And she missed him.

She didn’t flatter herself he missed her, but she hoped, in a small, honest, very private corner of her heart, he at least thought of her from time to time.

She climbed onto her bed, knowing a short nap was in order—another short nap. Maybe next time her path crossed with Darius’s, there wouldn’t be a curious child underfoot, and they could even exchange a few more words.

Ten

In the two weeks and three days since he’d seen Vivian in the park, Darius had become a master at the game he privately called “What I Should Have Said.” This game consisted of endless mental rehashings of his short encounter with Vivian and endless variations on the winning answer: he should have said not one damned thing; he should have cut her utterly.

He’d failed that round and admitted in hindsight that such a purely coldhearted approach was beyond him, so he’d graduated to Round Two anyway, which he thought of as “What I’ll Say Next Time.”

Knowing full well there couldn’t be a next time.

“There you are.” Lucy’s voice was low and hard. “You’re late again, and believe me, I have about had it with you, Darius.”

“I am abjectly sorry to have discommoded you,” he drawled. Her eyes widened in astonishment then narrowed in what he recognized as anticipated pleasure. “Domestic obligations called that couldn’t wait.” Then too, William’s first payment had yet to show up, and a man inured to disappointment had to accept that it might never arrive.

“Insolent.” She looked him up and down. “Get up to my room and have yourself on my bed in five minutes.”

“As my lady wishes.” His tone was even more indifferent than he’d intended, and Lucy’s eyes took on an unholy gleam. As he made his way to her room, he felt a crushing fatigue radiating out from his middle, almost as if he were wrung out from a stomach flu or a long footrace over steep terrain. He quickly shed his garments and got comfortable facedown on Lucy’s bed. He was careful to put his clothes where he could see them—he didn’t trust Lucy not to hide them or damage them, and they cost a pretty penny. He also unlatched her balcony doors before she arrived, because locking him in would seem a fine game to her in her present mood.

He knew this waiting period was intended to create anticipation in him, or anxiety. For Lucy, the two were closely related, but for him, the temptation to steal a catnap was taking precedence. He’d been out past midnight with his sister at one of the few early balls that would crop up until the Season began in earnest. It was three in the morning—a full hour later than Lucy had summoned him—and he wouldn’t see his own bed until dawn.

Lucy swished into the room and secured a silk scarf around his wrist. “So what have you to say for yourself, Darius?” She pulled it tight and knotted it to the bedpost. “You disappear and leave no word when you’ll return. You ignore my first two notes and then show up tonight an hour late?” She gave the second scarf a yank on the last word, and Darius realized she expected an answer.

“One usually spends the holidays with family, Lucy.” Darius made a show of yawning. She’d tied his hands, and he couldn’t politely cover his mouth. “You are not my family.”

“I’m not,” she agreed, disdaining to secure his feet. “Crouch up.”

He complied—Lucy had a fascination for his fundament, God help him.

“You’ve been rude.” Her hand came down hard, a stinging, loud slap of flesh on flesh that Darius found not as bracing as it usually was. “You’re inconsiderate, your manners are atrocious, and you’ll regret this lapse.” She whaled on him in a similar vein, and Darius turned his attention to the task of producing an erection for her entertainment. When she untied him and spread herself for his further attentions, she’d expect to see a nice hard cock. From her perspective, the idea that he wasn’t allowed to swive her with it made his suffering more intense, which meant his remuneration was earned.

So…

For the first time in his memory, Darius had to work at gaining an erection. He succeeded only by using the friction of the bedcovers against his skin as a stimulus, for sheer determination gained him little. He writhed convincingly against the silk sheets, relieved when his flesh eventually rose at the simple glide of the material over his groin. Fortunately, Lucy’s hand had delivered all the punishment it was capable of, though Darius was required to wear the scarves around his neck like a collar and leash. By the time he’d brought her to her first orgasm, his erection had faded to a brief memory. By her second, he realized Vivian had been right, and he truly could not do this again. By her third, he was nearly asleep on his knees.

* * *

“It’s a financial matter.” Darius watched Worth Kettering tidy up an oddly elegant French escritoire. The desk looked like it would crumble to gilded and lacquered matchsticks if Kettering simply banged a fist on it. Kettering himself was large, dark, beautifully attired in various shades of dark blue, and possessed of curiously tidy mannerisms.

“Most matters entrusted to solicitors are financial,” Kettering replied, lacing his fingers and settling his hands before him on the desk. Big hands, though clean and capable looking.

“Let me be blunt.” Darius rose and went to the window. “If my father gets word of this, he’ll use it to destroy me.”

“Your father being Wilton, whom Lord Amherst had the misfortune to be sired by as well?”

“The same.” Darius’s mouth quirked up at one side at Kettering’s honesty.

“I understand the need for discretion, Mr. Lindsey, and can assure you your brother wouldn’t have sent you here had he any reason to doubt me.”

“He told you I’d inquired?”

“Mentioned you might be around, and warned me to attend to your situation personally, without clerks, juniors, or other intermediaries.”

“Older brothers meddle.”

“Younger brothers prevaricate.”

A short, considering silence all around, and then, “I want to set up a trust for a child.” Darius turned his back to the other man, as if watching a beer wagon snarl up traffic in both directions was of great moment. “The child has yet to be born.”

“A conditional trust, then.” Kettering’s voice gave nothing away. “What will the contents of the trust be?”

On the street below, the swearing and insults began in earnest, complete with raised fists. “Coin provided by the lady’s husband. Substantial coin.” The first installment of which had arrived by unliveried private messenger, to Darius’s shamefully intense relief.

“I see.” A pause. Darius heard papers being shuffled. “I don’t see. You’re setting up a trust for another man’s child?”

“Legally, yes.” Darius turned from the farce below and watched as Kettering parsed the realities.

“Is the child’s legal father to know?”

“I don’t care if he knows. I care only that Wilton doesn’t and Polite Society doesn’t. My sisters need spouses, and this is the kind of juicy little aside that could queer their chances.”

Kettering took up a quill pen and began stroking his fingers over the white plume. “How much coin are we discussing?”

Darius named a figure, and Kettering’s brow shot up. “Not such a little aside after all. I’ll need details.”

“Here are the most pertinent details: you will not have the trust document copied by a clerk, will not leave the file where the clerks can find it, will not tell them I’m a client of yours.”

“My staff is trustworthy, but yes, if those are your conditions, I agree to them.”

“Those are some of my conditions.” Darius went back to his window, hating the necessity of discussing Vivian’s personal life with anyone, even Kettering, who was rumored to rival the tomb for his ability to keep confidences. “Another is that I pay you in cash, not bank draft, and I deposit the contents of the trust in your hands, also in cash.”

“That is a deuced lot of cash. Why not use bearer bonds?”

“I’m being paid in cash.” Darius felt the silence behind him grow and intensify as Kettering no doubt put the puzzle pieces together.

“Why didn’t you just have the husband put funds into a trust?” Kettering spoke from Darius’s elbow. For a big man, he’d moved without a sound, sneaking being perhaps a required talent for his kind.

“Because the funds had to leave the man’s estate.” Darius rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “A man’s life can end at any moment, so the funds had to be legally transferred into other hands, lest they become tied up in his affairs and subject to scrutiny upon his death.”

Kettering snorted. “Scrutiny? You mean controversy, and likely hung up to dry in Chancery for all the world to see for years on end as a result.”

“It’s your profession, not mine.”

Mr. Kettering refrained from commenting on what Darius’s profession must be, and began asking the questions Darius knew he had to answer. Names, dates, exact amounts, and conditions. The document would be straightforward enough, leaving a tidy sum in Vivian’s hands, or in Kettering’s hands for the benefit of Vivian and her firstborn child, should Vivian remarry. The trust was revocable only by the creator, that worthy soul being Darius, and the principle invested, some in the five percents, some in ventures of Kettering’s choosing.

Hashing through all the what-ifs and in-the-event-ofs took two hours, but Darius left satisfied he’d done what honor demanded.

He couldn’t claim he’d behaved without self-interest—not that he’d expect that of himself. Some of William’s first installment had gone to liquidation of immediate debts, and some of the second would go to enhancements at Averett Hill. If there were a third installment, a portion of that sum would go to a trust for John, because Trent’s money was largely tied up in trusts for his children, and Darius never wanted John scrabbling for necessities, as Darius had been for his entire adult life.