“Portia would have my head were I to suggest such a thing.” Able’s smile was more fatigued than humorous. His drink had disappeared in very short order.

“She seems in good health.” One could not say Portia Springer was in good spirits, ever. The woman had a decidedly pinched view of life despite the embonpoint quality of her frame.

“She’s sturdy, my Portia. How long can you stay?”

The question wasn’t really appropriate, since William owned the home and was technically the host, though Able lived at Longchamps a great deal more than William ever had. Still, the inquiry wasn’t mean, but more likely one Portia required an answer to and hadn’t had the nerve to put to William directly over dinner.

“I’m not sure.” William eyed his drink. “Depends some on Vivian’s preferences, since she doesn’t particularly like Town life.”

“She doesn’t?” Able seemed surprised by this. “All that entertaining, all those titles gathered around at her dinner parties, she doesn’t enjoy that?”

“Rather dreads it.” How was it his wife and his son were no better acquainted? “She’s a good sport though, and now that she’s figured out most who vote their seat are more interested in the Catholic question than in gobbling her up, she’s gotten much better at it.” She’d never be quite the hostess Muriel was, but that comparison was hardly fair.

Able crossed back to the sideboard to refill his drink. “You’d think she’d be here, though, with you, instead of lingering in Town.”

“Meaning?”

Able shrugged. “She’s young and larking around Town without your supervision, but then, she’s not my wife.”

“She is mine.” William sipped his drink placidly, enjoying the heat more than the flavor. “I’ve never had reason to doubt her, Able. Not once, not in the use of her pin money, not in her consumption of spirits, not in her choice of social companions. Vivian is a lady.”

“Of course, she is.”

William saw the comparison with Portia hit its mark. He didn’t envy Able his wife. Nobody would.

“You can douse most of the candles,” William said, settling in a little more comfortably in his reading chair. “I’ll keep my nightcap company here for a bit in solitude.”

“If that’s your preference.” Able dutifully blew out the candelabrum on the table. “I’ll bid you good night, your lordship.”

William lifted a hand. “Thank you for the game, Able. I promise I’ll be in better form tomorrow night.”

Able left, no doubt to be interrogated by his wife, while William had to admit he truly missed Vivian. She would have had a lap robe tucked around him, her chess was interesting and sometimes brilliant, her conversation laced with humor, and her form easy to look upon.

Lindsey, to his credit, hadn’t even asked about her appearance, though he’d asked a damned lot of other questions—when were her menses due, had she ever miscarried, what had her sister’s deliveries been like, what about her mother’s? They were the questions of a surprisingly shrewd man, but also the questions of a man who cared about his womenfolk.

With any luck, that number would someday include Vivian. On that cheering thought, Lord Longstreet let himself doze off, because he hadn’t lied: he was utterly worn out.

Vivian looked up from her book—a volume of Byron, whom William declared a disgrace on countless levels—when a single knock landed on her door.

“You still awake?” Darius Lindsey strolled into her room, stopping a few feet from the bed. “Now, now, none of that. You look at me like I’m the invading French army. I brought you a nightcap.”

“Did you ever consider buying your colors?” Vivian asked, only a little alarmed when he sat on the end of her bed and lounged back against the bedpost. She accepted the drink he passed her, but didn’t sip it just yet.

“I did not.” He scooted to scratch a shoulder blade on the bedpost, an informality if ever there was one. “My father was not kindly disposed toward my sister Leah. If you’re of an age, you probably know that much, so I considered it my responsibility to stick close to her rather than defend King and Country. Then too, until my nephew Ford was born, I was the Wilton spare and obligated to keep body and soul together as a result. Don’t forget your drink.”

She dutifully sipped but couldn’t think of a thing to say to the handsome man regarding her from the foot of her bed.

“What are you reading?”

She eyed the book. “Byron. William would snort with derision.”

“Byron himself does a good job of deriding just about everything. Shall I read to you?” He picked up the book where it lay facedown on the counterpane and ran his finger down the page. When he started in reading, Vivian realized the poetry was better for being rendered in the voice of a young man, one jaded, but not quite bitter, and just as unimpressed with Polite Society as the poet was.

“You read well,” she offered between verses.

“Better than you finish a nightcap,” he said with a slight smile. Vivian took another sip. It was potent stuff, burning a trail down her throat to her innards.

She eyed the little glass dubiously. “What is this?”

“Cognac.” He set the book aside. “I favor it in winter. I had another purpose for coming up here.”

“You’re going to pounce?” She had to ask. He was without cravat or coat—in dishabille by polite standards—and by candlelight, at his ease on her bed, he looked even larger than he had at dinner.

Also… handsomer, plague take him.

“No pouncing for me, delightful as the prospect might be. I haven’t been given permission.”

“You don’t have to do this, you know.” She set the drink aside, only to have him move up the bed and take a sip of it himself—from the same place on the rim she’d just put her lips to.

“Do what?”

“Be so… considerate. I’ll manage. Earlier, downstairs, it was just a weak moment. If our good queen could bear fifteen children to a man she’d never met before her wedding day, I’ll manage.”

“I’m not offering a kingdom in return,” Darius said. “Not in the traditional sense.”

“What does that mean?”

“I can offer you pleasure, Vivian, or I can be as perfunctory and undemanding as you wish.”

“This is an increasingly uncomfortable discussion.” Vivian tucked the covers more tightly around her. “Not one I am prepared to have.”

“Consider this a discussion of how you want to be pounced upon. You need to decide whether pleasure and duty are mutually exclusive, Vivian. If they are, I’ll come to you only when the candles are out and you’re under the covers. We need not see each other, in fact, for the duration of this month.”

“And if pleasure and duty can coincide?” She knew she’d taken the bait, as he’d intended, but the question was exactly what had been bothering her. Where had her resolve not to socialize with him gone, and why had it seemed so important?

“If duty and pleasure are to coincide, then you have to trust me at least a little to make this a seduction, a pleasure for us both.”

“Which would you prefer?”

His eyebrows rose, and that caught her attention, suggesting he wasn’t used to being asked his preferences. She stored that realization away for later, and lengthy, consideration.

“My first reaction is to say it makes no difference to me,” he said. “I am being paid good coin to achieve a specific end, but I’d rather do that in the manner least upsetting to you. If I had to be honest though…”

“Yes?”

The look in his eyes changed, became slumberous in that instant before he lowered dark lashes and veiled his soul from her scrutiny.

“You are lovely, Vivian, and deserving of pleasure.”

He wasn’t telling her everything. A man who romped with society women as he did was capable of discretion, of keeping his own counsel. Silence crept up between them and expanded as Vivian considered him. He took another sip of her drink then raised his gaze to hers.