Vivian had the grace to know she’d been abrupt. “My apologies, I’m just…”

He waited, while she cast around for a way to not make an awkward situation even worse.

She met his gaze and knew she was blushing. “I’m at sea here, Mr. Lindsey. Are we going to enjoy a spot of tea and then repair above stairs, there to…?”

“We can,” he said, amusement lighting his dark eyes, “or we can get out of this cold, and while we get you that something hot to drink, discuss how you’d like to go on.” He offered her his arm, and Vivian realized he was standing around in the bitter cold without a proper winter coat on. His fingers were ink stained, and his dark hair was riffling in the breeze.

She took his arm, unable to quell the thought that poor William would have been wrapped up to his wrinkled brow in such weather, while on Mr. Lindsey, the cold hardly seemed to make any impression at all.

Three

Darius led his guest into the sturdy, unprepossessing manor house he called home, a little surprised Vivian hadn’t cried off. She was nervous, maybe still scared—as he was—and her discomfort sparked some sympathy for her.

A little sympathy, though she was even prettier by day than she had been in the candlelight of her husband’s townhouse. Or maybe she was prettier when her natural curiosity had her looking all around at new surroundings rather than listening for the sound of her husband’s tread on the floor above.

A long month awaited, for Darius and his guest.

“May I make you a toddy?” Darius asked when they reached his study.

“You burn wood.” She approached the hearth, sniffing the air as she pulled off her gloves and extended her hands toward the fire. “I don’t know what’s worse, the stench of London in winter or in summer. A toddy would be lovely, especially if you’ll join me.”

“Be happy to.” Darius started pouring and mixing at the sideboard, having made sure the fixings were to hand. “How did you leave Lord Longstreet?”

“Reluctantly.”

When Darius interrupted his concocting to approach her, she shrank back against the fire screen then turned her head to the side.

He frowned down at her, feeling a blend of amusement and exasperation. “I am not in the habit of pouncing on unwilling women.” He unfastened the frogs of her cloak, which she’d claimed to have kept on in deference to the cold. When he stepped back he heard her exhale and knew a moment’s consternation. With Lucy, Blanche, and their ilk, a man had to be the one to pull away, to long for a little more finesse and consideration.

“Do you prefer nutmeg, cloves, or cinnamon?” He laid her cloak on a chair and spoke to her over his shoulder.

“A little of all three?” He heard her rubbing her hands together near the fire.

“My own preference.” Darius poured his recipe into a pot and hung it on the pot swing to heat. Beside him, Vivian was staring at the fire as if she could divine the future in its depths.

He laid the backs of his fingers against his guest’s cheek. “You are chilled. Shall I order you a bath?”

She flinched at his touch then shook her head. “Mr. Lindsey.” She took in a breath and still didn’t face him. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“This?” He used a wooden spoon to stir the butter into the toddies, seeing no reason to give up his place right beside her before the fire.

“Spend this month with you, conceive a child. Doesn’t a woman have to be relaxed to conceive? My sister said…” She broke off and wrapped her arms around her middle, tightly, as if holding in words, emotions, everything.

Darius eyed her posture. “I am not undone by a woman’s tears. If you’d like to cry, I come fully equipped with monogrammed linen and a set of broad shoulders.”

“I don’t w… want to cry,” Vivian replied miserably. “Your toddies will boil off.”

He swung them off the fire, put the spoon in the pot, and turned her by her shoulders to face him.

“I seldom want to cry either.” He urged her against him. “The tears come anyway.”

She wasn’t very good at being comforted. Darius concluded this when she remained stiff against him for a long moment. Or perhaps she wasn’t used to being held, which he could understand better than she’d think.

“Maybe it’s your menses bothering you,” he suggested, resting his chin on her crown. “You started when, today?”

“Yesterday,” she muttered against his collarbone, and Darius felt her relax. “I hate that you know that.”

“It’s worth paying attention to, if you want a baby.” He let his hand trail in a slow caress over the bones of her back, pleased when she didn’t bristle further. “And it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I have two sisters, and they take great glee in informing a fellow when they’re crampy and blue and feeling unlovely.”

She stepped back, taking his proffered handkerchief. “It’s hard to think of you with sisters, cousins, aunts.”

“You’d rather I come with a sniveling leer, pinching the maids and telling bawdy jokes?”

“I don’t know what I’d rather,” she admitted, sinking down onto the raised hearth. “I’d rather William gave up on this whole ridiculous scheme.”

“I thought all women wanted children.” Darius sat beside her—which caused her another little startlement—and poured their toddies.

“I do want a baby.” She closed her eyes briefly. “When one takes vows, one assumes they mean the children resulting will be those of the husband and wife.”

“That’s implied but not spelled out,” Darius said, wondering how sheltered from the doings of titled society she’d been. “There’s that obeying part though, and it’s very explicit. I think that’s what you’re having trouble with.” Darius tasted the spoon. “I would too. Try your toddy. It might brighten your outlook.”

“You’re being charming,” she accused but sipped her drink. “Oh, my… winter just became a more bearable proposition.”

The hint of mischief graced her smile, which yielded Darius relief from the cold far greater than any toddy offered.

“I’ll write down my secret recipe for you.” Darius poured his drink and stirred the spices in briskly to encourage the soothing—expensive—aromas of cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. “I came by it in Italy, got it off an old priest who said he got it from a gypsy witch.”

“You lived in Italy?”

They sat there, side by side on the hearth, and gradually, Lady Longstreet thawed. She smiled as Darius recounted being unable to keep up drink for drink with the local clergy, and some of his own more brilliant mix-ups with the Italian language. A maid brought in a tray of sandwiches, and those disappeared, and still they talked, until Darius’s guest had finished her second toddy.

She peered up at him. “So you’ve put me at my ease—or your toddies have. Now do we get to the pouncing part?”

“By no means.” Darius took her empty glass from her and set it on the sideboard, along with any notions he might have entertained involving pouncing in the immediate term. “You are indisposed, and will be for several more days. There will be no pouncing, unless it’s Waggles bothering the mice.”

“Waggles?”

“A younger relation lives with me here,” Darius said, gauging her reaction. “His cat is named Waggles. Don’t ask me why.”

“Is he your son?” She rose and moved away, starting on an inspection tour of the room. That she would conclude a man available for prurient purposes might have a by-blow shouldn’t have been a surprise, and it wasn’t—she thought exactly what Darius intended people to think.

Though it was a disappointment.

“He’s a relation,” Darius said, watching her perambulations. “He’s dear to me, though, and I’ll tolerate no insult to him.”

“I know.” Lady Longstreet nodded, even as she picked up a jade-handled letter opener and held it point-first toward her sternum. “It’s why I chose you.”

“Why is that?” He ambled over and took the letter opener from her hand.

“You will protect this child, if it comes to that,” she said, meeting his gaze.

“How could you know such a thing?” He didn’t like her reason. He’d rather she had picked him because he was a handsome toy, reliably discreet, naughty by reputation—not this other nonsense.

“I’m of an age with your sister, Lady Leah. I attended her come-out ball. Lord Amherst led her out for her first set, but you danced the supper waltz with her.”

“That had to be… eight years ago, at least. Why would you recall such a detail?”

“Because you and your brother Amherst weren’t dancing with her from duty. You were genuinely proud of her, and you hovered all evening and monitored her dance card and how much champagne she drank and so forth.”

He recalled Leah’s come out very clearly—she’d been so happy. How could he not? “I am no longer that man. I’m sorry if you think I am.”

“We all change. I am no longer that girl, either.”

“One hopes not.” Darius considered her, casually denouncing youth while beaming inexperience in every direction. “How would you like to proceed with me this month?”

“I’d like”—she subsided onto the couch—“to put a sack over my head, stuff cotton wool in my ears, and hum some good old Handel while you do the going on. You can let me know when I’ve conceived.”

“Interesting approach.” Darius couldn’t help a slight smile. “One surmises you’d be more comfortable in darkness then.”

“You’re going to get mortifyingly personal now, aren’t you?”

“A little personal. Not pouncingly personal.”

“When does that start?” She wrinkled up her nose, as if they were discussing liming the jakes. Nasty business, but necessary.