Douglas: Lord of Heartache (The Lonely Lords)

by Burrowes, Grace

  “My apologies for intruding.” Jennings appropriated a serviette from an empty place setting and swaddled a pilfered pear in spotless linen. “I thought you’d want to know that Musette and Isabella got into a fight with Desdemona and are threatening to open their own business catering to women who enjoy other women.”

  Not a spat, a tiff, a disagreement, or an argument, but a fight.

  Please, God, may the girls’ aspirations bear fruit. “I fail to see how this involves me.” David paused for a sip of his tea, a fine gunpowder a fellow ought to have the privacy to linger over of a cold and frosty morning. “If the women are enterprising enough to make a go of that dodgy venture, then they have my blessing.”

  Though dodgy wasn’t quite fair. London sported several such establishments that David knew of, and each appeared to be thriving.

  “Bella told Desdemona you had offered to finance their dodgy venture,” Jennings informed him, taking an audible bite of pear and managing to do so tidily.

  “Not likely.” Was there a patron saint for people who owned brothels? A patron devil? “Felicity and Astrid are the best of sisters, but they wouldn’t understand my involvement in that sort of undertaking, and, worse yet, their spouses would find it hilarious. I’ll suggest the ladies apply to you for their financing.”

  He shot a toothy smile at Jennings, who’d taken a seat without being invited, a liberty earned through faithful service that dated back well before David’s succession to the Fairly viscountcy.

  “I could,” Jennings mused, “but having seen the challenges facing my employer, I will decline that signal honor.” He saluted with his pear.

  “Such a fate would be no more than you deserve,” David said, pouring Jennings a cup of hot tea and sliding the cream and sugar toward him. “Those women positively fawn over you.”

  Jennings lounged back, long legs crossed at the ankles as he devoured another bite of perfect pear. He managed to look more dangerous than attractive much of the time, but in his unguarded moments, his brown eyes and dark hair could be—and were—called handsome by the ladies. Then too, Thomas Jennings had a well-hidden protective streak roughly equal in breadth to the Pacific Ocean.

  Jennings paused halfway around his pear. “Despite your strange eyes, the ladies are unendingly fond of you, too. No accounting for taste, I suppose.”

  “Their regard is a dubious blessing, at best. Will you at least accompany me to the scene?” Because the physician in David had to see for himself that matters had been resolved without injury to anything more delicate than feminine pride or the occasional crystal vase.

  Jennings rose, pear in hand. “Wouldn’t miss it. I have never been so well entertained as I have since you inherited that damned brothel.”

  While David had never been so beleaguered.

  When he’d dispatched matters at The Pleasure House—a round of scoldings worthy of any headmaster, followed by teary apologies that would have done first formers proud—he departed from the premises with a sense of escape no adult male ought to feel when leaving an elegant bordello.

  As cold as the day was, David still chose to wait with Jennings in the mews behind The Pleasure House for his mare to be brought around. Why David alone could address the myriad petty, consummately annoying conflicts that arose among his employees was a mystery of Delphic proportions.

  “I’ve been meaning to mention something,” Jennings said as David’s gray was led into the yard. With a sense of being hounded by doom, David accepted the reins from the stableboy.

  “Unburden yourself, then, Thomas. The day grows chilly.” And a large house full of feuding women and valuable breakables sat not fifty feet on the other side of the garden wall.

  “Do you recall a Mrs. Letitia Banks?”

  “I do,” David replied, slinging his reins over the horse’s head as an image of dark hair, slim grace, and pretty, sad eyes assailed him. What had Letty Banks seen in David’s late brother-in-law that she’d accepted such a buffoon as her protector?

  “You sent me to advise her regarding investment of a certain sum upon the death of her last protector,” Jennings went on as a single snowflake drifted onto the toe of David’s left boot. “I did that, and she’s had two quarterly payments of interest on her principle since then.”

  David swung up into the saddle, feeling the cold of the seat through his doeskin breeches. “All of which I am sure you handled with your customary discretion.”

  Jennings sighed. “I have.”

  Perishing saints. Thomas Jennings would scowl, smirk, swear, stomp away, or—on rare occasion—even smile, but he wasn’t prone to sighing.

  From his perch on the mare, David studied Thomas, a fellow who, on at least two occasions, had wrought mortal peril on those seeking to harm his employer. “This is a historic day. You are being coy, Thomas.”

  Jennings glanced around, making the day doubly historic, for Jennings evidenced uncertainty no more frequently than he appeared coy. “She spends it.”

  Coy, uncertain, and indirect was an alarming combination coming from Jennings. “Of course she spends it. She is a female in a particular line of business, and she must maintain appearances. Whether she spends the interest or reinvests it with the principle is no business of mine.”

  “She’s not spending it to maintain appearances,” Jennings said. “I believe, despite this income, the lady is in difficulties.”

  David masked his astonishment by brushing his horse’s mane to lie uniformly on the right side of her neck. He wasn’t astonished that Letitia Banks was in difficulties—a courtesan’s life was precarious and often drove even strong women to excesses of drink, opium, gambling, and other expensive vices. What astonished him was that Jennings would comment on the matter.

  “Thomas, I would acquit you of anything resembling a soft heart”—at least to appearances—“but you are distressed by Mrs. Banks’s circumstances. Whatever are you trying to tell me?”

  “I don’t know.” Jennings’s horse was led out, a great, dark brute of a beast, probably chosen to complement its great, dark brute of an owner. “Something about that situation isn’t right, and you should take a look.”

  “Might you be less cryptic? If there is looking to be done”—and Mrs. Banks made for a pleasant look, indeed—“then are you not in a better position to do it than I? I’ve met the lady only once.”

  Months ago, and under difficult circumstances, and yet, she’d lingered at the back of David’s mind, a pretty ghost he hadn’t attempted to exorcise.

  Jennings’s features acquired his signature scowl, which might have explained why the stableboy remained a few paces off with the black gelding. “I haven’t your ability to charm a reluctant female, and my efforts to date meet with a polite, pretty, lusciously scented stone wall.”

  Had Jennings noted that the luscious scent was mostly roses?

  “You mustn’t glower at the lady when you’re trying to tease her secrets from her, Thomas. You aren’t really as bad-looking as you want everyone to think.”

  Jennings took the reins from the groom, and gave the girth a snug pull. “Since coming into that money, she’s let a footman and a groom go, sold a horse, and if I’m not mistaken, parted with some fripperies. She’s reduced to taking a pony cart to market.”

  “Thomas,” David said gently, “she is a professional. She would likely accept you as her next protector, and her financial worries would be solved. In her business, these periodic lapses in revenue happen. She’ll manage.”

  Though the soft-spoken, demure ones usually managed the worst.

  Thomas sighed again, a sigh intended to produce guilt in the one who heard it. “I am asking you to look into her situation.”

  Jennings never asked for anything. He collected his generous pay, occasionally disappeared on personal business, and comported himself as a perfect—if occasionally impertinent and moody�
��man of business. He was both more and less than a friend, and David was attached to him in some way neither man believed merited discussion.

  And really, David could not muster a desire to argue with Jennings on this topic, not even for form’s sake.

  “I will look into it,” David said, touching the brim of his hat before trotting off to his next destination.

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  Acknowledgments

  Douglas and Gwen’s story has been lurking close to my heart since before The Heir came out in December 2010, and The Soldier in June 2011 (where Douglas plays significant supporting roles). This is the tale that acquainted me with the Windham family, and if you read closely, you can see the seeds of much that makes the Windham stories enjoyable.

  I’m particularly indebted to my editor, Deb Werksman, who had the thankless and complicated task of reading manuscript after manuscript of mine, and spinning trilogies and series and sequels from an enormous pile of literary straw.

  And I’m grateful to the many readers who contacted me to ask about the “missing” prequel to the Windham series. Douglas, Gwen, Rose, and I (also Regis, Sir George, and Mr. Bear), appreciate your patience and hope you found the story well worth the wait.

  Grace Burrowes

  About the Author

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Grace Burrowes hit the bestseller lists with her debut, The Heir, followed by The Soldier, Lady Maggie’s Secret Scandal, Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish, and Lady Eve’s Indiscretion. The Heir was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010, The Soldier was a Publishers Weekly Best Spring Romance of 2011, Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish won Best Historical Romance of the Year in 2011 from RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards, Lady Louisa’s Christmas Knight was a Library Journal Best Book of 2012, and The Bridegroom Wore Plaid, the first in her trilogy of Scotland-set Victorian romances, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2012. All of her historical romances have received extensive praise, including starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist.

  Grace is a practicing family law attorney and lives in rural Maryland. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached through her website at graceburrowes.com.