David

by Grace Burrowes

  How humbly he posited his intimate availability to her, how cautiously, when he hadn’t made himself available to a woman since… He could not recall when, where, under what circumstances, or—this was not flattering—with whom.

  His question left Mrs. Banks looking bewildered rather than insulted or indignant. Too subtle, then? David shot his cuffs and tried again.

  “When you yearn for a man’s embrace, when your body aches for intimate gratification,” he said, his voice dropping lower, “could you imagine availing yourself of my company?” For he could imagine providing her that gratification.

  “Gratification?”

  He might as well have been speaking Hottentot—or perhaps she simply did not fancy him in any degree, and this was how she conveyed her indifference. For that matter, she might not fancy any man—some of his employees were of a Sapphic persuasion, after all.

  “As madam, you will manage the women,” he said briskly. “Keep them well dressed, healthy, and in as good spirits as you can. They decide with whom they will pass an evening, or an hour, though you should be on hand to assist if the need arises.”

  “Assist? I thought you said I wouldn’t…” She waved a hand in upward circles, as if that were the universal signal for coitus.

  “Sometimes, two fellows get to scrapping about whose turn it is to go upstairs with a certain girl. You intervene before feelings are hurt.”

  “Intervene?”

  The room had developed a puzzled echo to go with the stink of coal smoke. “They can figuratively draw straws. One goes tonight, the other tomorrow night. A second lady can be tactfully suggested, or they can all three go upstairs at the same time. It isn’t complicated.”

  It was complicated and tedious and nerve-wracking, and that was before Portia and Desdemona began imbibing, or Musette’s jealousy was aroused.

  “I see.” She gestured with the teapot; he shook his head. “And what if three men wanted to share her favors? Would she take all three upstairs at once?”

  David shrugged, having run out of cuffs to shoot and creases to straighten. “I’ve seen it done. A woman can accommodate that many men, after all, but it’s damned funny-looking. Rather like a rowing crew—the whole thing needs a coxswain calling the stroke.”

  The teapot hit the tray with a clank.

  “My wages?” Mrs. Banks was changing the subject—also blushing furiously, though discussion of coin was difficult for some people. David tossed out a sum that reflected what it would be worth to him to get out from under the running of this particular business, and out from under Jennings’s infernal smirks.

  “I accept.”

  “Just like that?” The magnitude of his relief beggared description. “You aren’t going to make me haggle, and toss in this and that additional consideration? You don’t want Sundays off, your own gig, an account at Madame Baptiste’s?”

  She folded her arms, in one gesture turning herself into the embodiment of a female who’d made up her mind and would not be trifled with.

  “Your establishment is not open for business on Sunday and Monday nights. I still have my own gig and pony, and I am adequately clothed for the present.”

  “Let’s see about that,” David said, rising.

  Unease flitted through her eyes at this most prosaic request. “I beg your pardon, my lord?”

  “I want to have a look at your wardrobe. What you might think is adequate may not be quite up to the mark. The Pleasure House maintains elegant standards, comparable to what you’d expect were you dining in the home of any peer. Your wardrobe must be worthy of your position.”

  And he sounded convincing when he delivered that lecture, because for her, he wanted it to be true: she would be well dressed in his employ. Elegantly well dressed, well fed, well compensated, and well protected.

  She chewed a nail, flicking a glance at him that said he was daft, which perhaps he was around her—or brilliant.

  “This way,” she said, moving toward the door. “You might want your coat.”

  He ignored the advice, even as she added a thick red wool shawl to the brown paisley. She led him up to the second floor, the sway of her hips before him taking the worst of the chill from his blood.

  “In here.” She opened the door to a room at the back of the house, the one farthest from the noise, dirt, and stink of the street, closest to the heat coming up the stairwell from the kitchen.

  There was a bed, of course, a pretty oak piece with a quilted spread of blues and browns, and a frame for bed hangings, though no hangings were in evidence, and the covers did not look nearly thick enough to keep a body warm of a night. The hangings had been sold, no doubt, or cut up for curtains.

  The chamber itself was lovely if cold, boasting some light and a sense of comfort and repose. This was precisely the kind of room David would have envisioned for her: graceful, pretty, and unpretentious.

  Wholesome, which was both a relief and, on an ungentlemanly level, an annoyance.

  Mrs. Banks opened a large wardrobe in a corner of the room, sending the scents of sage and lavender wafting through the gloomy air. “I didn’t entertain him here, if you’re wondering.”

  “I beg your pardon?” David stood behind her, the scent of roses blending with the other fragrances drifting from the depths of the wardrobe.

  “Herbert. The late Lord Amery.” She kept her back to him as she fingered dresses, shawls, and chemises. “With him, I used the other bedroom, at the front of the house.”

  Well, of course. She’d kept part of herself private this way, by separating business and personal spheres. The girls at The Pleasure House did likewise, never bringing customers to their sleeping quarters, never sleeping in the rooms where they entertained. In some secret guideline for fallen women, this was apparently holy writ.

  “This is a lovely room.” What else was he to say? “Did you make the quilt?”

  “A long time ago.” She smiled faintly over her shoulder, a flirtatious smile, though she likely hadn’t intended it as such. “What do you make of my frocks, my lord?”

  He stood directly behind her for a long moment, ostensibly reviewing the contents of her closet, when in fact he was inhaling the subtle rosy fragrance of her, imagining his lips on her nape, and considering what she’d do if he pulled her derriere back against his thighs—all quite to his own surprise.

  He spent the next half hour tossing her dresses onto the bed, suggesting minor refinements on this one, discarding that one, and frowning thoughtfully over another, all the while battling the distraction of inconvenient arousal.

  From handling her clothing? From standing near her? Or was he attracted to Letty Banks because she was not even politely interested in him?

  And he liked her for that, for not flirting, teasing, and trying to manipulate him through male appendages already quite vulnerable enough without a woman’s grasp secured around them.

  “You really do not dress to show yourself to best advantage,” he said, handing her the dresses one by one to hang back up. “Why is that?”

  “What would be the point? I looked well enough for Herbert’s purposes, wearing only my shift.”

  “In the dark?” David asked, wishing the words back as soon as they left his stupid, thoughtless mouth.

  “No.” She ran her hand over the bodice of a green velvet carriage dress gone a bit shiny at the seams. “With candles blazing, my lord. Have you any other rude questions?”

  Did you ever enjoy it? He knew better than to ask that, knew it was impertinent, personal, and irrelevant. If he asked that, he’d have to slap his own face.

  “Some men,” he observed as he passed her the last of the dresses, “enjoy having the candles out. Enjoy having to learn a woman’s contours and preferences by feel and by the music of her sighs and whispers.”

  He was such a man, in fact, or he would be with her.


  Mrs. Banks closed the wardrobe, turned, and leaned back against it, her posture putting David in mind of a soldier facing a firing squad. “You have said I need not entertain men to earn my wages.”

  He wanted to kiss her, to mash her against the wardrobe and make her feel the rebellion against good sense going on behind his falls. At the same time, he resented her for inspiring his arousal, because he spoke of pleasure, and she quoted contract terms.

  And he wanted to call Herbert Allen out posthumously, because the man had abused the lady’s sensibilities unpardonably.

  She turned her head, the only evasion their cramped quarters permitted. David told himself to step the hell back, but his feet did not listen.

  But because he had been a physician, he noticed she was holding her breath, and that small suggestion that he’d become the bully allowed him to move away, closer to the weak light filtering in through the window.

  “Your duties are as I’ve stated, Letty Banks, though nothing should preclude you from delighting in the pleasures a woman of the world might seek for her private enjoyment.”

  She let her breath out, perhaps because he’d retreated to the chillier space near the window, perhaps because he’d retreated into manners. “Steady income will be enjoyable, I assure you, my lord.”

  David held out a hand to her.

  She blinked at his outstretched hand, uncomprehending.

  “A bargain between business associates is often sealed with a handshake,” he explained with what he hoped was a disarming smile—provided those business associates were male, and reasonably friendly.

  Her smile was puzzled, her hand cold, and David trespassed the smallest degree on his good intentions by kissing her knuckles before letting her hand go.

  “I’ll have my solicitors write up our agreement and send it to yours,” he said, holding the door for her. “Which firm do you use?”

  “I don’t,” she said, following him down the stairs. “I don’t have a solicitor.”

  “We’ll remedy that.” Truly, dear Herbert had not valued this woman properly. A mistress might be a commodity, but she ought to be a cherished commodity. “All of the girls who work for me have solicitors.”

  She stopped on the last stair, so their heights nearly matched. “They are not girls.”

  David wasn’t about to call them whores. Not ever. “What are they, then? My employees?”

  “They are ladies,” she said, her hand on the newel post as if she were some monarch with her royal orb. “They are women, at least. They are not girls and haven’t been for some time. And if you do employ girls, then our association is at an end, my lord.”

  “I do not employ any female under the age of twenty-one, nor have I ever.” Though David hadn’t realized it until this exchange with Her Majesty of the Non-Matching Shawls. “I assume you’ll be able to start this week?”

  She clutched those shawls more tightly. “This week? I can’t begin this week.”

  Now, she intended to haggle? He remained one step below her, thinking she’d chosen her moment well.

  “I need a madam, and you have accepted the position, at a very generous wage. You said nothing about needing time, Mrs. Banks.”

  “I’m asking for one week, and one week only, then I’ll be your madam, and you will own my time, body, and soul—five days of the week. My days off will be my days off, or we have no bargain.”

  “One week,” he said, not liking the idea at all. “Though you will join me at The Pleasure House this evening at six of the clock.”

  “Tonight?” She looked wary. She looked wary frequently, which would have put a lesser man—a less relieved man—out of charity with her. “Whatever for?”

  “I want to show you the place, for one thing, and the clients don’t wander in until eight, or seven at the very earliest. The ladies usually come downstairs about half eight. Tonight is the perfect time to look the premises over and acquaint you with the house itself. I’ll fetch you in my coach, and we can dine when you’ve seen the place. Now, shall we retrieve my coat before I freeze to death standing on your stair?”

  “Of course.” She followed him back to the less frigid, more odoriferous parlor, though David had the sense she was profoundly preoccupied.

  Well, so was he.

  What manner of courtesan was indifferent to the thought of a new wardrobe, had no use for intimate pleasures, and blushed when discussing money? He left the premises uneasy with himself, because perhaps that kind of courtesan—the shy, proper, complicated kind—would really have done better as a housekeeper in County Galway.

  ***

  Vicars did not allow whores around their children or their decent womenfolk.

  Vicars did not bring fallen women into their family establishments.

  Nonetheless, Letty braved the bitter cold; the stinking, crowded public coach; and the journey that took much longer than it should, and finally, finally found herself knocking on the door of the vicarage in Little Weldon.

  “Letty!” Olivia greeted her with surprise rather than joy, but she opened the door nonetheless, as she’d promised she always would. “Come in, come in. We must not let in the cold.”

  “Aunt Letty!” Five-year-old Danny chorused from Olivia’s side. “Aunt Letty has come to visit! Papa!” Danny tore off to deliver the news to his father rather than hug his aunt, while Olivia hustled Letty into the house.

  “We weren’t expecting you, Letty,” Olivia remarked as she took Letty’s cloak, bonnet, scarf, and gloves. “Is everything all right?”

  The question held worry, as did Olivia’s blue eyes, but it wasn’t worry for Letty.

  “Everything is fine. I have a new position, and for the present, at least, my situation is settled. I would have written, Olivia, but I left London on short notice, and I can stay only a few days.”

  Letty would not volunteer more than that about her changed circumstances, and Olivia would not ask. Their system was simple, and for years now, it had suited them both.

  “You are always welcome.” Olivia’s expression contradicted the plain meaning of the words, but further remarks were forestalled by the arrival of Letty’s brother.

  “Letty!” Daniel enveloped his sister in a tight embrace, and Letty’s composure abruptly faltered. Nearly ten years her senior, Daniel Banks had always been her hero. He’d taken the brunt of their father’s sour temper, tolerated Letty’s ceaseless tagging along, and when she’d really, really needed it, he’d taken on her burdens without reproaching her. She clung to him for a long moment, then let him step back to inspect her.

  Daniel was tall, brown-haired, brown-eyed, broad-shouldered, and too handsome to be a man of the cloth.

  Also, too kind to be anything else.

  “You are too thin,” Daniel pronounced. “But a most, most welcome sight.” Unlike his prim, blond wife, Daniel’s sentiments were sincere. “How long can you stay?”

  “The rest of the week, only. I’ve started a new position, and I demanded some time away before taking up my duties.” The lies had been easy when offered to Olivia; they nearly choked Letty when given to her brother.

  Daniel smiled at his wife. “Let’s have some sustenance in the family parlor, if you please, Olivia. I must hear what my sister has been up to in old Londontowne, and I’m sure you will want to hear as well.”

  “Of course, Daniel.” Olivia disappeared into the back of the house, obedient as always.

  Daniel’s expression lost its genial good cheer in Olivia’s absence. “She doesn’t mean to be so unwelcoming.”

  The irony of Daniel’s pronouncement was profound, and yet he was oblivious to it—thank God.

  “Olivia is perfectly civil, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to break free again, so I’ve come to spend what time I can with family.”

  “And Danny and I are pleased to see you, as always.”
He took her arm and led her into the parlor, seating himself beside her on the sofa. “You really do look too thin, Letty.”

  She was famished, and yet more aware that Olivia had shooed young Danny right back upstairs than she was of her hunger.

  “I am too thin. I’ve been worried since losing my last post, but things are looking up now.” She’d been raised in this house, raised to be truthful, no matter the cost.

  “Tell me about the new position.”

  Letty fabricated a tale, of course, about being housekeeper to one of Viscount Fairly’s less used town residences. She hated deceiving her brother, for he’d shown her nothing but kindness and understanding, but she couldn’t disappoint him with the truth. He’d insist on her joining his household, which, for many, many reasons, would never do at all.

  So she embroidered on the truth, avoided her brother’s eyes, and listened for any sound indicating Danny might be rejoining them.

  ***

  “You are dithering, my lord.”

  With three words, Thomas Jennings could jeopardize his own existence, or at least his livelihood.

  “I am choosing bed hangings,” David shot back. “In case it has escaped your notice, it’s bloody winter, and a woman needs proper bed hangings if she’s not to fall prey to lung fever. How to choose bed hangings was not on the curriculum at St. Andrews.”

  Though why David was subjecting himself to this torment was simple: he wanted Letty Banks to sleep right here at The Pleasure House where he knew she’d be warm and well fed, not at that dusty, stinky, frigid little property she shared with her besom of a housekeeper.

  Jennings wrinkled a not insubstantial nose and planted himself on a dressing stool upholstered with cabbage roses. “The burgundy, then.”

  David held up the swatch of burgundy velvet, which would make Letty Banks look pale, but then, so would the blue and the green. “Why?”

  Jennings found something fascinating to study in the vicinity of his boots. “Won’t show the dirt or the dust.”

  “Excellent notion.” David tossed the burgundy velvet at him. “Have we had this flue cleaned recently?”