David Lord of Honor

David Lord of Honor By Grace Burrowes



To my ridin’ buddy Donna, friend to me and to my ponies


One




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Owning a brothel, particularly an elegant, expensive, exclusive brothel, ought to loom as a single, healthy young man’s most dearly treasured fantasy.

Perhaps as fantasies went, the notion had merit. The reality, inherited from a distant cousin, was enough to put David Worthington, fourth Viscount Fairly, into a permanent fit of the dismals.

“Jennings, good morning.” David set his antique Sevres teacup down rather than hurl it against the breakfast parlor’s hearthstones, so annoyed was he to see his man of business at such an hour—again. “I trust you slept well, and I also trust you are about to ruin my breakfast with some bit of bad news.”

Or some barge load of bad news, for Thomas Jennings came around this early if, and only if, he had miserable tidings to share and wanted to gloat in person over their impact.

“My apologies for intruding.” Jennings appropriated a serviette from an empty place setting and swaddled a pilfered pear in spotless linen. “I thought you’d want to know that Musette and Isabella got into a fight with Desdemona and are threatening to open their own business catering to women who enjoy other women.”

Not a spat, a tiff, a disagreement, or an argument, but a fight.

Please, God, may the girls’ aspirations bear fruit. “I fail to see how this involves me.” David paused for a sip of his tea, a fine gunpowder a fellow ought to have the privacy to linger over of a cold and frosty morning. “If the women are enterprising enough to make a go of that dodgy venture, then they have my blessing.”

Though dodgy wasn’t quite fair. London sported several such establishments that David knew of, and each appeared to be thriving.

“Bella told Desdemona you had offered to finance their dodgy venture,” Jennings informed him, taking an audible bite of pear and managing to do so tidily.

“Not likely.” Was there a patron saint for people who owned brothels? A patron devil? “Felicity and Astrid are the best of sisters, but they wouldn’t understand my involvement in that sort of undertaking, and, worse yet, their spouses would find it hilarious. I’ll suggest the ladies apply to you for their financing.”

He shot a toothy smile at Jennings, who’d taken a seat without being invited, a liberty earned through faithful service that dated back well before David’s succession to the Fairly viscountcy.

“I could,” Jennings mused, “but having seen the challenges facing my employer, I will decline that signal honor.” He saluted with his pear.

“Such a fate would be no more than you deserve,” David said, pouring Jennings a cup of hot tea and sliding the cream and sugar toward him. “Those women positively fawn over you.”

Jennings lounged back, long legs crossed at the ankles as he devoured another bite of perfect pear. He managed to look more dangerous than attractive much of the time, but in his unguarded moments, his brown eyes and dark hair could be—and were—called handsome by the ladies. Then too, Thomas Jennings had a well-hidden protective streak roughly equal in breadth to the Pacific Ocean.

Jennings paused halfway around his pear. “Despite your strange eyes, the ladies are unendingly fond of you, too. No accounting for taste, I suppose.”

“Their regard is a dubious blessing, at best. Will you at least accompany me to the scene?” Because the physician in David had to see for himself that matters had been resolved without injury to anything more delicate than feminine pride or the occasional crystal vase.

Jennings rose, pear in hand. “Wouldn’t miss it. I have never been so well entertained as I have since you inherited that damned brothel.”

While David had never been so beleaguered.

When he’d dispatched matters at The Pleasure House—a round of scoldings worthy of any headmaster, followed by teary apologies that would have done first formers proud—he departed from the premises with a sense of escape no adult male ought to feel when leaving an elegant bordello.

As cold as the day was, David still chose to wait with Jennings in the mews behind The Pleasure House for his mare to be brought around. Why David alone could address the myriad petty, consummately annoying conflicts that arose among his employees was a mystery of Delphic proportions.

“I’ve been meaning to mention something,” Jennings said as David’s gray was led into the yard. With a sense of being hounded by doom, David accepted the reins from the stableboy.

“Unburden yourself, then, Thomas. The day grows chilly.” And a large house full of feuding women and valuable breakables sat not fifty feet on the other side of the garden wall.

“Do you recall a Mrs. Letitia Banks?”

“I do,” David replied, slinging his reins over the horse’s head as an image of dark hair, slim grace, and pretty, sad eyes assailed him. What had Letty Banks seen in David’s late brother-in-law that she’d accepted such a buffoon as her protector?

“You sent me to advise her regarding investment of a certain sum upon the death of her last protector,” Jennings went on as a single snowflake drifted onto the toe of David’s left boot. “I did that, and she’s had two quarterly payments of interest on her principle since then.”

David swung up into the saddle, feeling the cold of the seat through his doeskin breeches. “All of which I am sure you handled with your customary discretion.”

Jennings sighed. “I have.”

Perishing saints. Thomas Jennings would scowl, smirk, swear, stomp away, or—on rare occasion—even smile, but he wasn’t prone to sighing.

From his perch on the mare, David studied Thomas, a fellow who, on at least two occasions, had wrought mortal peril on those seeking to harm his employer. “This is a historic day. You are being coy, Thomas.”

Jennings glanced around, making the day doubly historic, for Jennings displayed uncertainty no more frequently than he appeared coy. “She spends it.”

Coy, uncertain, and indirect was an alarming combination coming from Jennings. “Of course she spends it. She is a female in a particular line of business, and she must maintain appearances. Whether she spends the interest or reinvests it with the principle is no business of mine.”

“She’s not spending it to maintain appearances,” Jennings said. “I believe, despite this income, the lady is in difficulties.”

David masked his astonishment by brushing his horse’s mane to lie uniformly on the right side of her neck. He wasn’t astonished that Letitia Banks was in difficulties—a courtesan’s life was precarious and often drove even strong women to excesses of drink, opium, gambling, and other expensive vices. What astonished him was that Jennings would comment on the matter.

“Thomas, I would acquit you of anything resembling a soft heart”—at least to appearances—“but you are distressed by Mrs. Banks’s circumstances. Whatever are you trying to tell me?”

“I don’t know.” Jennings’s horse was led out, a great, dark brute of a beast, probably chosen to complement its great, dark brute of an owner. “Something about that situation isn’t right, and you should take a look.”

“Might you be less cryptic? If there is looking to be done”—and Mrs. Banks made for a pleasant look, indeed—“then are you not in a better position to do it than I? I’ve met the lady only once.”

Months ago, and under difficult circumstances, and yet, she’d lingered at the back of David’s mind, a pretty ghost he hadn’t attempted to exorcise.

Jennings’s features acquired his signature scowl, which might have explained why the stableboy remained a few paces off with the black gelding. “I haven’t your ability to charm a reluctant female, and my efforts to date meet with a polite, pretty, lusciously scented stone wall.”

Had Jennings noted that the luscious scent was mostly roses?

“You mustn’t glower at the lady when you’re trying to tease her secrets from her, Thomas. You aren’t really as bad-looking as you want everyone to think.”

Jennings took the reins from the groom, and gave the girth a snug pull. “Since coming into that money, she’s let a footman and a groom go, sold a horse, and if I’m not mistaken, parted with some fripperies. She’s reduced to taking a pony cart to market.”

“Thomas,” David said gently, “she is a professional. She would likely accept you as her next protector, and her financial worries would be solved. In her business, these periodic lapses in revenue happen. She’ll manage.”

Though the soft-spoken, demure ones usually managed the worst.

Thomas sighed again, a sigh intended to produce guilt in the one who heard it. “I am asking you to look into her situation.”

Jennings never asked for anything. He collected his generous pay, occasionally disappeared on personal business, and comported himself as a perfect—if occasionally impertinent and moody—man of business. He was both more and less than a friend, and David was attached to him in some way neither man believed merited discussion.

And really, David could not muster a desire to argue with Jennings on this topic, not even for form’s sake.


“I will look into it,” David said, touching the brim of his hat before trotting off to his next destination.

***

On this frigid, overcast day, the part of Town where the jewelers’ shops clustered was in want of traffic. David perused the offerings at three different establishments, not seeing anything that appealed for his purpose. At the fourth shop, a less pretentious and ever so slightly musty incarnation of the previous three, he wandered between glass cases of yet more uninspired bracelets, rings, and necklaces, none of which were appropriate to a very young lady.

“She looks lonely to me,” a male voice taunted.

“Lonely?” another man answered. “Or grieving. Does a mistress grieve? Mayhap we should offer her consolation.”

“She grieves the loss of a man’s money,” a third added snidely. “Though look you, my friends, at a woman who is buying herself yet more jewelry when she has no one to give it to her.”

Bullying. David knew the sound of it, from childhood on. While blond hair fit in well enough, and even some extra height might escape comment, a presumed bastard with one blue eye and one green eye was intimately familiar with bullying in all its forms.

And these three young sprigs were merely warming up.

A willowy brunette stood at the shop counter, her back to David, her reticule and gloves on the case before her. She was the object of this gratuitous meanness, though she knew better than to respond. She wasn’t going to fight or flee; she was instead holding her ground.

David made a pretense of looking over the items in the display, hoping his simple presence would deter the young men from further mischief.

“Don’t suppose this place has anything adequate for the likes of her,” the boys started back in. “I heard Lord Amery never denied her anything.”

Amery?

The title landed in David’s awareness with a physical shock, for the rigid spine, plain brown cloak, and beaded reticule across the room belonged to none other than Letitia Banks. That shock smacked unmistakably of the hand of fate, shaking David’s conscience by the scruff of its neck.

He swept up to the lady and possessed himself of her startlingly cold hand.

“Mrs. Banks, I am ever so pleased to see you again.” He bowed correctly over that hand, and treated her to a decorous smile. When he straightened, surprise was receding from her dark eyes, though her gaze was guarded.

And still, to David, sad.

“Viscount Fairly.” She curtsied. “A pleasure.”

She’d withdrawn her hand, suggesting the sight of David would be a wary, cautious pleasure until she knew he wouldn’t join in the taunting.

David aimed a look to his left, at the three lackwits who had gone quiet after a muttered “That’s Fairly” had been hissed from one to his companions.

“Hello, Tavistock,” David said with excruciating civility. “Bootley, and—forgive me if the name eludes me—Belchamp, I believe?” He turned away from them with such perfect unconcern that even simians such as they had to understand: their misbehavior had been noted, and any hopes they’d treasured of gaining admission to The Pleasure House had been blown to cinders.

Marking the first occasion in David’s experience when owning a brothel had served a worthy purpose.

“Here you go, ma’am.” A clerk scuttled forth from the faded blue velvet curtain partitioning off the back of the shop and put a small cloth bag into Mrs. Banks’s hand. “A pleasure, as always.”

“My thanks,” she said, sliding the bag into her reticule.

David did not stay her with anything but his respectful manners, though the urge to restrain her with a hand on her arm was tempting. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind bearing me company for a moment or two longer, Mrs. Banks? I’d like to put a certain matter of fashion before a lady, if you’d tolerate my escort to your next destination?”

“Of course, my lord,” she said in the same soft, controlled voice. “I’ve some gloves to pick up several doors down.”

They walked out in silence, the street nearly deserted. The chill wind had picked up, and the sky had taken on a leaden quality. David signaled to his groom to walk the mare home, and hoped this difficult day wouldn’t include a pair of ruined riding boots.

“Do you suppose it will snow?” David asked, offering his arm.

“My housekeeper says it will,” Mrs. Banks replied, taking his elbow about as firmly as she might grasp, say, the tail of a hungry, sleeping dragon. “Her rheumatism hasn’t been wrong yet.”

David owned a brothel. He approved its expenses, signed contracts for its every pound of flour, head of cabbage, and lump of coal. He knew courtesans’ clothes required laundering, the dishes from which they drank their tea had to be washed, and so forth, and yet, he hadn’t pictured Letitia Banks with a housekeeper, much less one suffering sore joints.

“I really did have something I’d like to discuss with you.”

She stiffened, as if she expected him to proposition her right there on the street, the sky about to dump more cold and misery on all and sundry. Her posture alone communicated that if David were to make such overtures, they’d be unwelcome.

Which was interesting, and not a little lowering.

“Do you truly have a pair of gloves to pick up, Mrs. Banks? Or may I take you somewhere we might have some shelter from the elements?” He had no particular matter to discuss with her, but the wind was bitter, and she’d been out shopping without even a maid to attend her on a day when most people would be snuggled up to a blazing hearth, a steaming pot of tea at hand.

And Thomas had been worried about her.

“The gloves can wait. We could return to my house, if you like.” She ducked her eyes to the left at that offer, suggesting she’d forced herself to make it.

David did not want to return to the modest dwelling where, on the occasion of his brother-in-law’s death, he’d paid a call on her months ago.

“I have a property only a few blocks distant that’s not in use at present. If you’d allow it, I could look in on my staff and get a bite to eat. I’m realizing, as I stand here, that I’ve skipped my luncheon.” For no discernible reason, or possibly to enhance his credibility with a bit of truth, he added, “I become irritable when peckish.”

Particularly when he’d also foregone most of his breakfast for the entertainment of his man of business.

The lady treated him to a considering pause, the duration of three lazy snowflakes, before she let David escort her the several blocks to their destination.

“This is lovely,” she said, looking around the entrance hall of a dwelling David had meant to rent out but hadn’t got around to.

“I have a number of rentals throughout the city, this being one. Let me take your cloak, as it appears I’m short of staff.”

When he raised his hands to undo the frogs at her throat, she flinched, a reaction any brothel owner—much less a fellow trained as a physician—recognized. David dropped his hands and stepped back.

Skittish. Of course she was skittish. They were alone, David had a good five stone of weight on her, and half a foot of height, at least. “My apologies. I did not mean to presume.”

“I’m just…” She fumbled the fastenings free, her hands shaking. “I was surprised, my lord, nothing more.”

He deposited her cloak and his greatcoat on hooks in the hallway and offered her his arm. The notion that she might be anticipating a forcible sampling of her charms flitted through his mind like another of those cold, bone-penetrating gusts of wind.

“We’ll summon reinforcements from below stairs,” David suggested. “And I hope you will join me in some luncheon, though it’s late for that. I won’t last until tea if I don’t eat something.”

She dropped her hand from his arm when they gained the parlor. “You must accommodate yourself, my lord.”

Mrs. Banks wasn’t reassured by small talk—smart woman.

“I’m surprised you remember me,” David said, lighting candles about the room with a taper from the fireplace. “If you give the bellpull a yank, we’ll no doubt break up a rousing game of whist in the servants’ parlor.”

She tugged on the bellpull but did not take a seat. “You provided me funds upon your brother-in-law’s death without asking anything in return. Why shouldn’t I remember you?” She was too polite to mention his mismatched eyes, and she sounded unhappy with him for his generosity.

Or perhaps she was unhappy with herself for accepting it.

David had been unhappy too, because what sum, however great, could compensate a woman for what Amery had taken from her?

A knock on the door, followed by David’s command to enter, admitted a smiling housekeeper.

“Lord Fairly. I thought I heard the front door.” The little dumpling of a housekeeper, apron spotless, cap tidy, beamed at him as if his arrival were her every wish come true. “Staff’s off today, but I am sure you and your guest could use a pot of tea and some victuals.”

“Mrs. Moses.” He smiled right back, a cheerful housekeeper qualifying as one of life’s dearer blessings. “You would live in my dreams forever were you to provide some hot tea and cold food. We are famished.”


Her smile grew brighter. “And will you be needing anything else?”

“I might be needing a room here for tonight, if you don’t mind,” he said, thinking of the pleasures of a London snowstorm and the perfect fit of his riding boots. “Don’t go to any bother. As long as the sheets are clean, I’ll manage.”

“It won’t be any trouble.” Mrs. Moses curtsied and bustled off. She never moved at less than a full parade bustle, and David had never seen her discommoded. When he turned to face Mrs. Banks, he was surprised to see her expression had become discommoded indeed. “Have I given offense?”

“If you intend I share that room, you have.” The weather outside was balmy compared to her tone.

“I do not.” He might speculate, dream, ponder, or fantasize—he was an adult male of means without a current female attachment—but he was not intending anything.

“Then I apologize,” she said, shoulders slumping. “But I am here with you, alone at a private residence, you know of my profession, I am in your debt, and you spoke of… biding here for the night.”

“You don’t know me well enough to understand I wouldn’t presume so,” David said. “Perhaps we might consider your misapprehension a reasonable mistake? Would you like to eat in here, or should we repair to the breakfast parlor?”

“Here. The fire’s already lit.”

And the room boasted two lovely bay windows, one facing the street, which would allow any passersby to note a woman in distress. A viscount—even a viscount—who owned a brothel eventually appreciated the brutal pragmatism any shopgirl acquired before her twelfth birthday.

“Shall we sit?” He gestured to a sofa upholstered in a blue brocade that went nicely with Mrs. Banks’s coloring. His guest was turning out to be more than a little prickly, and he made the tactical decision not to seat himself beside her.

He fell silent while Mrs. Moses brought lunch and the tea tray on a cart, and then went smiling and beaming on her way, as if David entertained pretty, single women every day of the week—which he did not.

“You are looking at me most oddly, Mrs. Banks, as if you’re surprised to see exactly the meal I’d requested of my housekeeper. Would you be so good as to pour?”

“Of course,” she said, taking off her gloves and reaching for the pot. “How strong do you like your tea?”

“Just short of bitter. And most people stare at me, until they figure out that the problem with my countenance is that I have one blue eye and one green eye. Then they invariably don’t know where to look.”

“But your eyes are beautiful,” Mrs. Banks remonstrated, sitting back without lifting the teapot. As soon as the words left her lips, she looked away, and now—of all things—a blush suffused her cheeks. “I do apologize, my lord, for making such a personal observation.”

A blushing courtesan was not something even the owner of a brothel saw every day, and the sight was… charming, but also somehow discordant. Intriguing in ways that made a man, a gentleman, inconveniently curious.

“One doesn’t apologize for a sincere compliment, Mrs. Banks.” David’s younger sister had paid him a similar compliment once, and Astrid Alexander was a stranger to flattery. “Our tea should be adequately steeped by now.”

“As you wish.” She poured and fixed his tea with cream and sugar, then passed him his cup, her hand still evidencing a minute tremor. The physician in David noted it, as did the man, and neither one was pleased.

“I’ve traveled a great deal,” David said, “but I’ve found nothing anywhere to rival the simple pleasure and comfort of a cup of strong tea. When one is poor, such comforts are dear indeed.”

“You consider yourself impoverished?” Mrs. Banks asked as she prepared her tea.

Before he answered, David paused to close his eyes and take his first sip of strong, sweet, nearly scalding tea, for bliss in any form was to be savored.

“As a child, I lived with my mother in a small town in Scotland. Our circumstances were humble, and the winters long and cold. My mother loved me, and I never understood how poor we were, because it was all I’d known.”

“But your mother understood,” Mrs. Banks guessed—accurately. “May I fix you a plate, my lord?” She might have been the hostess at some village at home, so correct were her manners.

“At least one.” For David grew hungrier by the moment, also more desperate to provide the woman a decent meal.

As she arranged bread, cheddar, ham, and sliced apples on a plate, David discreetly studied his guest. Her dark hair and dark eyes were not pretty, not in the blond, blue-eyed Teutonic sense most Englishmen would be drawn to. She was not charmingly petite, not overtly flirtatious. She was, all in all, an unlikely choice as a courtesan—the best ones were—but even as he drew that conclusion, David had to admit the woman was… restful, like his sister Felicity was restful, even in the presence of her decidedly unrestful spouse.

Letty Banks moved with graceful, economical motions; she was comfortable with silence; she had good instincts.

And Thomas Jennings’s hunch had been accurate: Letty Banks was in serious trouble, too.

***

A man seeking to buy a woman’s favors always bore a bit of calculation in his eyes. Sometimes the calculation was friendly. Sometimes the coin he offered was a promise, a ring, pretty words, soft caresses, or a bit of cash. More often, he didn’t try to disguise his objective or his contempt for a woman who’d grant it.

Letty had become so cold, so hungry, she’d nearly stopped seeing the calculation and the contempt, and yet, in David Worthington’s eyes she found… neither. Not for her, and not for himself.

“Thank you.” He accepted the plate, letting his fingers brush hers, a fleeting warmth any woman of sense would disregard. “And you must join me, Mrs. Banks, else I shall feel like a glutton.”

The tray bore a veritable feast by Letty’s standards, and yet, she was already in his lordship’s debt.

“I insist, Mrs. Banks,” her host said gently. “You will hurt Mrs. Moses’s feelings if you refuse her offering. She’s quite sensitive.”

Letty knew housekeepers, and had she gone ’round to Mrs. Moses’s back door, she would have met with the domestic equivalent of a full-grown, well-fed bulldog, intent on guarding the master’s last bucket of scraps.

“I am hungry.” Famished, halfway to starving, if the fit of her dresses was any indication. One shouldn’t lie, not to others and not to oneself.

Lord Fairly picked up a plate, and as she had for him, arranged a generous portion of ham, cheese, pale bread—crusts sliced off—and crisp apple slices on it. She accepted the food with a silent prayer of gratitude, making sure this time their fingers did not brush. By sheer discipline, Letty did not use both hands to cram the food in her mouth.

“I do not think Mrs. Moses’s feelings could be so hurt she’d hold it against you for long, my lord. Given your charm, she’d sooner apologize for overloading the tray.”

He looked pleased. “You accuse me of charm? My sisters say otherwise. They say I am entirely too dour and withdrawn, and because I don’t go about in Society much, they might have a point.”

Men did not mention their sisters to Letty Banks, though this man apparently did.

“Perhaps you are shy.” She bit into an apple first, an apple that had been carefully stored in a cold cellar and still had most of its sweet crispness and only a hint of earth about its flavor.

“I’m not shy, exactly.” Though his lordship’s expression came close to bashful. “I enjoy people well enough, or some people, but I also need my solitude.”

Letty made herself pause in her eating, a bite of cheese in hand. “Were you in my profession, you would have plenty of solitude.” She ought not to have said that, but hunger was making her light-headed and more heavy-hearted than usual.

His lordship peered over at her, his sandwich two inches from a mouth that sported the even white teeth of the aristocrat who troubled about his hygiene. When he smiled, those teeth were in evidence, as was a warm benevolence that beamed from his gorgeous eyes and made Letty ache to be worthy of his regard.

His respect, rather.

“I’m sorry,” Letty said, though she didn’t put down her bite of cheese. “That was a vulgar thing to say when you are being so… civil.”

“Not vulgar, honest. I appreciate honesty, and I never considered solitude might be a large part of a courtesan’s life. I have wondered, though, if the girls at The Pleasure House don’t remain there in part because having other females…”

He trailed off, looking away toward the side window, though he hadn’t drawn the drapes on either one. The flurries had thickened outside, whirling about on cold gusts and turning the day from gray to grayer.

“I believe,” he said, topping up Letty’s teacup, “I am the one who must now apologize. I should not have mentioned that establishment in your presence.”

Steam curled up from her cup, putting her in mind of the incense that used to be part of the highest church services. “Whyever not? I send you business, you know. And I am a courtesan, of sorts, as you said. While I enjoy the company manners you show me, my lord, I understand that with women of my ilk, they are entirely discretionary.”


She put the cheese on her tongue, savored the salt and tang of good, sharp cheddar, let it warm for a moment, then slowly, slowly chewed a bite of heaven.

Only to find her host’s expression had become quite… severe.

“Mrs. Banks, every female is deserving of decent manners. I insist upon it in my establishment, and it pains me sorely that you would not feel entitled to the same treatment.”

The cheese was so delicious, so devastatingly nourishing to the body and spirit, Letty nearly missed the sense of his lordship’s words.

She rolled up a slice of ham with her fingers, as he’d done. “Feeling entitled to manners and being shown them are two different things. You heard those young gentlemen at the jeweler’s. I pay a price for who and what I am. I accept that.”

One shouldn’t resent a penance, though Letty did. She also ate the ham, which was perfectly seasoned, a bit smoky, a bit sweet. His lordship’s quibbling over the civilities was all very impressive—perhaps his variety of calculation demanded manners—but a good meal was more impressive yet.

He sat back, making the chair creak and reminding Letty, that for all his golden good looks and exquisite tailoring, Lord Fairly was a large, fit man—as the late Lord Amery had been—and he had yet to state his true agenda.

“You shouldn’t accept rudeness, Mrs. Banks. Boys in a pack like that want a whipper-in, lest they run riot. You have piqued my curiosity, however.”

Hunting analogies found their way into all too many discussions of Letty’s profession. She munched her ham and debated between the bread or the apple next.

“You mentioned you send me business,” Fairly said. “In particular, you recently suggested Lord Valentine Windham might find someone suited to his needs at my establishment. He’s a decent man, pleasant enough to look on, clean about his person, and so forth. If you are without a protector, Mrs. Banks, as those nasty boys implied, why not allow him your company?”

The question stunned her, both because it was more personal than if Fairly had propositioned her himself, and because it implied that a man she’d met on one other occasion months ago had intimate knowledge of her circumstances.

At what point did a woman become notorious?

“Young Windham was rather downcast to be rejected,” he went on, “though I’m sure he was gracious about it. He likes you, you see, and probably would still be interested, were you amenable. And if Windham is unacceptable to you, perhaps my man, Thomas—”

He broke off when she stood quickly enough to provoke more light-headedness. Letty hadn’t seen this coming, hadn’t realized a brothel owner would know how to procure without even appearing to do so. Her disappointment was sufficiently profound that she had to move away from the food, lest she disgrace herself with the resulting upset.

“There’s the problem, my lord, is it not?”

He rose as well, probably out of blasted good manners, and joined Letty at the bay window overlooking the dormant side garden.

“You have me at a loss,” he said, standing at her shoulder, and heaven defend her, Fairly’s scent was sublime, all spices and sweetness, sandalwood, flowers, and wealth.

“It doesn’t do, your lordship,” Letty said, the cold from the window almost welcome, “to like one’s protector, at least not for me.” And probably not for the women who worked for Lord Fairly, did he but know it.

“You have a novel approach to selecting a partner for your intimate attentions, Mrs. Banks: you bed only men you don’t like? I don’t suppose the late Lord Amery was aware of your criterion.”

His tone had become analytical, perhaps to hide his lordly dismay, for by his lights—his innocent lights, in some regard—whores were no doubt at all times to enjoy their work.

“Our conversation grows too personal.” Though, somehow, not rude. Letty ducked around his lordship and returned to her seat on the couch and to the warmth thrown out by the fire. “I’m sure you meant no offense.”

“Of course not,” he said, resuming his seat as well.

He picked up a slice of apple from her plate—his plate was empty—and popped it into his mouth.

“You find this humorous?” she asked a touch sharply. She’d had plans for that apple slice.

“Eat,” he said, his tone suggesting he liked a woman with some temper, the idiot. “If you had used such a severe tone on those puppies at the jeweler’s, they would still be howling their indignation and surprise. Well done, Mrs. Banks.”

He did not like her temper; he approved of it. Letty digested that, along with the rest of her cheese and ham, and a second cup of tea. The food settled, as good food would, and the tea…

The hot, strong, sweet tea made her want to cry. The pot sat swaddled in a thick white towel to keep the heat in, while Letty hadn’t a thick white towel left to sell. Outside, the snow had picked up, and the distance to Letty’s door stretched impossibly far.

The viscount struck Letty as the cuddling sort, and he’d give off heat like a parlor stove. Would it really have been so awful to spend the night tucked up in his embrace, a hot breakfast brought to them tomorrow morning, and a sum of coins jingling in Letty’s pockets when she parted from him?

The thought appalled her for its very wistfulness.

“The hardest thing…” She’d said the words aloud, though she hadn’t meant to. She hoped he’d ignore her queer start, but he only regarded her from one blue eye and one green eye, both of which were beautiful, and… kind.

Those eyes had made him an outcast, had made him comfortable with being an outcast.

Letty broke a slice of bread in half, but couldn’t get it to her mouth fast enough to stop more words from tripping forth. “The hardest thing was when he’d spend inside me. Lord Amery, that is.”

She hared off back to the window, wrapping her arms around her middle against a cold beyond what the weather threatened. His lordship did not understand why a woman needed to hate her protector, and Letty would share that insight with him, even though he was a stranger and she expected him remain so.

Fairly needed to understand that a woman raised to love her neighbor was slowly filling with hatred, even as her belly went empty, day after day.

“And that hurt you,” he said, standing more closely than on their last trip away from the fire’s warmth. “More than his indifference to your needs of a physical nature.”

The only need she had left of a physical nature was the need to be left alone, or so she hoped.

Letty hadn’t cried in months, not in years. Not when Herbert Allen had died, not when Olivia regularly failed to include even a word about Danny in her infrequent notes.

A hot trickle down her cheek informed her she was crying now.

“The worst hurt,” Fairly went on, “was that he would risk getting a child with you, because that was disregard for the entire remainder of your life, and for the child’s life too. A child you would have been solely responsible for, despite assurances to the contrary. And all so Amery might have a few moments, a few instants, of pleasure.”

He had a beautiful voice to go with his beautiful eyes. He could have offered sermons on damnation and hellfire, and the congregation would have listened raptly, because that voice was kind and knowing. His touch, when he turned her by the shoulders and brought her into his embrace, was kind and knowing too.

Damnably, devastatingly, irresistibly kind.

He drew her against his body slowly, giving her the ongoing chance to flee, or offer him another scold for being too personal, but she stood in the circle of his arms without the strength even to return his embrace.