David Lord of Honor

Fourteen




Douglas’s prediction about the weather turning foul proved accurate. The skies opened up, and three straight days of rain poured down in unrelenting torrents. Several days after David had made a firm decision to travel to Little Weldon, he was still waiting for the roads to dry out enough for travel on horseback.

The delay gave him time to doubt, to lose his resolve, and then regain it.

But nobody in his right mind would travel all day on muddy roads. A horse could too easily pull a shoe in the muck, slip and injure itself, or worse, injure horse and rider both. The day wasn’t even fit for navigating the streets of London, so a thumping knock on David’s front door late Wednesday afternoon came as a surprise indeed.

David’s caller had come on the butler’s half day, so rather than rouse a footman, David pushed away from his desk and wondered which of his family members had been sent to check on him—this time.

He didn’t recognize the handsome, dark-haired man who stood on his doorstep in the pouring rain, or the small child who shivered beside him, clutching the man’s hand.

“I’ve come to call on Letty Banks.” A martial light in the fellow’s eye suggested he’d purposely knocked on the front door in broad, if sopping, daylight. The child, by contrast, looked merely sodden and chilled.

“Won’t you come in?” David stepped back and opened the door more widely. “And your young friend too?”

“I’ve no need to set foot in this house. I’ve business with Mrs. Banks.” The man’s tone suggested this business would best be transacted over David’s dead body.

“Mrs. Banks is not here at the moment, and the lad is about two minutes from catching a lung fever. My guess is he’s already started coughing.”

The child obligingly coughed.

“Unless you want the boy’s ill health on your conscience,” David continued, “I suggest you avail yourself of the warmth of the house, Mr…?”

“Banks, late of Little Weldon,” Letty’s caller replied. At the sight of the boy’s discomfort, some of the starch left his spine. “We’ll wait for her.”

Which saved David the bother of summoning the footmen to ensure Banks—who could be Letty’s male relation or her husband—availed himself of David’s hospitality. “For the sake of the child, might I suggest you wait in the library, where we’ve a wood fire going and the teapot due to make an appearance.”

“My horse—” The fellow gestured to the street, where a large, muddy black gelding was having a fine time spooking himself with the water splashed up by his own undainty feet. An urchin of dubious skill kited around on the end of the horse’s reins.

“Take him to the mews,” David bellowed through the downpour, “and then take yourself ’round to the kitchen.”

The boy saluted, flashing a grin as he led the horse off in the direction of the alley.

Banks took two steps past the threshold, barely far enough for David to close the door behind him. “If Lord Fairly is about, you will please tell him I’d like a word. I insist on it, in fact.”

The truculent manner had returned, its effect spoiled by the way the fellow’s clothing dripped onto David’s polished wood floors.

“I am Fairly,” David said, bowing slightly. “And you are sopping wet, Mr. Banks. Whatever needs to be said can be discussed under warmer and dryer circumstances.”

Banks closed his eyes, and David had the sense the man was praying—honestly sending sentiment heavenward—for patience. With a hand sporting a wet glove bearing a half-inch-wide hole on the palm, he gestured for David to lead on.

The civilities were endlessly useful as a ploy to allow a man time to readjust his entire concept of the universe. Letty had said she was not married, nor had she ever been, and if Banks was her true name—Windham’s visit to the cemetery suggested it was—then this man could be her brother, cousin, or other irate relation.

She needed irate male relations, provided they were protective as well, and yet Letty had never mentioned a brother.

David strove for the appearance of calm while he ushered his guests into the library, rang for tea, and stoked the fire. Silence reigned until the tea tray arrived, at which time David murmured some instructions to the footman, and thanked God he’d listened when Letty had suggested he start offering half days to half the staff at a time.

“Tea, gentlemen?” David brought the tray to the low table near the hearth and noted that both the man and child were standing before the blazing fire, and the child—a dark-haired, dark-eyed copy of Banks—was still shivering.

“I’ll not break bread with you,” Mr. Banks said.

Pride was apparently a familial trait. “Suit yourself, Mr. Banks, but because your fingers are likely too cold to pour yourself a cup of tea, I will do those honors at least. And how about you, young man?”

David knelt before the silent child, whose lips were losing their blue color.

“You will note that my eyes are two different colors. This makes it difficult for you to know where to look, but because I can’t see that they don’t match, I will look at you as if you are a normal, sopping wet, shivering little boy. Would you like some tea?”

The child offered a ghost of a smile, a fey, charming quirking of the lips, and nodded. A glance at Banks the Elder resulted in a terse nod from the adult.

“P-Please, sir.”

“Sweet? With a drop of cream, I suspect?”

The child’s smile grew more enthusiastic. He was an elfin little fellow, with huge brown eyes and a mop of wet sable hair that needed a trim. His complexion was brown too, as if he spent long hours in the summer sun.

“Mr. Banks?” David asked, rising. “The same for you?”

“If you please. Danny, make your bow to his lordship.”

“Danny Banks,” the child piped, “at your service.” He bowed correctly and ruined the sober effect by beaming hugely at his accomplishment.

“David,” his host replied, “Viscount Fairly. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Master Banks.” David extended his hand, which the boy shook with appropriate manly vigor, though his little fingers were icy.

Mr. Banks did not comment on this exchange of courtesies. When David passed him his cup of tea, it nearly slipped from Banks’s grasp.

David took the little cup back and poured the contents into a heavier mug, which he then topped off. When he handed the tea to Banks, he cupped the man’s fingers around the hot mug before he let go.

He served the child in another mug, then poured his own tea into a mug, too.

Banks sipped his tea with desperate restraint. “Where is Let—Mrs. Banks?”

“I’ve sent for my coach,” David said. “I will take you to her, but first I must insist, for the sake of the child, that we get you both warm and dry.”

“You insist?” Banks snorted. “You?” He didn’t give up his tea for all his righteous indignation, and the child was discreetly pinching a biscuit from the tray.

“Mr. Banks, you are no doubt holding your unpleasant sentiments barely in check, and for that, I am appreciative. If we have adult matters to discuss, then we can do so when we have the necessary privacy.” David glanced meaningfully at the child, and Banks had the grace to nod once in understanding.

“Does my—does Mrs. Banks reside here?” The tone was marginally more civil.

“She does not,” David said as the boy tucked a second biscuit into his coat pocket. “She was a guest here briefly while recovering from a knife wound, because I am a physician and rendered her aid at the time.” Aid and a broken heart. “She has since returned to her own dwelling, where I understand she has continued a successful recuperation.”

Banks set his mug down with a clatter. “A knife wound? Letty was stabbed?”

“Is Aunt Letty all right?” the boy asked, his eyes filled with concern. “Papa? Is Aunt Letty going to die?”

“She will not,” David answered the child. “Though she did need a few stitches, but she was very brave about it. She is well, and you mustn’t fret about her.”

A discreet tap on the door summoned David, who conferred with a footman and then returned to his guests.

“These”—he held up a stack of boy’s clothing—“have been borrowed from the bootboy, though he’s a bit bigger than you, Danny.”

Danny took the dry clothes from David.

And now for the more stubborn fellow. “You are of a height with me,” David informed Banks. “I will offer you a change of clothing. Everything in your saddlebags will take a good while to dry, though I’m sure it’s being hung up in the kitchen as we speak.”


Banks glanced around the library, his gaze lighting on the little silver angel David had had cast from mended porcelain as part of a celestial pair. “My thanks. The loan of dry clothing would be appreciated.”

“The first bedroom upstairs on the right is available to you both,” David said, “and I’ve had a tray sent up, for the boy if not for you, Mr. Banks. Though as to that, if you’ve ridden any distance in this weather, your health is jeopardized as badly as the child’s. I humbly ask you to partake of some sustenance—you’ll need it for the coming discussion, if nothing else.”

Banks looked like he might take exception.

“It’s all right, Banks,” David said. “I don’t much want to like you either, but I can hardly fault a man for being concerned for Letty’s welfare, can I?”

Looking even more uncertain, Banks herded his son out the door and into the keeping of the footman. The library door closed behind him just as the child whispered to his papa.

“He’s a viscount, Papa! And he shook hands with me. Is a viscount like a duke?”

A lively child, for all that he’d been subdued in unfamiliar surroundings. David sat back and poured himself a second cup of tea, giving his guests time to get dry, and himself time to collect his reeling thoughts.

Some pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place, but others weren’t arranging themselves as neatly. Where did Mr. Banks fit, for example? Had the old vicar tattled on Letty to her brother? Banks was clearly aware that David had trifled with his sister. Was he also aware that others had more than trifled with her?

David finished his tea, though his fretting was not nearly done. What if this man wasn’t Letty’s brother? What if she’d had a husband after all? What if Mr. Banks, whoever he was, had come to offer Letty a miserable sanctuary in the judgmental arms of her family—the family about which David knew very little?

He changed into attire appropriate for a morning call, then rapped on the door of the guest room.

“Gentlemen? The horses have been put to. I’ll await you below.”

Five minutes later, Mister and Master Banks came down the stairs, the one a miniature of the other. The elder polished up quite nicely. He had the same dark, compelling eyes Letty had—a reassuring observation, that—and his features were beautifully designed, strong enough to be masculine, but not a one of them—not nose, eyes, lips, chin, jaw, eyebrows—was in any way disproportionate to the others. If the man had any charm, he’d be a lethal addition to the best ballrooms.

Provided, of course, he learned how to tie a cravat.

“Hold still.” David untied his guest’s neckcloth.

“Are you dressing me?”

“Somebody had better,” David muttered as he whipped the linen back into an elegant knot, “or Letty will have to fix it when she sees you. There.”

In no time, he and his guests were tucked into the carriage, snug and dry, the floor tiles giving off a pleasant heat.

“Am I to understand,” Banks said, staring out the window, “that Letty was at no time a member of your household?”

“She was a guest.” And the boy was listening to every word, even as he peered out the window, his nose pressed to the glass. “Further details should be requested directly of her.”

“I was told she was your housekeeper.”

Told by whom? Did Letty perpetrate that fiction? Told when? And how had Banks discerned Letty was not a housekeeper?

“Was she a guest in your household when she was stabbed?” Banks asked in the same toneless voice.” The child whipped around to look sharply at Mr. Banks.

“She was not. She was stabbed in defense of me, and I owe her my life.” In many ways, David owed her his life.

“She really is well?”

The question planted a seed of liking in David he did not want to feel for Banks, liking and sympathy.

“She lost a lot of blood, but she healed quickly and has been taking good care of herself. The wound may still pain her occasionally, and she will have weakness in her arm for a while yet, but she is substantially recovered.”

From the knife wound.

Banks asked no further questions, and because the distance between Letty’s house and David’s was only a mile, they soon found themselves turning onto her street.

“Before we go inside, Banks,” David said, taking his turn staring out the window, “you need to know I have offered for her, and I will offer for her again, but she will not have me.”

Banks brushed a hand over the child’s hair, which in ten minutes of travel had somehow regained a state of complete disarray. “She will not…?”

“Will not, and yes, I love her.” To say that felt good, also a bit pathetic.

Perhaps it was a measure of Banks’s preoccupation with David’s latest revelation that he allowed David to carry Danny up the steps to Letty’s door. David rapped loudly, and the door swung open to reveal Letty herself standing in the front entry.

“Daniel? Danny? David? What on earth…?”

“May we come in?” The sight of her, the simple, lovely, soul-gratifying sight of her, set something back to rights in David’s chest. She was still in need of more weight, but she looked… so very, very dear.

“Come in.” Letty stepped aside and shooed at them. “Please, yes, all of you come in. Danny!” David relinquished the child into Letty’s arms, and she held the boy tightly for long moments before she set him on his feet. “Oh, Danny, how you’ve grown, and how very good it is to see you!”

“We came on Zubbie,” Danny informed her. “And it was cold and wet, but Zubbie likes to play in the puddles.”

Letty beamed at the child, her smile unlike any she’d ever bestowed on David—or the patrons of The Pleasure House. “He does, doesn’t he? He’s a very naughty boy sometimes, but he has a good heart, and he brought you all the way here from Little Weldon, didn’t he?”

“I never fell off once.” Danny beamed back at her, the sight doing queer things to David’s insides.

“And Daniel.” Letty held out her arms to Mr. Banks, who enfolded her in a quiet, snug embrace.

Daniel? The name registered in David’s mind with a shock, and it wasn’t until then that he realized Letty’s brother was the vicar. Vicar Daniel, to distinguish him from his father, likely, who would have been Vicar Banks.

The child looked like both Letty and her brother, which told David nothing. But the sober regard in Banks’s eyes, and the light of battle dawning in Letty’s, suggested that some truths were about to be aired.

“Letty? Might I suggest that Danny make his way to the kitchen for a cup of chocolate while Mr. Banks and I join you in the family parlor?”

The child commenced dancing in place. “Oooh, chocolate. May I? Papa? Aunt Letty? Mister Viscount? Please?” Despite the situation, all three adults smiled at Danny’s misconstruction of the title, and he was sent off to the kitchen.

David didn’t trust himself even to put a hand on Letty’s arm, but he was standing close enough to catch a whiff of her rose scent. “I’ll excuse myself if you prefer, Letty, and wait in the front parlor. You should know the gentlemen are welcome to bide with me if you’re not up to guests.”

Banks made no reply, while Letty patted David’s lapel. A single, presuming, familiar gesture, which Banks also observed—and did not comment on.

“His lordship is my friend,” Letty informed her brother. “What we have to discuss affects him too. He will join us.”

David felt no sense of victory, for Letty’s decision turned Banks’s expression unreadable, and “what we have to discuss” might not be what David sought to discuss. And yet, a declaration of friendship was a far cry from a solitary tray in the front parlor.

“Shall we wait for tea?” Letty asked when she’d taken a seat in one of the rocking chairs in her small parlor.

“I’ve had my fill for the present,” Banks replied. “Lord Fairly was most gracious.” The vicar made “gracious” sound like a one-way ticket to the ninth circle of hell.

“So you went to his lordship’s house, looking for me?”

“Where else was I to look for you? I’m told things that aren’t true, and then I receive correspondence that I cannot fathom. I wanted to come sooner, but the rain arrived in a deluge, and then I had to get here, hang the floods—”

“Perhaps,” David interrupted, “you could tell us about that correspondence? And, Letty, may we sit?”

“Please.” Her tone told him she would not resent his efforts to steer the conversation; her eyes told him—lovely woman—that she’d missed him and worried for him. David took the other rocking chair, leaving Banks the small settee, onto which he dropped with a weary sigh.

“Olivia—my wife—has been called to her mother’s sickbed—possibly her deathbed, though I’ve had little news yet on that score. In Olivia’s absence, the church has received two letters addressed to the Ladies’ Charitable Guild, which organization my wife founded and directs. The first epistle, Letty, was from you, and included an astonishingly sizable bank draft.”


Banks paused, while from the direction of the kitchen, a child’s laughter rang through the house.

“Imagine my surprise,” Banks said softly, “when I went to the banker over in Great Weldon and found that the Ladies’ Charitable Guild is wealthy enough that I could soon retire on its assets. All these years, I have counted among my blessings a wife who is clever with figures, one whom I’ve allowed to copy my signature on any bank drafts, sparing me—she said—tedious bookkeeping, so I might have more time for the Lord’s work.” He paused again, looking at his hands as if expecting to see them filled with pieces of silver.

Letty went utterly still in her rocking chair. “That money was for Danny. Olivia was to save that money for Danny. That was our arrangement.”

David laid a quieting hand on her arm when Banks blinked at her in confusion.

“The second piece of correspondence?” David prompted.

“That missive,” Banks said, “had been penned to my wife by Mrs. Fanny Newcomb. Mrs. Newcomb cheerfully related that because Letty’s current protector was every bit as titled as the last one, and much, much wealthier, the Ladies’ Guild could expect a great deal in the way of remuneration. Mrs. Newcomb hinted that Letty might bring this gentleman up to scratch, which would cost her the position of madam at his brothel—‘A pity, that’—but would ensure the greatest gain for the Guild in the end. Viscounts, Mrs. Newcomb noted with appalling authority, are particularly susceptible to blackmail.”

Banks had a beautiful voice, one that likely beguiled his parishioners to services for their weekly dose of scripture and gossip, but he also had beautiful eyes, and those eyes were devastated.

“My dearest sister, what have we done to you?”

***

“You alluded to an arrangement, Letty,” David said into the strained silence. “What was that arrangement?”

Brother and sister shared a look, and some communication beyond David’s ken passed between them.

“Tell him,” Banks said. “I’ve never been comfortable with the deception, and I see little point to it now.”

A pure white cat came strutting into the parlor. It hopped onto Letty’s lap, and David felt a spike of resentment for the beast and its presumptuousness, until the cat gazed at him with one blue eye and one green eye.

“The money I sent to Olivia,” Letty said, stroking the cat’s back, “was for the support of my son, and to buy Olivia’s silence. She implied, Daniel, that you knew the money was coming in, but I wasn’t to bring up any particulars in your presence, lest your pride be offended.”

Letty’s admission was made softly, and she did not so much as glance at David when she spoke. He wanted to take her in his arms, to shout with relief, to toss Banks from the room and kiss the lady senseless, because her secret no longer stood between them.

Instead, David twitched the crease of his breeches and prayed for wisdom.

Banks was apparently not a man made for bitterness, but neither did sorrow look well on him. “My pride is in tatters, Letty, that you could think I would ever ask for money to support my own nephew. I love that boy, and I love you, and I never asked you for money.”

“Olivia did.” Letty lifted the cat to cradle it against her shoulder. “She made my own home a hell for me, with her veiled insults, her hints, threats, and false piety, and then, when I resolved to leave, she told me I’d pay a price for that as well.”

“I don’t understand,” David said as the cat began to purr. “You lived with your brother when Danny was born?”

Letty did not reply, her silence an echo of the same silence David had been enduring from her for months.

Banks provided the answer, regarding his sister with such compassion, David suspected the man qualified for sainthood.

“Letty found herself with child when she approached her seventeenth birthday. The child’s father, Uriah Smith, had been our father’s curate, and while Father was hardly fair to Letty, he was properly incensed with Smith. Smith departed for parts unknown in the dead of night, though we later learned he took a post in the North and perished of influenza. I became my father’s curate, and then replaced him when, shortly after the whole situation erupted, Papa died of a heart seizure.”

Letty cuddled the damned cat, while David wanted to pitch the beast through the window and draw her into his arms.

“Olivia and I,” Banks went on, “had not been blessed with a child in the five years of our marriage, but it still surprised me when she suggested raising Letty’s baby as our own. Letty was willing, however, so at the appropriate time, the ladies went on an extended holiday and repaired to the home of Olivia’s mother, where Danny was born.”

“And the vicar’s beaming wife,” David supplied, “came home with his son in her arms, just like that.”

Letty set the cat down. “This scheme was a chance for my son to be respectable. To have a gentleman for a parent, not a slut—”

“Letty,” Banks remonstrated her, but it was David who passed her his handkerchief.

“So what went amiss?” David asked, picking the cat up, despite how easily white hairs would show against excellent tailoring. “You could have remained in the vicarage household, a significant figure in your son’s life, and he in yours. The situation would not be ideal, but I suppose something like it happens more frequently than we know.”

“Letty decided to leave,” Banks said. “She could not bear watching the child refer to Olivia as Mama or see him crawling up to Olivia for comfort and reassurance.”

Letty abruptly stopped dabbing at her eyes. “I did no such thing. Olivia told me to go when I’d weaned Danny and it became obvious he still viewed me as his mother. The day Olivia overheard him call me Mama was the day she started campaigning for my departure.”

The cat in David’s lap purred contentedly, while brother and sister regarded each other with bewilderment.

“Campaigning? Olivia assured me you wanted to go.”

“For God’s sake, Daniel, I never wanted to leave my son. What kind of mother do you think I am?”

David thought she was a heroic mother, a mother who’d stop at nothing to see her child safe and well cared for.

“Then why did you go?” Banks asked.

“To earn the money,” Letty retorted, tears tracking down her cheeks. “To earn the damned money and to keep Olivia quiet.”

“Quiet, how?”

The question took courage. David rather wished Banks hadn’t been able to ask it.

“Olivia became convinced she needed to confess our situation to the bishop, much as Uriah Smith had been smitten by the need to confess. You were involved in a monumental deception, Daniel, and allowing a woman without virtue to live at the vicarage, among your congregation. Olivia implied, amid much reference to Christian duty and my immortal soul, that if I did not leave and begin producing the money you had admitted would be a welcome contribution, then her conscience would continue to plague her.”

The irony of Letty’s fate, ending up in a brothel as a result of the selfishness of a curate and a vicar’s wife, had David on his feet, the cat vaulting to the floor and scampering for the door.

“I’m sorry, Banks,” David said, “but your wife is a scheming, conniving, heartless, unfeeling, unnatural—”

“Bitch,” Banks concluded wearily.

“But clever,” Letty added as the cat stopped in the doorway, sat, and curled its tail around its haunches. “She made the choice easy: I could leave, allowing my son to grow up as a gentleman, while I contributed to his welfare and provided a blessing Olivia and Daniel had given up hoping for. In the alternative, I could live in constant fear that Olivia would expose my brother and my son to scandal, while every day Olivia hurt me through the people I loved most. The decision was simple.”

“It was not easy,” David said, but this tale smoothed all those small puzzle pieces into a single image of sacrifice and sorrow. Letty had protected first her son, then her brother, and then—humbling realization—David, too.

Viscounts being particularly susceptible to blackmail—in the opinion of some.

“Living apart from my son was miserably difficult. It still is.”

“So you did not decide to leave of your own volition,” Banks said. “You were blackmailed into leaving.”

Ugly word, though the man’s fortitude was impressive.

Letty regarded David’s handkerchief—one she’d embroidered with pink roses—rather than meet her brother’s eyes. “I can’t blame Olivia for the fact that, having surrendered my virtue, I chose to trade on that lapse to make my living on my back.”

“Oh, can’t you?” David said softly. “Let me speculate here, and suggest Olivia fixed for you a sum you had to regularly remit, lest she bring her fears to the bishop, and such a sum would never have been within the ambit of a woman in service even in London, though you likely didn’t know that when you agreed to her scheme. When you left the shires, your sister-in-law’s carping was fresh in your ears, insisting you could not expect decent men to take an interest in you, and you would be well-advised to use your venery to support your son. Am I right?”


The cat hopped into Banks’s lap, which meant more of David’s own fine tailoring would be sporting white hairs. “And,” Banks said, stroking a hand over the presuming cat, “Olivia recruited Fanny Newcomb to keep an eye on you, or maybe their collusion was a simple, rotten coincidence.”

Letty folded David’s handkerchief into quarters on her lap, probably adding cat hair to that too. “I’ve wondered how Olivia knew where to find me. She sent letters to The Pleasure House when I worked there, but I never indicated to her where I was employed, or in what capacity. She just knew.”

“And exploited the knowledge,” David added. “Does Olivia at least love the boy?”

Banks found it expedient to scratch the cat’s chin. “He does not go hungry or want for clothing and hygiene, but she is not warm toward him—toward him either, truth be known. When he was a baby, she delighted in showing him off, but now that he’s older, she seems to resent him. I love him,” he added quietly. “I love him like he was my own.”

David guessed Banks loved the boy like a man who had no children would love the only youngster ever to come into his keeping.

“It grows late,” Letty said, tucking David’s handkerchief into a pocket. “I am sure you have more questions for me, Daniel, but you’ve had a long, trying day, and I should see about supper.”

When she left the room, Banks cradled the cat against his shoulder, exactly as Letty had. “Does your offer of marriage still stand? Knowing my sister bore a child out of wedlock, would you still have her for your viscountess?”

A brother was entitled to ask. “I knew months ago she’d borne a child.”

“She told you?”

“She didn’t need to. But yes, of course I would still offer for her. The issue is, will she have me?”

***

Letty returned to the parlor to find both men rocking silently in the chairs near the hearth. They were not at each other’s throats, but then, on what grounds would one castigate the other? David had slept with Letty—albeit with her enthusiastic consent—while Daniel had failed to protect her from his own wife, in which arrangement, Letty had also been complicit.

What were they thinking of her?

“I propose we share a simple meal here,” she said. “Daniel, I have an extra room for you and Danny, though Lord Fairly has also offered his hospitality.”

And the idea of housing Danny and Daniel in the front bedroom turned her stomach.

Daniel considered his lordship, who looked all too dear and hard to read in his rocking chair. “My horse is enjoying the viscount’s accommodations as we speak, so perhaps Danny and I had best do likewise.”

This was no relief, not when Letty hadn’t seen Danny for months. “As you wish.”

She wanted to argue, wanted to point out that with her secrets splattered all about like an upended tea tray, she no longer had a reason to tolerate separation from her son.

Except, she had a reason. For Danny’s sake, she would not start ranting and weeping—again.

Danny joined them for the meal, volubly excited to be at table with guests, and to have his Aunt Letty as his hostess, which was a small consolation.

“London is muddy, wet, and cold, but I don’t want to go home,” Danny announced, shooting an anxious glance at Daniel.

“We won’t be going home tonight, Danny,” Daniel explained. “We will ride in Viscount Fairly’s coach and stay at his house, where Zubbie is staying.”

“Will we see Aunt Letty again soon?” Danny asked, fiddling with his potatoes.

“We will see her tomorrow. Now eat your potatoes, and there might be some pudding for well-behaved young men from Little Weldon.”

The exchange was prosaic, and yet, in Letty’s wildest, most irrational moments, she never would have guessed she’d one day have her brother and son sharing a table with her—and David. And yet, Letty kept missing parts of the conversation, turning over in her mind how willing she’d been to believe Olivia’s venom and mischaracterization. Very likely, Daniel, who was married to the woman, was experiencing the same sort of consternation.

Several times, Letty caught herself staring into space, preoccupied with odd memories, times when Daniel had looked puzzled by a remark she’d made, times when he’d not responded as she’d expected to something she’d said.

Daniel, too, dropped out of the general discussion at odd moments to stare at his plate. David took up the burden of keeping the child entertained, though Danny was tiring.

“Might I suggest,” David said when the trifle had been served, “that I take Danny with me to Tatt’s tomorrow? They won’t be holding a sale, but I’d like to have a look at some of the new stock, and Tatt’s is a stop a young man ought to make when he comes up to Town.”

Whom was he asking? Letty, as the child’s mother, or Daniel, as the man who’d raised the boy since birth?

“I would appreciate some time to visit with my sister,” Daniel said. “You’ll have to watch Danny, though. He’s spent a lot of time with my gelding, Beelzebub, who’s a hotheaded young fellow, but Danny’s lively, and he’s only five—”

All boys should be lively, though Letty did not argue with her brother, not when David was regarding her with amused eyes.

“How many am I up to now, Letty?” he asked. “Three nieces and four nephews, of some sort, all under the age of seven? Danny and I will manage splendidly, won’t we?”

Danny’s answer was obscured by his yawn, which prompted the departure of the menfolk for David’s town house. As they assembled at Letty’s front door, Daniel leaned in and kissed her cheek.

“We’ll get this sorted out, Letty. I won’t go back to Little Weldon until we do.”

Some comfort there, though Daniel’s position had been all too clear when he’d announced that he loved the boy as if he were his own.

“Good night, Letty.” David kissed her cheek as well, causing Letty to start, then blush and fix a stare on the little silver angel, whose wings she’d taken to polishing for luck. “I will see you tomorrow when Danny and I drop the vicar off, say, around eleven of the clock?”

Fourteen hours. She could manage to part with her son for another fourteen hours—and her brother, and David.

She tousled Danny’s hair, though he dozed so contently against Daniel’s shoulder his eyes didn’t even open. “That will serve, and perhaps you’ll stop by on your way home?”

“Of course.” He offered her one of his golden, beaming, special smiles. A smile that warmed the spirit with kindness and understanding, that offered a sense of sincere and personal appreciation.

She had been dying, dying, for want of the sight of one of those smiles. She went up on tiptoe to return his kiss—while Daniel nuzzled Danny’s crown—and then ushered her guests out to their coach.

In the silence that followed their departure, Letty felt weightless. She had seen her son, and acknowledged him as her son before David, and David had not raised even an eyebrow. And the rest of it, the abandonment of her only child, the terrible deception she’d perpetrated on Daniel regarding her livelihood, and the even worse deception Olivia had perpetrated on them all… David had listened, and calmly assisted her and Daniel to sort out the tangled threads of truth.

More sorting lay ahead, between her and Daniel, and between her and David. Most especially, she had sorting out to do with her son, for no power on earth would compel her to return the child to Olivia’s care.

Still, for all that was yet unresolved, Letty felt for the first time in years more hope than despair. She’d seen her son, her brother, and the man she loved sit down at the same table and break bread together.

It was a start. Where it might lead, she could not say, but it was a start.