“Then sort away. Neither Jennings nor I have had time to properly look over the books for the last quarter at least. I wouldn’t put it past any of the three chefs to skim, though I would expect them to be clever about it. Look into it, but don’t spend too much time searching for lost pennies. Sometimes the effort to recover what’s gone missing exceeds the pleasure of having it restored.”
His words left innuendo hanging in the air, and not the sort of innuendo that would land a man in bed with his madam. Before he could misstep further, David kissed Letty’s cheek and took himself back out into the frigid, windy day.
Becoming intimate with Letty had not been a mistake, but rather, a revelation. She was the least qualified mistress he could have chosen, and for that reason, the woman he was most determined to have under his protection. On that befuddling thought, he turned his steps in the direction of his solicitors’ office, and dared the sullen sky to dump more snow on him.
Seven
“You needn’t skulk around to the back.”
As Letty stood at his back door, David shot a glower over her shoulder in the direction of the mews, clearly unhappy with her for using a servants’ entrance.
Which was just too perishing bad.
“It’s Sunday, your lordship,” Letty chided as she brushed past him into the spacious empty kitchen of his town house. “People are about and at their most pious. I should not be seen merrily thumping on your front door.”
Letty removed her bonnet, taking in spotless counters, gleaming copper-bottomed pots, and a tea kettle steaming on the hob. Also a copy of The Wealth of Nations facedown on the table, suggesting her employer had been lurking here in his kitchen, waiting for her.
“That reminds me.” David went to the hallway and bellowed for a footman. “Take the knocker down, would you, Merck? I am not at home, save to family in a dire emergency.” He picked up the ledger Letty had brought and offered her his free arm. “Let’s away to the library, and we’ll study your figures, unless you’d like a tour of the house first?”
Of course she would, so she might torment herself with visions of her employer in his private rooms, or preparing for bed of a night. Perhaps he’d planned as much when he’d made the unusual suggestion that they meet here.
“This is not a social call, your lordship.” It wasn’t a call of any sort; it was a meeting between employer and employee to discuss matters that ought not to be overheard at the business location. Portia and Desdemona were yet at Letty’s house, or she might have invited his lordship there instead.
David’s expression became cajoling, though his gaze was wounded. “It’s just a house, Letty.”
He honestly wanted to show her his house.
Of all the sins he might entice her into, touring the house was not so very wicked. On the strength of that dubious logic, Letty allowed David to show her first the understory, where the kitchens, butler’s pantry, servants’ parlor, laundry, stillroom, and storage were located. All was spotless, tidy, and pleasant, much like The Pleasure House.
The ground floor was a testament to good taste and quiet elegance. The scent of beeswax and lemon wafted from gleaming wood surfaces—the floors, furniture, even the wainscoting shone with good care and excellent craftsmanship. The house bore small touches of pleasure for the eye—a hothouse rose in a vase in the hallway, a small painting at eye level of a quiet domestic scene.
“Is that a Vermeer?” Letty asked, stepping closer.
“It is. Greymoor gave it to me. Said it was going to waste on his estate in Sussex—no one ever saw it there.”
Letty closed her eyes and let a wave of something—wonder, sadness, longing—pass through her. What kind of world did David Worthington live in, that family would casually gift one another with the work of an old master?
The exotic was subtly in evidence as well, small stone carvings of chubby, smiling fellows, that to Letty’s eye looked Eastern in origin. A little elephant in a dark wood sat on an end table, the shine of the piece so lustrous it begged to be touched.
“I rub him for luck,” David said, following Letty’s gaze. “I was shipwrecked off of India, and this little piece of the cargo floated by, followed by a sizable spar. I snatched onto the spar and later found him washed up on the beach beside me.”
“You have had such adventures.”
“Traveling,” he said dryly, “is often more adventurous than one would wish. Let’s go upstairs.”
More torment, more pretty, exquisitely tasteful rooms that underscored how different Letty’s station was from her employer’s. They started with a formal drawing room and a family parlor, then three guest bedrooms, and David’s suite of rooms—a sitting room, dressing room, and bedroom. Each chamber was both elegant and comfortable, the colors lighter than Letty would have guessed, given that she was visiting a bachelor household. David’s bedroom and sitting room held more delicate, aromatic roses, and a cat—a large, long-haired gray cat—sat in the middle of David’s huge four-poster.
“What a magnificent specimen he is.” In two quick strides, Letty was leaning onto the bed, scratching the cat, for every self-respecting vicarage sported at least one cat, and she’d missed their company. “And you have such a wonderful rumble,” she told the cat, stroking plush fur. “He’s exactly what I would have imagined you would have for a pet. Elegant, self-possessed, and lord of all he sleeps on.”
David lounged against the bedpost, his expression similar to the cat’s. “Was that a risqué comment?”
“Not about a cat,” she replied, straightening from the bed. “You have a lovely house, my lord. Shall we go downstairs?”
His rooms bore his scent, spicy, vaguely Eastern, and beguiling, and the sooner Letty had her nose in the blighted ledger, the better.
“Soon.”
Abruptly, Letty recalled they were in his bedroom, with no one to chaperone except a cat, whose morals were only slightly less suspect than his owner’s.
Or, of course, her own.
David prowled over to her and brushed a lock of hair off her neck. The gesture was casual, not even erotic, and yet when he walked around behind her, Letty’s heart began to beat hard against her ribs.
She had one instant—between when his breath warmed her neck and when his lips brushed softly across her nape—to pull away. He repeated the caress, and the effect was… aggravating. Letty had told herself she’d exaggerated his skill and his appeal. Told herself she was merely lonely, he was attractive, and his attentions were flattering.
She had not exaggerated his skill, damn him, and damn his deft, delicate kisses to unlikely places, too.
“I want to take you to bed, Letty,” he murmured. “That bed, right there. I want to make passionate love to you, not carefully appease our lusts.” His arms crossed at her waist, which meant he could settle a hand over each of her breasts.
A single white rosebud in a blue porcelain vase graced the night table, reminding Letty of a summer night when she’d lost her future in a rose arbor.
“Nothing has changed, my lord. You can still get a bastard on me, and I will not be your mistress.” She made her declaration in tones more forlorn than resolute, and let her head fall back against his shoulder.
“Come with me to the library,” he said, stepping away. “I’ve put the solicitors to work, and they’ve drafted a document you must see. I was hoping,” he said as he led her through the house, “that you might simply melt into my arms, swear undying lust for me, and avoid the mundane considerations. But you won’t, for which I adore you, of course. And though I don’t want to offend you, I do want you, Letty.”
He said this with the air of a man who’d argued himself to that conclusion, and as he towed her through the house, he was a man on a mission other than seduction.
When they reached a paneled library—more perfectly placed roses, a cozy fire, and the scent of well-cared-for old
books—he went to a desk and extracted a document tied with a red ribbon.
“Read this, please.” He slapped the document into her hand, like a gauntlet cast down before an opponent, then went back to the desk and perched upon its writing surface.
The paper was expensive and watermarked with a crest Letty presumed was his. She sat before the fire and read the words tidily set forth, or translated them, for the document was legal.
“Well?” he asked when she looked up.
“This isn’t very well drafted.”
Clearly, not the reaction he’d anticipated. “You want more money? That can certainly—”
For pity’s sake. She took up a perch beside him on the desk, feeling self-conscious that she should have to instruct him on a matter of business, though bless him a thousand times, he’d grasped the basic idea.
She would not whore for him.
“This document provides that I be paid a generous sum certain, upon proof that I have conceived a child, David, that’s all. The child need not be yours, the child need not survive birth, nor does the child even have to be born out of wedlock. The document doesn’t serve your interests at all.”
He regarded her for a moment with what Letty thought was consternation. “Portia’s circumstances are an example of mere conception ruining a woman’s prospects. I don’t want to see that happen to you, Letty.”
“I would not do as Portia did.” Letty needed for him to know that. “There is no requirement—”
“A difficult delivery,” he retorted, “even a difficult miscarriage, can mean your circumstances forever change. Portia may be taking her life in her hands should she ever bed down with another man. Barring a miracle, she’ll find no tolerant yeoman to be her husband. If her dress shop fails, then what is left to her?”
Portia wasn’t stupid. She’d be back on David’s doorstep with another well-rehearsed plea for support, and Letty would not blame her.
“I take your point,” Letty allowed, “but all this document requires is that I disclose my condition to you. You do not require that the child even be conceived while you are extant, or—”
“Enough quibbling.” David rolled up the document and retied the ribbon with a tidy bow. “My sister Astrid bore Herbert Allen a child nine months after the man’s death. Herbert could not have attested to the paternity of the child, Letty, and when I am not around to look after my child is precisely when I want you to have this money.”
“You are not being very prudent.” Somebody had to impress this upon him, for it appeared his lordship had nobody to look after his interests. “The likelihood I would bear you a posthumous child is small, David. And your solicitors would not willingly part with this sum after your death anyway. How am I to even prove conception, if it comes to that?”
David helped her off the desk and extracted a pen, inkpot, and blotting paper from a drawer. “The funds will be in Douglas Allen’s hands. He thinks well of you, and he will be sympathetic to any woman faced with the prospect of raising an illegitimate child.”
As Portia had slowly recovered, Letty had told herself David was avoiding her, rethinking his options, or coming to his senses. He’d been tightening his hold all the while, even to the point of recruiting minions.
Letty pretended to examine a cutwork snowflake framed behind the desk. The paper was so exactingly rendered, she expected if she touched it, it would be cold. “I’ve met the present Lord Amery only once, but he struck me as both proper and decent.”
“That’s a good description of Douglas. Before she married him, his wife spent five years raising a child on her own. Douglas loves them both, and is a truly good man. He will dispense the funds, should it come to that.”
Which meant David had at least one true friend. Letty dipped the pen and affixed her signature to the page, then dusted it with sand—all without taking a seat at his desk. “Lady Amery’s child would be little Rose?”
“Yes.” David crossed to the sideboard and poured two drinks. “She loved every one of the birthday presents, by the way.”
Plural. He had not heeded Letty’s suggestion that he show restraint in his material generosity. “She loves you,” Letty rejoined. “How do I establish that I’ve conceived, if the obvious evidence isn’t yet available?”
David passed her a drink, and she didn’t bother asking what it was. Anything he served to a guest would be delectable. “Carrying a child leaves medical indicators, subtle changes to your body any skilled physician or midwife will be able to note.”
And had he made different choices, David might have been one of those physicians, just as Letty might have been a curate’s wife. “Is this a toast we’re making?”
She’d caught him off guard—a moment to savor. He set his drink aside, and when another man would have come closer—presumptuously closer—David instead turned his gaze to the cheery fire. “Does that imply,” he said over his shoulder, “that you will sleep with me, Letty? That you will let me make love to you, copulate, have sex?”
“You need not be so blunt. I take your meaning.”
And yet, she also understood, because he kept his back to her, because he was a man of delicate sensibilities, that her answer mattered to him.
“I will never again,” Letty said slowly, “be respectable. I don’t like that, but there it is. You make it possible for me to have some security, regardless of my fall from grace, and you are right: I deserve consolation for my loss of reputation. So I will make love with you, David, and I will enjoy it for as long as I can, but you must not expect me to…”
He came no nearer, but he turned and watched her closely with his beautiful, mismatched eyes. “Yes?”
“You mustn’t expect me to be your fancy piece, to flounce around the theatre with you, to parade in the park at the fashionable hour. I need privacy in our dealings. I am not sleeping with you for money.”
And she was not sleeping with him out of any wide-eyed notions that their relationship was a romance, which left… what as her motivation? Loneliness? Foolishness, perhaps? Selfishness?
Still, he did not touch her. “I understand that. You will be paid to raise a child, Letty, if a child should be conceived. You receive nothing simply for taking me as your lover.”
That somewhat annoyed summary assuaged Letty’s beleaguered sense of decency, though his words weren’t entirely accurate either.
“To be your lover is not nothing. It is the furthest thing from nothing, at least for me, though I’m not exactly sure how we go about this.”
He leaned an elbow against the mantel, smiling slightly. “I fall upon you and tear your clothes off right here and now, then chase you naked through the house, for starters. With the exception of Merck, who will not come above stairs unless I ring, the staff is off at services or visiting family, after all.”
He was teasing her, a kindness that imbued Letty with exactly half an iota of confidence. “You have it backward, my lord,” she said, strolling toward him. “I shall fall upon you and do the chasing.”
“My mistake,” he said, wrapping his arms around her.
Letty leaned into him, resting her forehead against his chest, for her knees had gone abruptly unreliable.
“We go about this, Letty, however you would like. I can come to you at your house or at The Pleasure House, or you can simply stay with me here from time to time.”
His sandalwood scent was soothing, while his willingness to accommodate her was unnerving, underscoring that at her insistence, theirs was not a professional relationship. Had she taken his coin, he might have set terms—times, places, even days and hours and articles of clothing. Herbert certainly had.
But now, they must talk, must negotiate and discuss, which was a measure of intimacy Letty had not anticipated.
“My preference,” he went on, “would be for you to remain with me tonight and perhaps tomorrow night, and w
e will see how we go on from there.”
Letty nodded and stayed right where she was, burrowed against his chest, his exotic scent enveloping her as did the heat from his very body. The notion of entertaining him at her own house was insupportable, and besides, Mrs. Holcombe was soon to take another post in one of Douglas Allen’s lesser-used residences. Letty was considering allowing the lease to lapse.
“Are you unsure, Letty-love?”
“Not unsure.” He’d met her terms, given her what she’d said she wanted. “Anxious.” And sad, because in accepting him as a lover, a pleasurable, intimate, and temporary companion, she’d forged a compromise between her conscience and a heart grown perilously weary.
“I will not deal with you cavalierly, Letty. I keep my promises.”
“We will try very hard not to hurt each other.” And they would fail. In fact, he already had.
“Would you like to go upstairs now?” He grazed his lips across Letty’s brow, so he spoke his words against her skin.
What she wanted was to be good again, to be innocent and whole in ways a sixteen-year-old girl could not even comprehend were precious.
“You would like to go upstairs now,” Letty said, though going upstairs was a homespun euphemism for deeds that with him would be more breathtaking than words could convey.
“I want to cherish you, Letty, in the broad light of day. I want to worship you with my body.” His word choice was unfortunate, echoing phrases of the wedding ceremony—unfortunate or humorous.
“Let’s go upstairs, then,” she said, leaning up to kiss his cheek.
He kept an arm around her shoulders as he led her from the room. When they got to the bottom of the stairs, he startled her by slipping another arm behind her knees and lifting her against his chest. She curled into his strength, knowing the romantic gesture was for her, and appreciating its sweetness.
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