David

by Grace Burrowes

  How easily he flirted. “More precious than netting?”

  “More precious than a good meal after a fantastic loving,” David replied. “But only just, so get in here and let me feed you.”

  To Letty’s amazement, the mood didn’t dissipate when they left the bed. It lightened, but the tenderness and regard still hummed between them as they dined in his sitting room. Between one bite of trifle and the next, Letty had the thought: this is the kind of harmony and closeness in which children should be conceived.

  She choked on her sweet, which provoked David into whacking at her back, then pressing a glass of wine into her hand.

  “Stop fussing, Dr. Worthington.”

  Her form of address startled him into retreating to his side of the table. “My apologies. Perhaps you’d like more wine.”

  She’d like him beside her throughout the meal, throughout the day, throughout…

  “So what,” Letty asked between more bites of trifle, “did your treatise have to say about childbed fever?”

  He watched her chew the way a new mother watched her firstborn fall asleep on a winter night. “The topic isn’t appetizing, Letty.”

  “I asked because I am curious, but if it will put you off your feed, then I can ask later. Will you finish this for me, please?”

  He accepted the remains of her dessert. “The author’s suspicion is that the illness is preventable, if proper precautions are taken.” Before her dessert was gone, he was summarizing theory and giving examples of practice, complete with proper Latin terms and medical phrases.

  “You should hear yourself,” Letty said, recalling the bumbling attentions she’d endured from Little Weldon’s medical practitioners. “One would think you were rooting for your team at a cricket match, you’re so convinced of your position.”

  David used a tiny spoon to stir the salt in the cellar, as if stirring tea leaves. “I know I get carried away, but people die over this—women die—and when the mother is gone, the newborn stands little chance of surviving without her. Most families don’t have the luxury of wet nurses and nannies, and endless supplies of clean nappies. This topic matters.”

  “It does, and it matters to you.”

  “I have endless respect,” he informed the salt, “for women, you know.”

  Letty regarded him patiently, rather than mention that owning a brothel might contradict his words, because in some sense, he was speaking the truth.

  “When Felicity had such difficulty with the twins, I was tempted to take Heathgate to task,” David went on. “A woman doesn’t get herself pregnant—not once in recorded history has a woman impregnated herself—and so I blamed him. He and Greymoor have both indicated clearly, though, that while they are capable of restraint, their wives are not keen on it. My sisters are cursed with bravery and faith in life, beyond what I could muster in their circumstances.”

  How that must bewilder him. “And,” Letty said, taking the salt spoon from him and setting it aside, “they are both carrying again. You are very worried about them.” Worse yet, he did not know how to share his worries in any way that would lessen them. Merciful heavens, Letty knew how that felt.

  David looked away, toward the fire blazing merrily in the hearth. “Felicity especially, though Astrid, being the more diminutive, could also have difficulties.”

  “So who is attending them?”

  He turned a thoughtful gaze on her. “I don’t know.”

  “I’d find out, if I were you.” Letty helped herself to a spoonful of the remaining trifle. “If you aren’t satisfied, then suggest someone you have faith in. This is too important, David, and your family looks to you for guidance in this area. So guide them.”

  “As simple as that?”

  He’d lost a wife and child; he probably hadn’t shared that with his family either. “It is simple,” she admonished him as she passed him a spoonful of dessert. “You know what you suffered when your sister had difficulties. Imagine what her husband and children would suffer were she to die. They will listen to you, David, and you are in a position to choose more wisely than they can.”

  “And when”—he took the bite from the spoon Letty held—“did you become an expert on me and my abilities?”

  Letty put the empty spoon down. “You chose to read a medical treatise rather than nap with me.”

  “I’ll talk to Heathgate,” David said, “and Greymoor, and Amery.”

  Nine

  Four weeks into his affair with Letty Banks, David had come to dread Tuesday mornings. On Mondays, Letty would do her accounts—muttering all the while that something was off—or read in the library while David tended to correspondence. If she had errands to run, he’d take her about in the coach, bringing his letters with him so he might read while she shopped. And while desire was ever present for David, the first firestorm of lust had burned down to pleasures that could be paced, savored, and enjoyed.

  As always, on Tuesday mornings, David made slow, sweet love with Letty in that dark, quiet hour before they rose.

  “Do you fence today?” Letty asked, her fingers drifting through David’s hair.

  “At ten, and I’m to meet Greymoor, Heathgate, and Amery for luncheon.”

  “You should enjoy that.” She caressed his ears, a touch he particularly enjoyed. “You haven’t seen them for some time.”

  She would never accuse him, never ask a difficult question directly, and yet David knew exactly where the conversation was heading.

  He lifted himself away from her, disentangling their bodies. “I have neglected my family.” And because he could not face her as he made that admission, David rose from the bed and busied himself with the sheath he’d used, only to find the damn thing had a small tear near the tip.

  “Then you must make time for them,” Letty replied as he washed off with cold water. “Though as to that, David, they don’t seem to find much time to check in on you.”

  She chided in hints and innuendo, and he hated it. “They are avoiding me.”

  “I see.”

  “What do you see, Letty-love?” He tossed the sheath onto the hearth, where it crackled, then smoked, then burned.

  “David, you need not reserve your weekends for me. You love your family, and I’m sure they miss you.”

  But I love you too.

  The sheath turned to ash, and David returned to the bed, arranging himself over his Puritan mistress who wasn’t his mistress or his Puritan. “Why won’t you marry me?”

  Beneath him, she shrank away. Not a physical withdrawal, for in fact she lay still, but every other part of her went away from him.

  “David, not now.”

  “Did you honestly think I wouldn’t ask again? I want to marry you, to sleep with you every night, not merely twice a week. I want our children to be legitimate. I want to raise them with you, not visit on birthdays or Yuletide, assuming I can sneak away from my other obligations. I want to take you out on my arm. I want my family to love you as much as I do. I do not think”—he dropped his forehead to hers—“that I am asking too much, to have the woman I love for my wife, and devote the remaining years of my life to her happiness.”

  The woman I love… Oh, he was in for it now.

  Letty jerked silently under him, an odd hitching of her body, as if he’d slapped her. He gathered her in his arms and rolled them so she was sprawled on his chest, an embodiment of the weight his heart carried everywhere of late. “I am so sorry. Don’t cry, Letty, please don’t cry…”

  She did cry. As he rocked her and soothed and crooned and comforted, Letty cried as if she’d lost her best friend, which was both disturbing and frustrating, because David could not fathom her stubbornness.

  He hurt for her, and he hurt for himself, for the future he wanted to share with her that she rejected, again, and for no reason. When she lay quiet in his arms, he put the question
to her.

  “Can you at least tell me why, Letty?” Had he ever held a woman this closely and felt her struggling this hard to keep him at a distance?

  “You know how much you love your nieces and nephews? How you dote on them all, remember their birthdays, miss them?”

  “Yes.” Even Jennings had their birthdays memorized.

  “I love children that much too.”

  This was apparently all the reason she would give him, and when they parted that morning, David tried to tell himself that all couples went through rough patches and spats, that not every weekend could be sunshine and roses, that time could heal many problems.

  But his renewed proposal had opened a breach between them, and he knew it.

  ***

  “Good evening, sir.” Letty smiled and curtsied at the gentleman who’d just swept in the front door. “Welcome to The Pleasure House.” Though he looked vaguely familiar, Letty was certain she hadn’t seen him before. He was tall, with damp reddish-brown hair, green eyes, and features that would be handsome were they not scowling so fiercely.

  “It is decidedly not a good evening,” he bit out, diction more crisp than the night air. “I am looking for Mrs. Letitia Banks.”

  “You have found her,” Letty said, keeping her smile in place. “And what may I do for you?”

  “You will please fetch Lord Valentine Windham to me,” the man said, slapping his gloves against a muscular thigh. “I can hear him playing the piano, so don’t attempt to dissemble and tell me he’s not on the premises.”

  The fellow was big, agitated, and rude.

  “If you will follow me to my office, we can summon Lord Valentine to attend you there.”

  He looked like he wanted to argue, so Letty marched off in the direction of the servants’ passage that would spare her grouchy guest a trip through the parlors. She left him pacing her sitting room while she ordered tea, brandy, and sustenance.

  “Mrs. Banks,” her visitor growled, “I do not have time to observe the niceties. If you will please fetch Lord Valentine?”

  “And your business with him would be?”

  “Personal.”

  The food and drink arrived, and rather than allow her footman to gawk, Letty took the tray at the door and sent him off in search of reinforcements.

  “Lord Valentine will join us when he has completed the sonata he is playing. He’s on the slow movement, so it shouldn’t be that much longer.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, if it’s that damned Schubert, it could go on another half hour or more.”

  “Then you have time to eat something and enjoy a hot cup of tea.” Though Letty’s visitor looked like he’d rather be smashing the parlor furniture over Lord Valentine’s head.

  “Mrs. Banks, when my father may be dying, I do not have time for tea and crumpets.” He ran his hand through damp chestnut hair in a gesture reminiscent of Lord Valentine.

  The puzzle pieces snapped together.

  “Lord Westhaven,” she said gently, “particularly if your father is dying, you need to be mindful of your own care. Eat, please, and your brother will be here soon enough.”

  He eyed the door, and looked for one moment as if he might go storming through the house, grab his errant brother by the scruff of the neck, and haul him bodily into the night.

  And wouldn’t the gossips have a holiday then?

  “No one saw you come in,” Letty said, for Lord Valentine had never described this brother as anything less than hopelessly proper. “Nobody except Watkins, and he is very, very discreet.”

  “Watkins?”

  “My head footman. How do you like your tea?”

  “Strong, plenty of cream and sugar,” Westhaven said, managing to sound peevish about even this admission.

  Letty held out a hand. “Give me your cape. There’s a fire going in the next room as well, and we can at least start on drying you out.”

  When he’d surrendered his sodden cape—a sumptuous black garment woven of lambs’ wool—Letty handed him a mug, not a delicate little cup, but a mug, of hot tea.

  “You might as well eat,” she said when she’d dealt with his cape. “Your brother will be here shortly, and the food is good.”

  He gave her a curious look, and picked up the bowl and spoon. “You aren’t joining me?” he asked, taking a seat before her hearth.

  “It’s a little late for manners, your lordship. I’m sorry your father is ill.”

  “God, so am I,” he said, sounding not at all imperious. “This is good.” In the ensuing minutes, the soup disappeared, as did bread, butter, cheese, and slices of pear.

  “Shall I ring for more?”

  “No, thank you.” He sat back, having left not one scrap of food on the plate. He was a ducal heir—a largish, restless ducal heir, for pity’s sake—but he ate as if nobody fed him regularly.

  “Has he been unwell for long?” Letty asked, refilling Westhaven’s mug of tea.

  “No.” Westhaven watched her hands, something in his appraisal male without being disrespectful. “Moreland is hunt mad, and because winter was late this year, he thought to get in one more week with the hounds before the ground softened. A chest cold became lung fever, and he isn’t rallying. The physicians have been bleeding him regularly, but I see no improvement.”

  And clearly, Westhaven wanted desperately for his father to rally. “If he dies, you are left with the dukedom.”

  “And may God help me,” Westhaven muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face.

  “Letty?” David’s voice cut in softly from the door. “Have you a visitor?”

  She hadn’t seen David in days, and the mere sound of his voice set her insides fluttering. He’d spent the previous weekend with his sisters, and had left Letty to her own devices since. They’d kept in touch by writing notes, though Letty was trying hard to let something unspeakably precious die.

  David came to stand beside her, which was telling, when a duke’s son lounged by the hearth.

  “Lord Westhaven awaits his brother,” Letty explained. “There is illness in the family, and Lord Valentine is needed.”

  “Not the duchess, I hope?” David said.

  “His Grace,” Westhaven replied. “Lung fever, and as stubborn as Moreland is, he isn’t getting any better.”

  “Who attends him?” David’s hand had slipped into Letty’s, while she stood beside him, relishing the small contact and wishing ducal heirs to perdition.

  “Perry, assisted by Stephens,” Westhaven replied wearily. “They are underfoot constantly.”

  “And utterly useless,” David shot back. “They will bleed him to death, Westhaven. Get rid of them, or at least forbid any more bloodletting.”

  “They are his personal physicians. I couldn’t get rid of them if I tried.” Which must have been brutally frustrating for a man so taken with his own consequence.

  “Then try harder, unless you crave the dukedom that badly.”

  “That’s the last thing I want.”

  David left Letty’s side to rifle her escritoire. He scrawled something on a piece of paper and shoved it at Westhaven. “These men are competent. They won’t talk to your mother like she’s three years old, they won’t let your father bully them, and they will offer effective treatment. Other than bleeding him, what are Perry and Stephens doing?”

  “Drinking vast amounts of brandy, cluttering up the sickroom.” Westhaven helped himself to a third cup of tea, then offered Letty a look that was probably the ducal version of sheepish. “They mutter about humors and vapors and such, but I haven’t really seen them do anything.”

  “The congestion should be treated with steam and poultices,” David said, making more notes. “The inflammation and pain with willow bark tea. Use laudanum sparingly, and only if he isn’t getting any rest, and for God’s sake, keep offering him food and drink.
”

  “Westhaven?” Lord Valentine Windham stood in the doorway, looking handsome and bewildered. “What on earth could bring you to a brothel?”

  “His Grace,” Westhaven said, draining his mug of tea. “Moreland has taken a turn for the worse. I thought you would want to know.”

  “Of course I want to know, and might I say, you look like hell yourself.”

  “Valentine,” Westhaven growled, one fist going to a hip. “I did not jeopardize my own health and that of my horse for the privilege of trading insults—”

  “Now, children,” David interjected, “you have more important things to do than scrap in front of the neighbors. My coach and team are waiting in the mews, and you, Westhaven, may borrow my cloak.” He swept it from his shoulders and settled it around Westhaven’s shoulders in an oddly fraternal gesture. “It’s pouring out there, and cold as Hades. Watkins!”

  The footman came on the run, then left to fetch Lord Valentine’s cloak as well.

  “Letty.” David turned a smile on her that featured a number of perfect teeth. “Have we any of the medicinal stuff on hand?”

  “Of course.” She left the room, knowing full well David was being more than hospitable to a pair of ducal offspring. He’d conjured this errand to give him privacy with the Windham brothers, though Letty was at a loss to fathom why.

  ***

  David turned back to his guests in time to see Westhaven’s gaze following Letty’s retreating figure, and the poor sod wasn’t even subtle about it.

  “That,” Westhaven said pensively, “is one particularly fine woman. She has…”

  “Grace,” Lord Valentine said wistfully.

  “Not only grace,” his brother mused. “It’s more—”

  “It’s more,” David said, “that she’s spoken for, and you can’t have her.” Westhaven would never stoop to the company of a woman who wasn’t at least nominally associated with the peerage, in any case—would he?

  “At least for now,” Westhaven concluded.

  They were very civilly glaring at each other when Letty returned moments later with two silver flasks and Windham’s coat. Oblivious to the undercurrents, she handed the brandy to David and held up the cloak for Lord Val, who slipped into it, buttoned up, and tucked a brandy flask in the inside pocket.