Darius

by Grace Burrowes

  “And will you introduce me to the young man in your arms?”

  Vivian glanced down at the baby then up at Darius, her expression full of emotions shifting too quickly for him to read.

  “I’ll do better than that,” she said, tucking up the child’s receiving blankets. “He’s a right little porker, in Dilquin’s estimation, so you can relieve me of the burden of his weight. Darius Lindsey, may I make known to you Baron Longchamps, Master Wilhelm Fordham Zacharias Josef Longstreet.” She passed the child to Darius, who received the little burden as carefully as he would the most precious of gifts.

  Darius blinked down at the child, who was gurgling happily in his arms. He snugged the blankets around that cherubic little face and resisted mightily the urge to hug the infant in a crushing embrace. When he looked up, he saw Val Windham grinning at him from across the church’s front terrace, and the sight was bracing.

  “Greetings,” Darius addressed the baby. Welcome to life. I’m your father, and the luckiest, most blessed man alive. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You look to be in good spirits today, my lord.”

  The baby caught Darius’s nose in a little mitt, and while the other adults babbled on about God knew what, Darius stood there, falling in love and loving it.

  Which, before such a crowd, would not do.

  “He’s strong,” Darius said while Vivian reached over and removed the baby’s hand.

  “He’s a little beast,” Mrs. Ventnor agreed. “Viv spoils him terribly, but if we’re not to while away the day on these steps, we’d best put the baron in his christening gown.”

  “We’ll be along shortly,” Ventnor promised. “Mind you don’t rile the boy, as it will be a long day for him.”

  Mrs. Ventnor took the baby from Darius, and it was all he could do not to knock her aside and clutch the child to his chest. “Come, Viv,” Mrs. Ventnor said. “We’ll explain to the guest of honor he’s not to cast his accounts all over Mr. Lindsey’s lovely attire.”

  The women moved off, while Darius wondered how much of being a parent to Wilhelm Fordham was going to be about partings—from the boy, from his mother, from dreams and other possibilities.

  For the service, Will was a little saint, going to sleep in his father’s arms, the trust of such a thing being enough to fell Darius all over with its sweetness and gravity. Mrs. Ventnor had to nudge Darius to say his little parts, so fascinated was he by the baby he held. Vivvie had been right; the child was perfect.

  Perfect, healthy, adorable, and asleep.

  And so small. When it was over, Mrs. Ventnor excused herself to find her husband and sister, leaving Darius, lucky, lucky Darius, holding the baby.

  “Makes a fellow pause,” Val Windham said, peering down at the child. “To think you and I were once that small, that vulnerable.”

  “That innocent,” Darius said. “That precious.”

  “I’m still precious,” Val said, looking oddly sober. “To Their Graces, my siblings, their spouses and children, I’m precious to them, and they are to me.”

  This child and his mother were precious to Darius, and if God were merciful, Darius would have a chance to be a meaningful, if minor, presence in his child’s life as well.

  Precious. He could be a little precious to someone else, and even the idea was enough to make his chest hurt.

  “Mr. Lindsey?” Angela Ventnor bustled up to him. “We’re off to host the breakfast for the nearest and dearest at our townhouse. If you would see Viv and the baron back to Longstreet House, Viv said she’d try to convince the baby to nap so she could spend a little time off her feet with friends and family.”

  “I’d be happy to,” Darius said. “Lord Val, will you accompany us?”

  Val gave him a fleeting look of puzzlement, but nodded. “You carry Himself. He’s been too good for too long, and there will be consequences.”

  “Viv brought extra nappies for the baron,” Angela said, patting the baby’s blanket. “You two gentlemen must come along with her and put your appetites to the test. Mr. Ventnor has laid in sufficient provisions for a campaigning army.”

  “It’s always my fault.” Ventnor smiled at his wife, a man in love ten years after speaking his vows. “Come along, my dear. Christenings work up an appetite.”

  Such casual domesticity, and yet to hear it and know these people would be part of Will’s life was comforting. Darius lifted his gaze from the baby in his arms to see Val regarding him with a curious smile.

  “Do not smirk at me, Windham. Go fetch my coach, and I’ll retrieve Vivvie.”

  “Vivvie?” The smile turned into a grin, while Darius grimaced at his mistake.

  “Her ladyship. We’ll meet you outside.”

  Val peered down at the baby and back up at Darius, as if looking for resemblance. Darius bore the scrutiny, both dreading and hoping Val might see some.

  “On second thought, give me the baron,” Val said. “He and I will be outside, charming the ladies. This does not mean you are to be inside doing likewise.”

  “Go.” Darius said, parting with his son—that he should give the boy into Valentine’s keeping made it marginally less difficult. He spotted Vivian sitting at the back of the church. A nattily dressed middle-aged man was bent low, whispering in her ear, and Vivian’s expression was carefully blank.

  A parliamentary crony of William’s, haranguing her over her husband’s absence, perhaps? But no, Vivian would handle that easily. This had to be her stepfather. Darius quickened his pace.

  “Lady Longstreet?” He inserted himself beside her pew, causing the man bothering her to take a step back. “If you’re ready to go, the carriage and your son are waiting.”

  “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” the other man said. “I consider my daughter’s welfare my concern, so all in her ambit are of interest to me.”

  Vivian rose and handled the introductions, but Darius barely heard her words. She was pale, more pale than she’d been earlier in the morning, and a mask was over her features that spoke more to upset than fatigue.

  “If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Ainsworthy.” Darius tucked Vivian’s hand over his arm. “Her ladyship is anxious to get the baron home.”

  “Vivian.” Ainsworthy lifted her other hand and bowed over it, so each man had a grasp of one of her hands. “You will take my words to heart this time.”

  The fool made it sound like a scold, which was reason enough for Darius to loathe him.

  “Thurgood. My thanks for your felicitations.”

  Darius led her away, though he could feel Ainsworthy’s stare boring into his back. “What an unfortunate example of a stepfather,” Darius remarked. “Is he always given to such melodrama?”

  She ignored him, or hadn’t heard him. Unease crept across the warmth in Darius’s heart, an emotional cloud on an otherwise sunny morning. A superstitious man would have said somebody walked over his grave.

  They collected the baby from Val, who elected to ride up with the coachy, and Darius situated mother and baby in his conveyance. He presumed on the day’s benevolence by taking a place beside Vivian on the forward-facing seat.

  “I can take the baby, Vivvie, and you can close your eyes for a bit.”

  Paternal of him, but William’s admonition to look after mother and child rang in Darius’s ears. He’d take care of them, he’d love them, and when the coach got to Longstreet House, he’d somehow find a way to say good-bye to them too.

  “Darius—” Vivian turned her face into his shoulder.

  He didn’t think. He wrapped an arm around her, the only comfort he had to offer. “Don’t cry, Vivvie. The day has been trying, I know, but we’ll get you off your feet…”

  She was shaking her head from side to side, and to Darius she didn’t look like she was holding the baby so much as clutching the infant to her chest. Alarm threatened his composure, but he
kept his voice steady. “Vivvie, talk to me. Tell me what’s amiss.”

  “Thurgood. Thurgood recognized your coach. He knows I visited you last year, and he says you’re Will’s father. He says he knows you’re Will’s father, and, Darius, he’ll use that knowledge to take this baby from me.”

  ***

  Childbirth was painful, but that pain was productive, bringing forth a precious new life. The suffering that engulfed Vivian in that comfortable traveling coach had no purpose and no end.

  She cried while Darius held her, and then cried because he was holding her, the child tucked between them. Her tears were for William, for Darius, and for herself—most of them were for herself.

  Darius passed her a handkerchief, one with his soothing, exotic scent. She let him take the child—perhaps the last time he’d hold his own son—and tried to sit up.

  “I can hold you both, Vivvie.”

  Vivvie. Nobody called her that, in just that caressing tone, except Darius.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not typically lachrymose.” She would be apologizing for a lot before she got out of the coach.

  “You are exhausted, William is dying, and your reptile of a former stepfather has overset you. Talk to me.”

  How fierce he sounded. That fierceness had drawn her to him; it would let him hate her eventually. “I understand something now.”

  He waited. He was ever patient with her.

  “I understand how hard it was for you to turn away from me, to show me indifference and disdain because it was the only way you could protect me.” She glanced at the baby sleeping in the crook of Darius’s arm. “To protect the child.”

  “Our child.” He spoke softly but not casually.

  Vivian closed her eyes and inhaled Darius’s scent. The moment called for ruthlessness, not sentiment, and certainly not honest sentiments like Darius had just uttered.

  “Thurgood has acquired literary aspirations. He is penning a tale about an aging lord’s young wife being taken advantage of by her husband and a dashing rake. He will share this tale with any number of publishers and scandal sheets. He is considering drafting a second version, about a young wife rescued by a noble old peer from a dire fate, only to play her husband false. When the truth of her selfish folly is revealed, all of Society condemns her, as well they should.”

  She expected Darius to withdraw his arm. If anything, his hold became more secure. This suggested he had yet to grasp her point.

  “Darius, William told me last night that his will is written such that whomever I marry in the first three months following William’s death will become Wilhelm’s guardian. If I fail to marry in that time, Able becomes the guardian by default. William is confident Able will not take the child from me, but I think—” She stopped. This was Darius. “I fear William underestimates the mischief Portia could wreak. She became quite close with Thurgood during her stay in London.”

  A beat of quiet went by while the horses clip-clopped along. Vivian noticed they’d slowed to a sedate walk, indicating Darius had signaled the coachy at some point in her fit of the weeps.

  “So you will permit Ainsworthy to choose your next husband, Vivian, is that it?”

  Now his tone conveyed the detached consideration of a man who’d endured many beatings—all without flinching—while Vivian’s throat ached with more tears. The consequences Ainsworthy would bring down on them all if she married Darius were unthinkable, and yet Darius was the only man she could envision sharing her life with.

  “Thurgood says it will be a decent match, and unless my husband sets me aside, I’m likely to share a household with my son. If it means I see the child for fifteen minutes before tea each day, Darius, if it means I get letters from him when he’s at school… I will not abandon my son. I cannot.”

  “Our son.” He imbued the words with a touch more steel. “It seems you have become a lioness, Vivian.”

  “I have become a mother.” Darius had given her that, and now she must refuse him even the crumbs of the paternal banquet due a child’s father.

  More silence. The coach made yet another turn, confirming Vivian’s suspicion they were walking in a circle.

  “I have been a whore, Vivian”—the chill in Darius’s voice was arctic—“and I have learned things plying my trade, so please heed me: your husband will be Thurgood’s creature entirely. Thurgood will hold the man’s vowels, his secrets, something, and through this husband of yours, all of your wealth and all of your happiness will rest in Thurgood’s hands.”

  Darius paused and surveyed her with what looked like pity. “Your husband will resent that, and he will be the man to sire your other children. Count on that. He will couple with you because it is his right, and the only way he can compete with Thurgood’s influence under his own roof. This is how sexual commerce works in the hands of those who trade in such things.”

  “You must not—”

  He went on speaking with a precision and gravity that might have been gentle, except for the meaning of his words. “These men will control your fate, which may be your choice to make, but they will also control the welfare of an innocent child—his wealth, his happiness. We brought that child into the world, and his welfare is our responsibility.”

  Ah, God. She had bargained for this. She had chosen Darius Lindsey because he would protect his loved ones, and now she would destroy him as none of his harpies ever could.

  “Darius, listen to me. Thurgood already has that control. He saw me getting out of this coach when I left Surrey. He knows this coach, he can describe the brass fittings on the lamps, and now he knows the coach is yours. If I thwart him, he will ruin you, me, William, and the child’s entire life. I cannot allow that.”

  “So what you want is for me to slink away, a dog whipped by Thurgood’s threats? A man who abandons the people entrusted to his care?”

  She could not make her mouth form the word “yes,” not when it struck her like a thunderclap that Darius had prostituted himself to provide for John and the collection of castoffs that formed the staff at Averett Hill. There was nothing, nothing Darius would not do to protect his loved ones.

  “This is how it will be, Vivian: Someday, years hence, you will manage to get word to me that I might see the boy playing in the park with his governess. After lurking like a smuggler awaiting the wrecker’s signal, I will have a few minutes to observe the child from a distance, and your husband will learn of it. You will not be punished directly—the child will be. Why do you think my father beat me so enthusiastically every time my mother danced with the wrong man?”

  She turned her face into his shoulder, wishing she could bolt from the coach. The magnitude of the suffering he’d endured, the magnitude of the suffering he forecast, was unfathomable. “Then you must not lurk, and I must not signal you.”

  He heaved up a sigh. She knew, from their first month together, the exact contours and rhythm of his sighs. She both hoped and feared that his sigh had held the beginning of capitulation, maybe not total—the looming loss must be grieved—though it was the start of a consideration of surrender.

  Why did she feel only despair where relief ought to be? “You can tell the coachy to take us home, Darius. I think we’ve said all there is to say on the matter.” All they could bear to say.

  He made no sign he’d heard her. He was instead regarding the baby, who’d whimpered with some baby-dream-induced distress.

  “Hush, child.” Darius cradled the child closer and ran his nose over Will’s little cheek—when had she surrendered the baby into Darius’s embrace? “You’re safe. I’m here.”

  A heart could break over and over. Vivian had known that, watching William miss his beloved spouse, day after day, night after night. She’d gained a deeper understanding of it since meeting Darius, and today heartbreak pressed in on her from all sides.

  “You trusted me, Vivian, as the man who could h
old confidences that would affect the life of an innocent child.” He glanced down at her, then back at the baby, his expression pensive. “You trusted me as your paramour. I think you trusted me as your friend—I hope you did.”

  What was he about? “I did—I do.”

  Another silence, while Vivian wished and wished and told herself to give up wishing once and for all.

  “Do you recall a certain night?” He swallowed and glanced away, out the window to where the lovely streets of Mayfair were showing to good advantage on a mild fall day.

  She knew immediately where his thoughts had gone. “I gave you pleasure. You barely allowed it.”

  He nodded once. “That night, I could not allow it, because I was not worthy of such a gift. My shame was without limit, eating at me like a disease. As a sop to my pride—and isn’t it curious how shame and pride can get along so well?—you pretended you were taking liberties. I knew better.”

  This had something to do with calling himself a prostitute and with a lurking accusation that Thurgood was going to back Vivian into the same role—the same fate.

  “Go on.”

  “You were not on a casual erotic adventure, Vivian. You were making love to me. You were stating, in unequivocal terms, that no matter what I thought of myself, you would hold me in higher regard. I wanted, I want, that regard. Your generosity, your stubbornness, your goodness have prompted all manner of changes in my life—hard changes, but changes for the good. I am determined to be worthy of your regard, and for this reason—”

  He closed his eyes. His throat worked. Vivian wanted to stop his words, and yet he spoke his truth to her, a truth she rejoiced to hear.

  “For this reason, I can abandon neither the child nor you to Thurgood’s avarice and perversity. You trusted me before Vivian, in many regards, but can’t you trust me as the father of your child?”

  ***

  Vivian was watching his mouth, probably marveling at the fancies a grown man could spew when he was desperate and holding his only child for what could be the last time.