David Read online

  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, le
tting 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.