Darius might have been in love with the boy’s mother? And yet… something he’d said about Vivian’s child being the only child he’d sire came back to her.

  “The Continent is a more enlightened place regarding childbirth.” He held up a forkful of his raspberry ice. “One bite, Vivvie, to bring the color back to your cheeks.”

  She obliged, knowing he was distracting her. By the look in his eyes, he knew she knew. For a few minutes, he pushed raspberry ice around with his fork.

  “John has gone to spend the summer with Leah and Bellefonte.”

  The way he said it, softly, as if the words hurt to even speak, broke Vivian’s heart.

  “Darius, I am so sorry. To send your own—”

  He shook his head and set the little bowl of ice from him. “He’s not my son, which is what you were about to say, and he’s not Leah’s or Trent’s either.” He glanced around, maybe taking inventory of the other customers, maybe looking for courage. “John is a half brother. Wilton mustn’t know that, not ever, and Reston—or rather, Bellefonte, now that his father has died—can keep him safer than I can. I did what I thought was best for the boy, at least for now.”

  He’d no doubt repeated that litany to himself endlessly. The only person he’d allowed close, the person he seemed to love most in the whole world, and now this.

  “I need your handkerchief, Mr. Lindsey.”

  He smiled a sweet smile and waved a little square of linen at her. “You are the dearest woman. John is very happy. Trent is sending his children out to Belle Maison for a summer outing too. I’m promised regular letters.”

  “But you’re alone,” she said, blotting at her eyes even as the scent on the handkerchief ripped at her composure further. “I hate being in this condition. I have no dignity, I have no airs and graces, I have—”

  Cold and sweetness bumped against her lips. “Your ice is melting, Lady Longstreet. It will taste sweeter for thawing a little.”

  Damn him. Bless him. She took the bite he offered and took courage from the simple affection with which Darius regarded her. “Do not lecture me about queer starts, Darius Lindsey. I will not have it.”

  “When do you repair to Longchamps?”

  The change of subject was intended as a kindness. Vivian wasn’t having any of that either. “Are those women still plaguing you, sir?”

  The look he sent her was chilly indeed. “I have every confidence my path will depart from theirs very, very soon, though at present I’m told they’re each rusticating.”

  It wasn’t what she had expected to hear and wasn’t at all what she’d wanted to hear, either. The entire encounter palled, because very soon was no comfort at all, and had those women not been rusticating, Vivian would no
t now be enjoying Darius’s company.

  He sent John away but did not put from him the women who tormented him, and to all appearances, he avoided Vivian except for chance encounters.

  She should have him summon a cab immediately and hope they didn’t run into each other again for a good long while.

  “I’d like another ice. Chocolate, I think, and you’re not to steal even a bite of my treat.”

  His gaze dropped to her belly, and his smile was not sweet in the least. Nor was it cool. “Bit late for that, isn’t it, Vivvie?”

  He crossed the street to order her a third ice without further comment, only to stop in his tracks as he reemerged from the shop and a stylish lady with reddish hair came swanning up to his side.

  “Why, Mr. Lindsey! What a lovely surprise.”

  He did not even glance at Vivian, seemed determined not to glance at her, in fact. Vivian balled his handkerchief up and stuffed it into her reticule, signaled for her maid, and quitted the square without sparing him a glance either.

  The prudent course was obvious: there could be no more meetings with Darius Lindsey, not by chance, not by design, and not by anything in between. Vivian vowed she’d leave for Longchamps in the morning—and stay there.

  Fourteen

  “This is an unexpected pleasure.” Blanche eyed Darius up and down, the way she’d look at a decadent dessert or expensive pair of new shoes. Darius’s flesh crawled at her inspection, but no more than it had a week previous, when he’d barely been able to leave Gunter’s without ripping her to shreds in public.

  And then pelting after Vivian for all the world to see.

  “Unexpected, perhaps, a pleasure, most definitely not.” He handed his hat and gloves to one of the handsome footmen Blanche insisted on employing and met his hostess’s gaze. “You will want to hear me out in private.”

  “I want you in private,” she agreed, “but as for listening to you carp and bark, I think not. You have more worthy attributes than your speaking voice.”

  Darius let her shut the parlor door behind them, but when she moved to embrace him, he stepped back.

  “Playing hard to get has limited charm between well-acquainted lovers.” Her tone was reproving, and again Darius felt a spike of nausea.

  “We are not,” Darius said softly, “nor will we ever be, nor have we ever been, lovers. I accommodated you for a price. Your usefulness is at an end, and I am doing you the courtesy of informing you of this in private. I will do likewise with Lucy Templeton.”

  “This straining at the leash is ill-mannered, Darius,” Blanche said, smiling as if anticipating a rousing argument. “You will continue to accommodate me and Lucy, and whomever else we choose to direct you to. Have you no sense of what Wilton would do to you were he to learn of your nocturnal schemes? Cease your nonsense, or there will be consequences.”

  Darius crossed the room, his back to her for a long moment while he marshaled his temper and tried to calm the turmoil in his gut. This was what hatred felt like, corrosive, heavy, and lethal.

  When he turned to face her, he saw the first flicker of real fear on her face, but it gave him no satisfaction.

  “For all intents and purposes, Blanche, I have whored for you, but it is a whore’s prerogative to accept or decline the customer or the encounter. Even those rules you’ve disrespected in your dealings with me. I went to my own kind, to the streetwalkers and courtesans and prostitutes, and found what I needed to enforce the rules.”

  And not once in the past three days of scouring the city’s most depraved haunts had Darius been judged, ridiculed, or scorned. The soiled doves and molly boys hadn’t hesitated to share their resources. They hadn’t even taken his coin in exchange for what he so desperately needed.

  “You have a fourteen-year-old daughter,” Darius said, “growing up in Ireland in the home of your cousin’s steward. Most of your jewels are paste, though I made sure the ones you tossed to me were real enough. You’re dying your hair—the hair on your head—and I know this because you’ve made the mistake of keeping the candles lit when I pleasured you.”

  Her jaw dropped, and Darius felt the surging satisfaction of a well-executed ambush. “Shall I go on?”

  “You would not dare.”

  “I would dare. I dared to take coin for that which no gentleman should, and I would dare to cheerfully ruin you not for taking advantage of me—for I was taking some advantage of you as well—but taking unfair advantage, backed up by unconscionable threats to innocents who owe you nothing. We can part without further hostilities, or we can declare war. It’s your choice.”

  He held her gaze a moment longer, making sure she read the resolve in his eyes.

  “Lucy was the one who suggested we take your sister,” Blanche said, her expression becoming desperate. “I had nothing to do with that. She said the girl was already ruined, and you were getting too difficult.”

  Darius went still, while he heard a roaring in his ears and his vision dimmed. His hands fisted, his jaw clenched, and he held himself back from throttling the miserable female before him only because he’d kill her if he laid a finger on her.

  And he’d enjoy it.

  “She came to no harm,” Lady Cowell babbled on. “Really, there was no harm done. Reston saw to that. We were just going have her drink a bit of absinthe, set her down in a gambling hell. There’s no real harm in that.”

  Merciful God. Drugged and disoriented, Leah would have ended up in a brothel before dawn.

  “You say there was no harm,” Darius growled, stalking across the room, “when my sister will never feel safe in the park again.” He loomed over her, his voice lethally soft. “You say leaving an innocent woman to the mercy of the pimps, drunks, and bounders would have been no harm? I should tell your husband what you’ve been up to and send word to The Times as well.”

  “Please.” Blanche dropped her gaze. “Please. You don’t know what it’s like.”

  Darius forced himself to breathe evenly. She had bullied him unmercifully, for her entertainment, for her pleasure. He would not bully her. “Do we understand each other, Lady Cowell?” His voice was even and yet laden with menace. “Answer me.”

  “We understand each other, and I will make sure Lucy understands as well.” She met his gaze long enough to nod once.

  “That will not be necessary.” Darius sketched an ironic bow. “The pleasure of enlightening your sorry friend and familiar will be entirely mine.” He cleared the room so quickly he didn’t see the look of stunned horror on Lady Cowell’s face, or the way she dropped into a chair and sat staring into space long after he’d gone.

  His interview with Lucy Templeton was even more to the point, though he also allowed her the courtesy of closeting herself with him before he threatened the future she’d assumed was secure.

  “You accepted payments from French sympathizers to keep certain contraband from coming to the attention of excise men quartered near your husband’s seat. The punishment for treason is hanging.”

  “I would never do such a thing! You lie, Darius, and poorly.”

  “Now, Lucy,” Darius nearly purred as he came to stand too close to her, “I have no reason to lie. I’ve been a naughty man, true, but I’ve never paid for the pleasure of whipping children nigh to death. What would your husband think, did he learn of such an excess of temper?”

  “My husband is devoted,” Lucy said, her eyes venomous.

  “Devoted, indeed, to the mistress who bore him two sons, for whom he provides well. He apparently had no trouble functioning with his mistress, unlike his situation with you. All he’d need is an excuse to have you sent to one of those pleasant, walled estates for women with nervous constitutions.”

  Color drained from her face, and Darius observed with curious dispassion that the woman might have once been pretty, had not vice and bitterness twisted her expression.

  But he hadn’t yet finished with her.

  “And if you truly dispute the charges of treason”—he nailed
her with a frigid look—“then charges of attempted kidnapping of my sister might still see you in jail, my lady. Your footmen can be bribed as easily as any, and Reston—Earl of Bellefonte, now—would do anything to see those who threatened his countess brought to justice.”

  She sank onto the sofa, his words landing with more gratification than well-aimed blows.

  “I’ll leave you to contemplate your sins, but be warned that Bellefonte’s brothers are yet at university, and they will be admonishing their entire forms to avoid the likes of you, and making sure their younger brothers are warned as well. Do we understand each other?”

  “We do.” Her answering croak was in the voice of a woman who knew when she was… beaten.

  “I suggest you and Lady Cowell take a repairing lease somewhere as distant as, say, the Italian coast. Latin men are notably solicitous toward older women. Good day.”

  * * *

  Casting off the pall of association with Blanche and Lucy should have left Darius euphoric. Mightily relieved, in any case. Instead, it was overshadowed by four things that deflated positive feelings considerably.

  First, Darius had bid good-bye to the only family member to share his household, the only bright spot in much of his recent years.

  Saying good-bye to John when the boy left for Belle Maison had hurt, but not Leah, not Trent, not even John himself seemed to comprehend Darius’s loss. Nicholas, oddly enough, had pulled Darius aside for a fierce hug and promised him the child would come to no harm and visit Darius often. That assurance had been so desperately needed Darius had found himself blinking back tears.

  Crying, for God’s sake, and on another man’s shoulder. What did Darius have to cry about?

  The second development of great proportions in Darius’s life was that Nick had confronted Wilton with evidence of the earl’s mishandling of funds—and worse—earlier in Leah’s life. Wilton was effectively banished to Wilton Acres out in Hampshire, and the maternal inheritance Darius’s father had pilfered from him was being repaid, with interest.