35. CHAPTER 35
T he accoucheur the Hartfields had recommended visited Vivienne.
Dalton had expected a man in his fifties with gray hair and an air of gravity, but Dr. Finlay shattered every preconception by being young, perhaps mid-thirties, blond, and charming.
While friendly, he had the quiet competence and understanding that put both patients and their families at ease.
Going by his record — and his clientele, which included half the aristocracy and several members of the royal family — the man was deservedly successful.
He came with his nurse-midwife, asked questions of both of them, and listened with genuine interest. He then retreated with the nurse to Vivienne's chambers and performed the examination efficiently. Afterward, Dalton received him in his study.
"The Duchess is in excellent health. I find no physiological impediment to a successful pregnancy."
The words were considered. Delivered with confident expertise.
"And yet she has lost three."
"Her previous losses, while deeply unfortunate, show no pattern of underlying pathology that would suggest recurrence. Sometimes these things happen. I have attended several women who have had successful pregnancies and deliveries after prior losses."
"She almost bled out after the last one."
"Hemorrhages are not uncommon. But I have several methods at my disposal to prevent or stop them. I adhere to the latest standards of sanitization, which have been shown to reduce fevers, and I am trained to perform surgery should the need arise."
Dalton stood where he was.
"Your Grace, there are no guarantees in childbirth." The doctor spoke with empathy. "There never are. But the Duchess's prospects are as favorable as any woman's I have attended."
Dalton thanked the doctor. Shook his hand. Escorted him to the door. Closed it. Returned to his study.
Sat down.
The brandy was still on the desk. He drank it now, and the burning was the only thing he could feel that was not terror.
His mother had been healthy, too. Vivienne had always appeared healthy. That had not prevented her from losing three pregnancies.
He found her in the drawing room, standing by the window with the late-afternoon light in her hair. She turned when he entered, and her face was bright with the hope the news had brought her.
"He said yes," she breathed. "Val, he said there is no reason — "
"I know what he said."
She stopped.
He crossed to her. Took her hands.
"He also said there are no guarantees."
"I know that, Val. There never are. Not in this. Not in anything."
"Maybe we should wait a little. I am not saying not ever. I am saying not yet. When you have recovered your memories. When you are fully yourself again and can make a more informed decision."
What he meant was: when I am no longer terrified. But the words that came out of his mouth were when you recover your memory , and the words she must have heard were you are not enough as you are.
He watched the effect on her. How the light of hope in her eyes dimmed. How her smile became strained until it collapsed. She was probably thinking it was because of her. That he was telling her when you are no longer defective.
Her hands slid from his .
"Of course," she said. Her voice was even. Controlled. Somehow that made it worse. He would have preferred her to rage at him. To call him the coward he was. But she wouldn't.
She left the room.
He retired late that night, avoiding his bed and the decision he would have to make once in it.
Sleep was elusive. He lay on his back in the dark, thinking about whether he should go to his wife.
He was an idiot. A coward and an idiot. They had already wasted so much time.
And here he was, hesitating. Wasting more of it because he still could not make up his mind.
If he went to her, gave in to what they both wanted, they might get their heart's desire. And if things went wrong, as they had three times before, he might get his heart torn out.
She came to him instead. He should have known that was a possibility. Vivienne had never been shy, and of late she was recovering her self-assurance. He loved her for it. But it made resisting her that much harder.
She stood at the foot of his bed in her nightgown. No robe. No pretense.
"Vivienne."
"Don't tell me it is too late." Not angry. Determined. "Don't tell me when I recover. "
He sat up.
"I want you," she said. "And I want a baby. Our baby. You want it too. Don’t tell me I should wait. I have been waiting for seven years. Longer than that. I need this, Val."
He said her name. Just her name.
"Vivi."
It was all the invitation she needed.
She came to him. She climbed onto the bed and took his face in her hands, palms cool against his jaw, and looked at him in a way that left him nowhere to hide.
"Don't fight tonight. Don’t strategize, analyze, weigh the possibilities, or try to predict the outcomes. Just feel. Believe. Surrender."
He closed his eyes .
"Vivi," he said again, and his voice broke on the second syllable.
She kissed him. Unhurried. As though she had all the time in the world and intended to spend it here. He made a sound against her lips. Low. Almost wounded.
His hands found her waist. The nightgown was thin; he could feel her skin through the linen, the curve of her hip. The tremor in her body.
He pulled back. "You are trembling."
"I know. It is not fear."
"What is it, then?"
In response, she took his hand and brought it to her breast, pressing herself against his palm. Her heartbeat was a wild rhythm under his fingers.
"You tell me. Can you not feel it, Val?"
He drew the nightgown over her head. She raised her arms. Then she was naked in his bed, lit only by the dim glow of a single candle, and he could not look away from her.
She reached for him. Found the drawstring of his sleeping trousers. Her fingers were sure. He lifted his hips, she pulled them down, and now there was nothing between them. Not silk. Not rope. Nothing he could use to make this into something other than what it was. Naked skin. Naked hearts.
Her bare breasts were a temptation he could not resist. He sat up to take them in his mouth while she straddled him. Her back arched at the first pull of his lips on her sensitive nipple. She was so responsive. She had always been so responsive. Pure fire in his arms.
His hands found the curve of her backside, and he lifted her onto his cock, let her sink onto it slowly. She took him with a sweet moan of need and a roll of her hips. His cock plunged deep inside her, her hands gripping his hair as his mouth explored her breasts.
He kissed her throat. The hollow behind her ear. The place where her pulse beat against her skin. She sighed, and the sound went through him.
"Val."
The way she said his name, with a note of wonder in it, was his undoing .
Without leaving her body, he rolled her onto her back and settled over her, watching her face. Her breath caught. Her lips parted. Then her eyes widened and went soft.
She wrapped her arms around him. Her legs. Her whole body curved to meet his.
He moved in her, holding her gaze. She would not look away, and he forced himself to meet her with the same openness, at least for a few heartbeats. He broke from her gaze only to take her mouth with his, fusing them in a deep kiss.
She moaned his name again. He drank it from her lips. Her fingers traced his jaw. His shoulders. Then her hands glided down his back, settled for a moment on his hips, and molded to his backside. She touched him as though she meant to memorize him, even if she remembered nothing else.
He pressed his face against her neck and matched his rhythm to her pulse. She arched beneath him and whispered, "Stay with me," tightening around him as she spoke.
Her breath shortened. The hands at his back pressed him closer, nails digging into his flesh. Her hips rose to meet his, and it was too much. And exactly right. It was perfection.
He could stay.
She came with a half-choked gasp and a long sound of release, holding on to him as if he were her anchor in a storm.
He was close. He could let go.
He pulled out.
One moment he was inside her, together, united. One. The next he was spilling on her stomach, his forehead against hers, his breath ragged, his hand white-knuckled in the sheet.
The sound she made…
A small intake of breath. As if he had struck her in the most vulnerable spot.
He could not look at her.
He rolled onto his side. His seed was on her skin and not inside her .
She did not move. She lay on her back, her hair across his pillow, her eyes on the canopy. Still as the dead.
He wiped the evidence of his cowardice from her body. Reached for her hand. She let him take it, but did not squeeze back. He lay beside her and scrambled for something to say. Some way to fix what he had broken.
Nothing came. Apologies were insufficient. Explanations redundant. Promises impossible.
After a long time, she was the one who spoke.
"I understand you are frightened." She spoke in a measured voice. "I understand the miscarriages broke something in you that has not healed. I understand that your mother's death taught you that love and loss come joined at the root."
She turned her head to look at him. In the near-dark, her eyes were black, and what he saw in them was not anger.
It was clarity.
"But Val. When you pull away from me at the moment I am most open to you — when you choose your fear over my body — " Her voice wavered. Once. She steadied it. "It does not feel like protection. It feels like you looked at the whole of me and decided I was not worth the risk."
He opened his mouth. Still, nothing came.
She was right.
She withdrew her hand. Not a punishment. A surrender.
"Good night, Val."
She did not rise. She turned on her side, away from him, drew the sheet over her body, and lay in his bed in silence.
Dalton lay beside her and did not sleep.