Vivian stood in the freezing January air, while outside the stables, Darius’s traveling coach, complete with heated bricks, toddies, and a full hamper, waited for her.

“My lady.” Darius offered her his arm, but to her surprise, he walked her back into the barn and not up to the coach. She was wearing one of the new cloaks he’d had made for her, velvet, fur-lined, warm and lovely. Under that, her dress was one he’d designed, more velvet, a rich brown trimmed with green that felt as comfortable as it was elegant. Around her neck, though, he’d wrapped his cozy wool scarf, because she’d brought none of her own.

“I don’t want to go,” Vivian said, holding his gaze and swallowing against the pain in her chest. “You can’t make me want to go, Darius. That much, at least, I insist on.”

“I can’t, but I can warn you again, Vivvie. We’re strangers after this. Nothing but strangers. If you see me in the park, we’ll need to be introduced before you can acknowledge me, and I will all but cut you, for the sake of the child.”

“Oh, of course.” She knew he was trying to be decent, misguided lout that he was. “Unlike a few dozen other young men, you can’t be bothered with a little old bluestocking parliamentary wife like me for a passing acquaintance. I’ll recall that.”

“See that you do,” he warned, his voice stern. “Recall this as well, Vivvie. If you need anything—anything at all—you will discreetly apply to me.”

“I have a husband,” she said a little stiffly.

“For now, but during this child’s lifetime, you at some point likely won’t, and then you’ve only to ask, Vivvie, and whatever you need, if it’s within my power, I’ll see to it for you.”

“While you treat me like a stranger?”

He nodded, looking again like the grave man who’d joined her for dinner a lifetime ago in London.

“I want your promise, Vivvie. This is likely the only child I’ll have, and you have to let me do what I can, should the need arise.”

“This should not be your only child, Darius.” Of that she was certain, though she assuredly did not want him procreating with anybody else. “If I’m even pregnant.”

“You’re carrying.”

“How can you know that?”

“I just do.” His smile was smug and sad. “You are, and that means more coin for me, so well done, Vivvie Longstreet.”

“We’ll see,” she said, wanting to screech at him for bringing up their mercenary bargain yet again. “Was there anything else?”

She glanced at the coach, feeling as if it were some sort of hearse, only to find herself pulled into his arms and kissed, gently, fiercely, and thoroughly.

“Damn you.” She wiped a tear from her eyes with her new gloves, and went up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Damn you, Darius Lindsey, for that kiss and the lectures and all of it.”

He winked at her as he escorted her out to the coach. “May I roast in hell, and so on. That’s the spirit.” She smiled, and he looked relieved and desperate and dear as he handed her in.

“Godspeed, Vivvie, and from the bottom of my jaded and worthless heart, thank you.” He banged on the door, and the coach pulled out before Vivian could stop crying long enough to wonder what on earth he was thanking her for.

Darius’s traveling coach was comfortably conducive to crying, which was fortunate, because Vivian was disposed to indulge. She knew Darius had purchased the vehicle for a song, and probably kept it for himself because it was as luxuriously appointed on the inside as it was carefully unremarkable on the outside. She wasn’t a weeper by nature, but gracious, almighty, merciful, everlasting God…

She buried her nose in his scarf and missed him and hated him for his effortless savoir faire, and loved him for the excruciating tenderness with which he’d made love to her just two hours earlier. He hadn’t said a word; he’d just started in with the kissing and touching and loving, and she’d been… lost.

What was wrong with him, that he’d insist they part on such cool and rational terms, and what was wrong with her, that she couldn’t see the wisdom of his logic?

The trip into Town took longer than she’d liked, in part because she’d needed time to use the facilities at various inns along the way, but also because snow had started to fall—too late to do her any good, of course. When the coach gained the Longstreet townhouse, midday had come and gone and Vivian decided to allow herself a short nap while her trunks were being unloaded.

The idea of going back into William’s house, the one he’d shared with Muriel for several decades, was daunting. In just a few weeks, Vivian had become terribly attached to a man she’d met only once previously. How much closer must William and Muriel have become, making love, raising children, sharing his career…

Things she would never have. Not with Darius, not with anybody. A fresh wave of grief rose up to clog her throat, and Vivian went inside and accepted Dilquin’s solicitous greetings. She kept her new velvet cloak though, claiming the house was chilly, which it was. An hour later, her personal maid found her asleep in her own bed—without a stitch on, God have mercy—and with the velvet cloak spread over the counterpane for extra warmth, and a brown scarf jammed halfway under her pillow.

As Vivian slept away her afternoon, the unloading of Darius’s coach proceeded without incident, except that it was observed by one of the coach’s former owners. Thurgood Ainsworthy had had the thing built to order in one of his wealthier marriages, and it was a traveling coach fit for a man whose social life required a good deal of both discretion and mobility.

Thurgood had loved that coach and loved owning it. He’d seduced more than one lady in its cushy confines, and had only bet the thing because he’d been in his cups and unfamiliar with his gambling opponent. It had been years ago when he’d made the mistake of thinking some cocky younger son was acting as if his hand were poor, when in fact the bastard had been holding a full house, queens over knaves.

Rotten luck.

Apparently the younger son had come upon rotten luck now too, because Longstreet must have purchased the thing for his darling Vivian.

But as Ainsworthy watched, the coachy wheeled the empty vehicle not around to the alley that lead to the Longstreet carriage house, but rather back out into the street and off toward the nearest coaching inn.

Darius heard his traveling coach clatter back up the lane and realized he’d failed to drink himself into oblivion. Well, it was only just past dark. There was time for that.

“I miss her.” He passed that admission along to his great and good friend, the brandy decanter, which sat loyally guarding his right elbow where he sprawled before the fire in his study.

“I miss her in bed,” he began, finding his usual tolerance for pain serving him well. “I miss her over the dinner plates. I miss her out riding. I miss her arguing with me over stupid political questions nobody cares about except the bloody Lords. I miss her teasing John—I miss that a pissing damned lot. John misses her, God help us.”

He took another contemplative sip and regarded his companion.

“I miss having somebody, anybody, to talk about John with, and she was so kind.” He mentally relaxed before he could wind up for the next blow. “She was reassuring, telling me I’m doing a good job with the boy, when I’ve exposed him to all manner of depravity. I’m a grown man, and I’ve been raising that child for years. When did I sprout this need for reassurance?”

He veered off that perilous ditch and took off in a more familiar direction.

“She deserves so much better.” He was mumbling now, mumbling around the ache that had been in his throat for hours. “She says I deserve better, silly wench. And she smelled lovely, always. How did she do that?”