She moved to stand beside him. “I dread this.”

“You’ve yet to tell me how we’re to go about it,” he reminded her. “My brother favors Darjeeling, so I keep some around, but I’m more partial to a mild oolong. What about you?”

“What about me?” Tea and copulation in two consecutive sentences. She was going to end up in Bedlam. “I like mine with cream and sugar.”

“Vivvie.” He tucked an arm around her waist. “You are a disgrace.” He made it sound like an endearment though, and Vivian dropped her head to his shoulder.

“How we’re to go about what?” she asked, though she knew exactly what.

“Do I merely service you,” he asked, moving away to get down mugs, not teacups, “or will you let me pleasure you?” He retrieved the cream from the cold box at the window, apparently able to discuss one appetite while preparing to fulfill another.

“Is this how these things are decided?” She watched him moving around the kitchen. “Between trips to the pantry?”

“Come here.” He backed toward the dark confines of the pantry, tugging her with him. “I’ve been wanting to do this for days.”

“Do…?”

When she was sharing the small, orderly confines of the pantry with him, he settled his lips over hers and wrapped her close against the warmth of his larger body. The heat of him felt heavenly, and Vivian knew with a sudden certainty the weight of him would feel just as good.

She’d learned a little in their two previous kisses, and tasted his lips with her tongue before he got around to offering her the same gesture. She felt the pleasure and surprise go through him, felt it in the way he gathered her closer, and in the way his body seamed itself to hers.

“More.” He whispered it against her neck, and the sensation of his breath on her skin sent tendrils of pleasure curling through her vitals. His hand slid down her back and cupped her derriere, urging her more closely against him. “More, Vivvie, please…”

Vivvie… when had he started calling her that?

When had she decided she liked it?

She opened her mouth beneath his and invited him in for a taste, squirming against his chest when his tongue came calling. When she moved, her breasts pressed more snugly against him. This relieved some vague discomfort welling up from her middle, so she did it again, more slowly.

“That’s my girl…” His hand traveled around from her hip, up to her waist, then her side, and then, glancingly, along the side of her breast.

“You…” She broke the kiss to look up at him. “You’re wheedling.”

“Not yet.” He nuzzled her neck, and Vivian was abruptly aware of a different pressure, nuzzling against her abdomen. He rocked against her, ensuring she’d know what that rigid length was, setting up a slow, naughty rhythm that made her insides hum.

“Now.” He closed his eyes and kissed the side of her neck. “Now, I’m wheedling.” He kept up that slow rocking, until the teakettle whistled and Vivian stepped back, bumping into the shelves behind her.

“The tea…” She glanced out into the kitchen.

“Answer me first, Vivvie love.” He let his hand slide down her arm then trail away. “Pleasure or duty? You decide.”

She gave him a look, feeling undecided, torn, aroused, and miserable.

“Both.”

She bolted into the kitchen, having used up her entire store of courage in a single syllable, and didn’t see him grinning like an idiot while he adjusted a raging erection behind his falls.

Bless her, she’d lit on the one and only correct answer.

Five

Several hours later, Vivian was debating her fate from the soapy, fragrant confines of a steaming-hot bath.

The bath Darius Lindsey had ordered for her.

The knowledge he had of women was… disquieting. Vivian considered his insistence that she join him here in Kent as her menses began, and realized from the moment she’d laid eyes on him, he’d known something more personal about her than her sister generally knew. More personal than William ever knew, except this once.

From the moment Darius had laid eyes on her, the exact cycle of her body had been shared between them. Such knowledge was appallingly intimate, the sort of thing Vivian suspected Jared and Angela might both know but never discuss.

With Darius Lindsey, whom Vivian had known less than a week, the topic had been discussed. Everlasting God.

She rinsed her hair a final time and stood, letting the water sluice off her body as she reached for a thick, warm bath sheet.

He understood a lady’s comforts, and the idea made her shiver in anticipation. She hadn’t known this about him when she’d chosen him. She’d known he was fierce, discreet, and in need of coin. William hadn’t questioned her choice though, and that had to mean something.

A knock on the door as Vivian shrugged into a dressing gown had her heart speeding up, but it was only Gracie, the maid of all work. She seemed to manage easily despite a slightly withered arm, balancing a tray on her hip while she pulled the door closed.

“Master Darius sent you up a toddy,” Gracie said. “I’m to brush out your hair so it dries before bedtime. If you’re decent enough, I’ll have the tub taken away.”

Vivian took a seat at the vanity, trying to recall the last time somebody else had brushed out her hair. Her lady’s maid—formerly Muriel’s maid and not a young woman—had never volunteered for the task. “Why do you call him Master Darius?”

“Habit,” Gracie said, turning down the sheets on the bed to warm, then going to the door. “Come on, you lot, and step quick, as there’s leftover toddy still on the hob in the kitchen.”

A procession of servants—the scullery maid, the boot boy, a footman, and the groom from the stables—made quick work of removing the tub, buckets, and screens, leaving Vivian to sip her toddy before the fire.

“Let’s get you seated,” Gracie said, pulling the dressing stool over by the fire. “And my heavens, you’ve more hair than I’ve seen in a while.”

“Are there footmen in this household?”

“Oh, sometimes.” Gracie started gently toweling Vivian’s hair dry. “Master Darius hires us and gives us coin for our labor. We don’t fret too much about who wears which jobs when the work piles up. The grooms will help out with the chimneys. The footmen will muck a stall come summer. We do pretty much as Pitt directs us.”

“Mr. Pitt is the butler?”

“On his good days.” Gracie switched to brushing, starting with the ends of Vivian’s hair. “Pitt used to work at Wilton Acres, but he got too old, and Lord Wilton turned him off, so here he is.”

The toddy was wonderful, another comfort, courtesy of her… of Darius Lindsey. “Wilton turned off a loyal retainer without a pension or character?”

“Wilton’s like that. We’re not to speak ill of our betters, but that Wilton is a scandal. Let’s turn you a bit, shall we?”

“What about the other brother, Lord Amherst?”

“Master Dare dotes on him,” Gracie said, expression brightening. “Loves those kiddies, too. A child never had a more devoted uncle than Master Dare.”

“John loves him,” Vivian said, sipping her toddy.

“And we all love our Master John. Turn again, milady.”

“Did you all work at Wilton Acres?” This was prying, shameless, unladylike prying, but no more personal than having to tell a man about the very rhythms of one’s body.

Gracie paused to work at a tangle. “We don’t all come from Wilton, but we worked somewhere, and most of us were let go through no fault of our own. Word gets out, though, when a man’s willing to take a chance on people. Master Dare puts us to work, and if we’ve a mind to move on, he writes the best characters and lets us know he appreciates our loyalty.”

This toddy had a particularly lovely mixture of spices—something blending the cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg together. Something subtle and exotic—cardamom? Allspice? An extravagance, surely, and one Darius Lindsey had expended on her. “How long have you worked here, Gracie?”