He knocked at the Darius household, ever so politely. No one answered. Then he gave it a thump.
Blast it.
Someone moved a curtain, peering into the darkness.
‘It’s Everleigh,’ he shouted at the window pane, knowing it was unlikely the person on the other side could recognise him as he couldn’t comprehend who they were. ‘I’m here to see... Lord Darius.’
The curtain fell into place.
Everleigh retraced his steps to the front door and, at what he gauged to be a quarter-hour later, someone unlocked it.
A servant and Darius stood on the other side, Darius holding a lamp.
Darius shooed the servant away.
‘Here for tea?’ Darius said.
‘Thank you for the offer.’
‘We’re all out.’
‘In that case, I have a note from Rothwilde for you.’ Everleigh held out the paper.
Darius snatched it away, crumpling the edge. ‘I will read it in the morning.’ Darius shifted his slippers while he regarded Everleigh. ‘I would have thought you had a servant you could trust to deliver a letter.’
‘I do.’ Everleigh planted his feet. ‘It’s late. I didn’t want to disturb them.’
‘Is that the only reason you’re here?’
‘No.’
Darius squinted. ‘I still haven’t got around to that breach-of-promise suit.’
‘I’m more than willing to negotiate. With Vivian. I’d like to see her.’
‘You’d have better luck with me.’ His jaw firmed. ‘Follow me. You can wait in the drawing room while I see if she is...’ his footsteps stopped ‘...at home.’
Darius took Everleigh into the drawing room, where a few coals glowed in the fireplace.
‘If she is “at home”...’ he glared at Everleigh, the lamp thudding on to the tabletop ‘...you have a quarter of an hour. Or less. If what you wish to say can’t be said quickly, then it doesn’t need to be said.’
* * *
Vivian walked into the room, her hair haphazardly pinned. The dressing gown she wore covered her more than any high-necked, long-sleeved dress could. She tugged the tie close. His imagination feasted on her. He saw beyond her to the warmth of her skin. The scent of her. To her goodness.
‘Can we talk about the future?’ He barely heard his own words, he was so awash with the emotion of seeing her again. He moved closer, touching her upper arm.
She pushed the door shut. ‘I’ve missed you.’
She slid her fingers up his sleeve, stopping at the base of his neck.
He placed his head in her hand, raised his shoulder, almost trapping her with his cheek. He rubbed the side of his jaw against her fingers.
When he lifted his head, his arm moved out and he pulled her into his grasp. He held her with one arm and, when her hands went to his chest, he was so close he could feel the tips of her eyelashes.
She wasn’t the same wraith he’d touched the first time. This woman was bursting with life—vibrating with spirit.
He didn’t know how he’d lived so long without her.
* * *
She didn’t care if she never moved again as long as she stayed in Everleigh’s arms and he kissed her.
The room was still, except for the bursts of impulses from inside her, wanting to be closer to him.
He pulled away. She couldn’t find words for the loss of him against her and the nagging fear that he would soon leave.
He put his hand at her temple and brushed back the hair that had fallen forward.
‘I could not have waited until morning. I would have expired before then.’ He spoke against her hair. ‘I had to see you tonight.’
She laughed. Strength flooded into her bones and surrounded her.
She pulled herself closer to him. ‘Perhaps this is the secret to my good health. Your kisses. They make me feel so alive.’ Then she studied him. ‘Until you leave.’
‘We’ll travel. Together. Married or unmarried.’
‘I’m not sure that is as important to me as it was.’
‘Vivian.’
‘I don’t want a marriage—or a husband—without love. Husbands seem to have the most choices in life: whether to spend the night with a mistress or a bottle of brandy, or both. I don’t ever want to be in that world.’
‘My father was not first in my mother’s life. Her initial consideration was her position in life caused by wealth and she wished to increase it. Second, her children. Third or fourth, Rothwilde.’
‘I suspect there is something inside you that causes you to fear being close to someone. It’s almost as if you refused to commit your heart to me, even with words that didn’t matter to you. And if you don’t, you will always find something else to put before me. Perhaps work or politics or warfare. I don’t know that I want to always be behind something else in my husband’s life. It is better to be unmarried.’
‘I thought I had fallen in love before and it had always brought me closer to someone that schemed or wanted to use me for position in society. I’d seen that with my parents. I didn’t want such a thing in my own house. I saw all women as...similar to Alexandria.’
‘You see marriage as safer without love.’
‘I don’t want a wife who is merely reflecting my smiles back at me.’
‘Smiles, Everleigh? When do you smile? Not often, I assure you.’
‘When I am with you. That is when I smile.’
‘It doesn’t show on your face.’
‘I will have to change that, then. When I see you and I smile, I want you to know that I’m not just smiling on the outside, I’m saying I love you on the inside.’ Everleigh pulled her against him.
A knock slammed on to the door, then her father walked in.
Vivian stepped out of Everleigh’s arms.
‘Do I need to continue with the breach of promise?’ Her father’s irritation flared.
‘Father. You know it is not any such thing. We had no contract. No announcement of any kind. I do not even think I ever agreed to marry him.’
He glanced at Everleigh. ‘Tell Rothwilde that my wife and I accept his gracious invitation.’
Then he mumbled to Vivian, ‘See, that is how easily it is done. You simply accept.’
Everleigh reached out, pulling Vivian into the shelter at his side. ‘She is perfectly within her rights to refuse marriage.’
Lord Darius bit his bottom lip. ‘Hope I wasn’t interrupting anything.’ He smirked before glaring at Everleigh. ‘Except your departure. I wish you could stay longer, but it’s getting ever later and I have an appointment with your father tomorrow. Want to be at my best. It’s not every day I get invited by an earl.’ He speared a glance at Vivian. ‘Not that it wouldn’t be pleasant to have one in the family.’
‘You would never force me to wed if I didn’t wish to,’ Vivian said. ‘I know it.’
‘That’s true. But I don’t plan to stay up any later for you either.’ He strode to the lamp and grabbed it.
He held the door open and waved the lamp to indicate the hallway. ‘Off to bed, Vivian. And off to wherever, Everleigh. I don’t care. Just go.’
Everleigh took Vivian’s fingertips and gave them a squeeze before leaving.
Then he walked by Darius. ‘You’re going about this entirely the wrong way if you want me for a son-in-law.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ Darius said. ‘I’ll see you to the door.’