Vivienne Blackthorn started showing up everywhere.
First, at a charity auction for war orphans.
Marcus was there because his father had insisted.
He was bidding on a landscape painting when a warm voice purred in his ear.
"Bidding on art, Lord Marcus? I thought you were more of a man of action."
He turned. Vivienne stood beside him, dressed in a stunning crimson gown.
The deadness in her eyes from the duel was gone. Replaced by a playful spark.
"I'm supporting a good cause," Marcus said.
"Of course you are. A man of action and a man of charity." She smiled. "How virtuous."
Marcus felt his face heat up. "I'm just buying a painting."
"Is that so? Then you won't mind if I outbid you." She raised her paddle. "Five hundred gold."
The auctioneer blinked. The bidding had been at two hundred.
Marcus had been outbid and outmaneuvered before he even knew what was happening.
Vivienne won the painting. She leaned over to whisper to him again.
"Thank you for finding my charity project for the evening, Marcus."
✧✧✧
A week later, at a garden party hosted by a viscount.
Marcus was trying to escape a conversation about hedge trimming. He backed into someone.
"Apologies," he started, then stopped.
Vivienne, of course. Dressed in a dark green dress that complimented her crimson hair.
"We have to stop meeting like this," she said, her amber eyes dancing with amusement. "People will talk."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Of course you don't. You're just here to admire the flowers, I'm sure."
"The... yes. The flowers. Very floral."
Vivienne laughed.
The sound was richer now, more practiced than it had been at the duel.
"I'm re-engaging with society," she explained.
"Damien said I was becoming a recluse. Insisted I attend more functions."
"That's good of him."
"Is it? Or is he just tired of me moping around the house?"
She took a glass of wine from a passing servant. "He's right though. I've been hiding for too long."
"Hiding isn't the same as resting."
"Is that more of your accidental wisdom?"
"Maybe."
"I like your wisdom, Marcus. It's dangerous." She gestured with her glass.
"So tell me, what does a reformed scoundrel do for fun these days?"
"I've been reading. Visiting my brother at the academy."
"How wonderfully respectable." Her tone was pure teasing.
"Don't you miss causing a little trouble?"
"Not particularly. Trouble is exhausting."
"Only if you do it wrong."
She gave him a slow smile that made his brain stutter.
"The right kind of trouble is exhilarating."
Before Marcus could respond, a duke interrupted them. Vivienne handled him with practiced grace, smiling and nodding and saying all the right things.
But Marcus noticed she kept glancing back at him.
And every time, that mischievous spark returned to her eyes.
He spent the rest of the party trying to avoid her. And failing.
She seemed to appear wherever he went.
By the snack table. Near the orchestra.
Even in the hedge maze when he was trying to find a quiet corner.
"Lost, Marcus?" she'd asked, appearing from around a corner like a beautiful, predatory ghost.
This is fine. She's just being friendly.
Socially re-engaging. Nothing to worry about.
But the way she looked at him wasn't just friendly. It was hungry.
✧✧✧
Damien found his mother in her study, humming.
He stopped in the doorway, surprised.
His mother hadn't hummed in years.
Not since before the divorce.
Not since she'd stopped being the Crimson Viper and started being Countess Blackthorn.
She was examining the landscape painting from the auction.
The one she'd "coincidentally" outbid Marcus Aldridge for.
"You're in a good mood," Damien said carefully.
"I am." She turned, a real smile on her face.
"I've decided social functions aren't entirely torture after all."
"You've attended three this week. You haven't attended three in the last year combined."
"I'm re-engaging with society. Making connections. Being a proper noble."
"Is that what you're doing?" Damien walked into the room. "Or are you hunting?"
Vivienne's smile widened. "Perceptive boy. Maybe a little of both."
"And your prey is...?"
"Prey is such an aggressive word. Let's say my 'person of interest.'"
"And this person of interest wouldn't happen to be the older brother of my rival, would he?"
Vivienne didn't answer.
She just kept smiling. That was answer enough.
Damien ran a hand through his hair. He felt a complicated mix of amusement and something that felt suspiciously like concern.
"Mother, he's..."
"Younger than me? Yes. I've noticed."
"And Theodore's brother."
"Also true. Your point?"
"My point is that it's... complicated."
"Life is complicated." Vivienne traced the frame of the painting.
"For the first time in ten years, I'm not bored. I'm not going to apologize for that."
"I'm not asking you to. I just..."
"You're worried about what people will say?"
She laughed. "I've fought dragons, Damien. I can handle a little gossip."
"I'm not worried about gossip. I'm worried about you."
"Why?" Her expression softened. "Because I'm happy for the first time in a decade?"
"No. Because this is the first time you've seemed happy in a decade."
He met her eyes.
"You're not used to it. Don't... don't be reckless."
"Reckless is who I used to be."
"You still are," Damien said, echoing the words Marcus had used.
He saw the recognition flash in his mother's eyes.
"So he told you about your conversation?"
"He didn't have to. I was there."
Vivienne raised an eyebrow. "Were you now?"
"Lord Marcus is interesting. More interesting than he should be, according to the stories."
"The stories were wrong," Vivienne said simply. "He's not a fallen scoundrel. He's... something else entirely."
"He is." Damien hesitated.
"Just be careful, Mother. He's wrapped up in more than you know."
"Then I'll have to unwrap him."
The playful spark was back in her eyes. "That sounds like fun."
"Mother."
"Relax, Damien. I'm a grown woman. I know what I'm doing."
"Do you?"
"Mostly." She turned back to the painting.
"He's a good man. Kind. He sees things other people don't."
"Yes. He does."
Damien watched her for another moment.
She was humming again.
A tune she used to hum when she was cleaning her daggers after a successful hunt.
He left her there, a deeply conflicted expression on his face.
On one hand, his mother was finally alive again.
The deadness in her eyes was gone.
The Crimson Viper was waking up.
On the other hand, she was pursuing Marcus Aldridge.
Marcus, who was already being courted by a grief-stricken war widow and an overworked duchess.
"This is getting messy," Damien muttered to himself.
He wasn't sure if he should be worried or entertained.