Dispirited enough, too.
“The ewer on the hearth holds clean water, and tooth powder is behind the privacy screen. I can’t offer you a dressing gown, because I gave Herbert’s few effects to charity.”
She moved behind the screen, and David heard her stirring about. “You didn’t sell them?”
“That did not”—she paused… to yawn?—“seem right.”
He suspected her retreat behind the screen was to afford him privacy to use the wash water. Such consideration was oddly… touching, and if he did not take immediate advantage of it, he’d fall asleep where he stood.
“Where shall I put my clothes?” He wanted her to know his clothes were coming off. He’d been in them the livelong day, and Letty was no stranger to the unclad male body.
Letty emerged from the screen, a nightgown evident beneath her robe. “The back of the door has hooks.”
He’d known that, of course. “Letty, if I’m to wash—”
Was there any prospect more ridiculous than a grown man explaining to a madam that he was about to disrobe? Letty apparently did not think so, though her smile was sweet rather than mocking. When she ought to have climbed into the bed, she instead crossed the room to slip her arms around David’s waist and rest her forehead against his chest.
“I was so glad to see you today. I nearly cried with relief.”
His family was glad to see him. He was almost sure of it, even if they never came close to crying in relief at the sight of him. Before he could wrap his arms about her, she shuffled off to climb into the bed.
She’d turned the sheets down, but that bed would be cold.
David unbuttoned his waistcoat. “The warmer is in Portia’s room?”
In the shadows, the covers rustled. “Mmf.”
He pulled his shirt over his head, his arms protesting the movement. The rustling paused, then resumed, then stopped.
Was this how a woman felt when a man had paid her to disrobe for him? Uncertain, shy, a bit aroused, and silly?
No answering movement came from the bed. David put aside awkward questions, tugged off his boots and stockings, then undid his falls.
He’d never been particularly self-conscious about his body, never given a thought to taking off his clothes when sharing a bed with a woman, and yet, he wanted Letty’s permission before he burdened her with his nudity.
“Letty-love?”
Nothing, not even a sigh.
He shucked out of his breeches, used the wash water, and climbed into the bed next to the woman already fast asleep under the covers.
***
Letty was cheating.
Instead of saying her prayers, kneeling by the bed—the only posture from which evening prayer could be heard by the Almighty—she was saying her prayers snuggled under the warmth of her quilts.
She was cheating not only by praying under the covers, but also in the content of her prayers. Good King George did not receive mention, or his queen, or his progeny, or the Archbishop of Canterbury. Letty’s own family was relegated to a passing reference, though Portia received mention.
What Letty prayed for most was fortitude, for the prospect of David Worthington, unclad and washing off at the end of a long day, made her throat ache and her insides restless. He was beautiful, the weary grace of his bathing impossible to ignore. Firelight gilded lean flanks, muscular limbs, and a torso worthy of any hero from antiquity.
And then her prayers turned to thanksgiving, because finally, years after parting with her innocence, Letty Banks experienced what it was to want a man.
She allowed herself the space of two deep, even breaths to appreciate the object of her desire from behind nearly closed eyes, to memorize the magnificent bodily proportions and severe male angles of his face, then closed her eyes.
A cheat she might be, but not a hypocrite. Letty did not pray for forgiveness for her prurient longings; nor did she pray that she’d be delivered from them. She prayed instead that the images she’d seen of David Worthington as God made him stayed with her into her dreams.
And into her old age.
Six
David awoke to warmth and the certainty that he was not at any of his various domiciles. The scent of roses came to him next, and a vague worry—
Portia. Though if she’d worsened in the night, Desdemona would have fetched him.
As the relief of that realization warred with the temptation to let sleep reclaim him, David’s gaze fell on a copy of Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue on the night table, and the rest of the puzzle snapped into place.
He was sharing a bed with Letty, her knee casually pressed against his thigh. And just as he knew he’d at various times cuddled her close during the night, he also knew he ought to get out of that bed, find his clothes, and check on his patient.
“Don’t go.” Letty hadn’t moved, hadn’t given herself away by so much as a change in her breathing, but she regarded him from her pillows, her gaze solemn and alert in the gloom. “The sun’s not even up yet.”
Staying in bed with her while she slept was stupid; staying in bed with her when she was awake was… stupider. What came out of David’s mouth next was stupidest of all.
“I should tend the fire.” Because if the coals went out, somebody would have to start the thing all over, and David did not trust the lazy housekeeper to do it. Then too, cold air could dampen arousal more effectively than could stern lectures about common sense.
Letty reached past him for a glass of water, took a sip, then offered it to him. When he’d accepted her offering, she pushed his hair off his brow and settled back against the pillows, their exchange having all the familiarity of a couple long married.
“You banked the coals thoroughly before you came to bed.”
She’d been peeking the previous night, then. The knowledge cheered him. “Letty, if I stay in this bed—”
They’d make love. Share a little pleasure, scratch the itch adults of both genders enjoyed scratching. His cock could think of no better way to start the day. So why was he hesitating?
“You could have any fellow at The Pleasure House, you know. All of them. A different title for every night of the week. Why me?”
When he feared she might laugh at his question or mock the insecurity trying to mask itself as curiosity, Letty instead shifted closer, draping a leg over his hips. “You will think me ridiculous.”
He scooted to the middle of the bed, near enough to tuck her crown under his chin. “Never. Not about this.”
Letty’s nose was cold. David knew this because she buried her face against his throat, and used the leg she’d hitched around his hips to draw herself closer.
“I have never understood desire. As a girl, I understood that to leave my father’s house, I’d have to engage in certain acts with my husband, and I was curious. I understand curiosity. When I got to London, I was no longer curious, though I became resigned. I thought perhaps loneliness had something to do with it, and then too, one must eat—”
David kissed her, lest her confessions become more heartbreaking. “You deserve desire, Letty Banks. You’ve parted with your innocence and nearly starved as a result. The goddamned least you deserve is desire, pleasure, and satisfaction.”
And she trusted him—him—to give them to her.
“I am a madam,” she said, in the same tones she might have said, I have given my kingdom for a mess of pottage. “I would learn something of desire.”
“Right now, you are the woman sharing a bed with me. The woman who will share pleasure with me.”
David trailed his palm over her nipple, letting that movement be the only caress he offered. He would accustom her to his touch and to the pleasures it could yield rather than distract her with more kisses—for now.
Letty’s fingers came up to encircle David’s wrist where his hand poised over
her breast, her touch was neither restraining nor encouraging.
“You will enjoy this, Letty-love.” A mandate, instead of a prediction. David enjoyed it, liked the ease and warmth of being snuggled up with her, the sense of wonder and intimacy.
“I might.”
“You might enjoy this too, then,” he murmured, closing his fingers gently over her nipple and offering her the slightest pressure. She closed her eyes in response, while David detected the barest arching up against his hand, the smallest token of encouragement.
This should have felt like work. To move so slowly, one caress, one sigh, one touch at a time—it should have been frustrating, and even tedious, but encouraging Letty’s passion was no more work than unwrapping a long-anticipated gift. Even a casual partner deserved the courtesy of arousal, but David was also learning Letty, learning her responses even as she was learning them herself.
The realization was humbling and exhilarating, and even greater than the gift of Letty’s responses was the gift of her trust.
“Kiss me?” she whispered.
Satisfaction rose up, fueling greater arousal. She had asked him for something, a small something, by arching her back slightly. A not-so-small something by asking for his kisses.
To his utter pleasure, she followed up her request by taking a small kiss for herself.
And we’re off.
But it was the most languid start to an erotic race David had ever known. Letty’s lips trailed over his, her tongue shyly inviting his into the kiss. She did arch her back then, pressing the fullness of her breast against his hand with unmistakable entreaty. He obliged, letting his caress become a gloriously sensual exploration of the weight, contours, and responsiveness of her breasts. And even as he provoked more arching and sighing from her, he deepened the kisses, using lips, breath, and tongue to orally mimic the act of copulation.
“I wasn’t going to allow this,” she whispered.
He had to focus on her admission, another gift that surpassed the mere, predictable endearments the situation might have merited. “You weren’t going to allow me to touch you?”
“I wasn’t going to allow myself to want.”
Maybe a woman who’d lost her innocence had to learn the art of not wanting, because much, much, was no longer hers to even wish for. That conclusion brought with it anger and sadness, which had no place in the same bed with a man who sought to bring his lady pleasure.
David trailed his mouth down her neck, then along her sternum. He pillowed his cheek on the swell of one exposed breast and paused deliberately.
He wanted Letty to anticipate his next touch, and wanted time to gather his wits. The last thing he could afford was to rush her, to give her any excuse to marshal her defenses or to direct her practical, thinking mind to what happened when intimacies became meaningful.
She wanted to know about desire, about intimate and pleasurable bodily sensations.
Lest his own mind hare off in the direction of desires of the heart, David raised himself over her, and slowly—giving her time to anticipate—lowered his mouth to her nipple. Her hands came around the back of his head, again neither pulling him to her nor thrusting him away, as if her fingers and palms could eavesdrop on the pleasure he was visiting on her breast.
And pleasure it was. When he drew on her nipple, he surrendered to bliss shot through with bright streaks of something hotter and more intense. A sigh that edged toward a groan escaped Letty, and David paused, treasuring even that sound, before resuming his pleasuring. Her fingers moved on his nape, massaging, and eventually, holding him to her.
But so lightly, only a hint of an embrace, the merest suggestion of an invitation. The pace of their caresses, like the deliberate steps of an old pavane, forced David’s own arousal to unbearable intensity, but still he held back. Letty was becoming interested, but she was not yet in pursuit of a goal. She was letting David lead her, because a need for her own gratification hadn’t yet begun to drive her.
David moved his mouth to the second breast, which allowed him to lean more of his weight onto his lover. In response to his cock’s insistent demands, he flexed against the crest of Letty’s hip. Moving felt good, not good enough, but better than completely ignoring his own wants, so he set up a slow, lazy rhythm, pressing himself to her hip, then easing back, only to press in again.
Letty’s hands went on a quest, slipping down his back, around his hips, then back up, into his hair, over his face, and off again. She had the most provocative touch: light, curious, and increasingly bold. When her fingers feathered over David’s throat, chest, and face, pausing to explore his lips, it was his turn to sigh and moan.
“Easy, love,” he murmured, “or we’ll finish too soon.”
Her hand stilled over his heart. He covered it with his own and dropped his forehead to her collarbone. Their position was a variation on the embrace of the waltz, with her arm around his back and their hands joined. Letty waited unmoving, and again, David had the sense she was trusting him, willing to follow his lead for yet a few more steps.
Because he’d managed to find the most innocent madam ever to preside over immoral commerce in the history of London.
He glossed his palm down her breastbone, taking his time, exploring the contours of her ribs, then the smooth, flat plane of her belly and her hip bones. She remained still as his hand trailed lower, holding her breath physically and perhaps emotionally as well.
“Let me pleasure you,” he whispered, kissing her neck below her ear, where her rosy scent was sweet and strong. “Let me ease the ache for you.”
He entreated, because what she wanted was an experience of pleasure, and what David wanted was to give that to her, and in a way her previous paramours had sadly neglected to do. For reasons novel and unexamined, he needed to be different from his predecessors, and was curiously grateful for their ineptitude.
He shifted up, enough to kiss Letty properly, and found to his horror that tears had gathered in her eyes. The sight pierced him with a profound sadness, and worse, a tenderness for Letty, who should have been beyond the reach of tears when sharing intimacies.
“I want only to pleasure you, Letty,” he said, sifting his fingers through the curls shielding her sex. “We needn’t do more.”
As it turned out, he hardly needed to do anything. His fingers learned the soft, damp contours of her intimate flesh, and explored the responses he could inspire by attention to the seat of her pleasure.
“I’ll go softly,” he whispered, kissing the corner of her mouth when she wrapped her grip around his wrist. “Close your eyes and trust me.”
She would never entirely trust him, but she might tolerate him as a lover. That thought made him patient, determined, and attentive, such that her every little sigh and hitched breath informed his fingers, his mouth—and his self-restraint.
Pleasure took her silently and beautifully. She turned her face into David’s throat while her body convulsed, the contractions of sufficient strength he could feel them as he palmed her sex.
She remained against him when it was over, burrowed into his embrace, her restraint and misgivings nowhere in evidence.
Something peculiar turned over in David’s chest. She’d trusted him, just as he’d asked. Maybe not quite as much as he’d wished—and when had he ever courted a woman’s trust?—but she had. He would not betray that trust with selfishness now.
They remained thus for several minutes, Letty’s breathing gradually returning to normal. When David levered his body over hers, she allowed it, her hands finding their way to his hair, and then in slow strokes, to the long muscles of his back. He settled his weight on her, hoping it brought comfort, at least.
“May I ease myself on you, Letty?” He punctuated the question with a slide of his hips that had his cock gliding along Letty’s damp flesh. In reply, she brushed her lips across his, then wrapped her arms tightly a
round his waist.
Acceptance, then, of a request, if not of him.
David repeated the movement, a slow hitch of his hips that moved his cock tightly against her.
For long moments, he was content with that pleasure. He toyed with the knowledge that he could change the angle ever so slightly and be inside her. She was a madam and assuredly not a virgin, so she knew well the risks she ran with what she allowed.
If he’d asked for more, she might have granted it, but as arousal rose in David’s blood, he also knew that permission was not going to be enough. When—not if—when Letty took him as her lover, it would be because she wanted him for herself, not because she permitted him liberties.
So he rocked against her slowly, savoring the heat and feel of her beneath him. She held him closely, not the embrace of a woman tolerating an obligation, but the embrace of one who could become his lover.
He lifted his hips to trap his cock against her belly, and thrust a few more slow, powerful strokes. As he came in hard, hot spasms, Letty kissed him on the mouth.
The relief David tasted in that kiss eradicated any lingering sense of frustration. It vindicated his judgment that Letty hadn’t been ready to take him as a lover in the fullest sense of the word, though that mattered little compared to how much intimacy she was willing to grant him.
David’s satisfaction was more than sexual as he returned Letty’s kiss. He was content, for now, to have given her as much pleasure as he could, to have shared pleasure with her. The contentment surprised him, but there it was.
He straightened his arms, fished on the night table for his handkerchief, and used it to swipe gently at Letty’s stomach and then at himself. He tossed the handkerchief aside and rolled onto his back, wrestling Letty into lying against him.
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