David Lord of Honor

Three




At David’s question, Mrs. Banks nodded slowly, up and down once.

What answer did she want to hear?

What answer did he want to give?

Arousal, jolly and warm, coursed through him. Not the usual physical arousal that came from flirting and strutting, but something fresh, something optimistic, like a seasoned hound baying merrily on the scent of a fox new to the neighborhood.

He straightened the crease of his breeches and kept his legs crossed.

“You are a mature, worldly woman who has been without male companionship for some time. Is it so unreasonable to consider I might be worth your attention, should you be so inclined?”

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?”

“Yes.”

Thomas was pouting—or brooding. “When?”

“The first of the year, the same as we have all the chimneys cleaned on this property. There are other ways to keep a woman warm at night besides spending a fortune on velvet nobody will ever see.”

David snatched the fabric from him and folded it into a tidy square. “You won’t be keeping Mrs. Banks warm, Thomas.”

Though he’d be keeping her safe, of course. Jennings was constitutionally incapable of allowing a woman to put her safety at risk, and the employees of The Pleasure House seemed to sense this about him.

“I own I am puzzled.” Jennings rose from the dressing stool, the thing creaking as if in relief.

“You are not puzzled,” David said, folding up the blue velvet, which he’d nearly chosen because it was a regal color, and he’d thought Letty—Mrs. Banks—might prefer it. “You are baiting your employer, who is not in the mood to be trifled with.”

“I think you rather are,” Jennings replied, running a blunt finger over the mantel and inspecting it for dust. “I think a good trifling might improve your disposition considerably.”

David left off folding the length of green velvet. The piece was clearly a castoff, asymmetric, the color washed out across one corner. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Jennings used the broom from the hearth set to brush a stray bit of ash back into the fireplace. “A week ago, you suggested I offer Mrs. Banks carte blanche, now you’re telling me to keep my hands off of her.”

David was not in the least fooled by Jennings’s impersonation of a chambermaid. A question was being asked, one David could answer clearly.

“Thomas,” he said gently, “I am, somewhat to my own surprise, saying that very thing. You, the patrons, that trio of expensive flirts in the kitchen, the bootboy—you will all keep your hands off Mrs. Banks.”

Jennings set the broom back where it belonged. “Leaving only one matter undecided.”

They’d spent much of the afternoon choosing bed hangings, having the footmen replace the area rugs, the curtains, and the pillows, and having a chaise brought down from the attics. All in all, the formerly unused bedroom behind the kitchens of The Pleasure House was looking quite lovely.

Though it needed sachets hung on the bedposts and window sashes. Lavender was always pleasant, and rose could be very nice, too.

“And that undecided matter would be?” David asked, because Jennings was smirking again.

“Whether you’ll be getting your hands on the lady.”

David said nothing, for the answer to that question wasn’t his to give.

***

“Tell me,” Letty said, a shade too brightly, “did the Doncaster sisters ever make good on their threat to move to Bristol to be with their niece?”

Daniel looked ready to launch gamely into that riveting topic, when Danny came hurtling into the room. “I want Aunt Letty to come see my pony!”

Letty smiled at the child’s enthusiasm. “I didn’t know you had a pony, Danny.”

“It’s not real. It’s a rocking horse, so I can practice.”

“Does your rocking horse have a name?” Letty asked, heart constricting at the earnestness in the child’s expression.

“No, Aunt Letty. It isn’t a real horse. It’s a practice horse, like a toy.”

“Don’t be encouraging flights of imagination in the child,” Olivia chided from her seat nearest the fire. “You would have him name the rocking horse as if it were a doll. And, Danny, you have interrupted your elders.”

Letty stood and held out her hand to Danny. “Even if it has no name, I should like to see it. Danny?”

And Danny’s parents let her go, which made every moment on the coach and all of Olivia’s disapproving glances of no moment. Letty admired his horse, read stories to him, asked him endless patient questions about his studies, his friends, his hopes and dreams. Thrilled with the attention from his favorite—and only—aunt, Danny chattered on and on and on, until Daniel fetched Letty for dinner.

“Are there children in Fairly’s household?” Daniel asked as he escorted her down the steps.

“He isn’t married.” Letty paused on a small landing to study a sketch she’d done of Danny as an infant, because this was not a discussion to be held within earshot of Olivia.

“How old is this Lord Fairly?”

“Probably about your age.” Or five years Daniel’s junior.

“I’m nearly two-and-thirty, Letty,” Daniel reminded her, “and I would not, were I a bachelor, condone having an unmarried housekeeper eight years my junior, not even in residences I barely use. This is not what I would wish for you.”


That disappointed tone was as close as Daniel would come to censuring her, and his words stung. How much more deeply would Letty be wounded were he to learn the truth?

“He’s a very busy fellow, Daniel,” Letty assured him. “I won’t see much of him, and as soon as he does take a wife, she’ll want to hire her own staff. This will do for now, and it will be a good character when I leave. Things in London are not so staid as they are out here.”

They were more staid, in some regards, and so much less in others.

Daniel reached past her to straighten up the little sketch, which had hung slightly askew. “What you mean to say is, we are old-fashioned to a fault, which is the truth.”

Letty allowed him to precede her down the steps, though she had a small scold of her own to fire off. “You don’t fool me, Daniel,” she said softly as they approached the dining parlor. “You aren’t happy.”

He had the grace not to contradict her directly, but his gaze slid away, and for a moment his handsome features looked… bleak.

Oh, Daniel, not you too. Please don’t tell me you have made a bed you dread to lie in as well.

“I am not unhappy,” Daniel said, his smile reappearing, though tinged with regret. “I am useful here, and the living is adequate. Olivia, though, is not—”

His words were cut off when the parlor door swung open and the maid of all work backed toward them, wheeling the kitchen trolley.

“Steady there, Nan.” Daniel stopped the girl from bumping into him with a hand on her elbow.

Nan turned, smiling and blushing. “Your pardon, Vicar. Didn’t know you was out there.”

“No harm done.” Daniel stepped back to allow the maid to pass, and Letty couldn’t help but see the glance Nan shot her employer. The young woman admired her vicar, and just as clearly, Daniel ignored the situation.

Olivia was lighting candles on the sideboard in the dining parlor, the fireplace shedding additional light and making the room cozy.

“Shall we sit?” Olivia suggested. “This time of year, it’s almost impossible to get food to the table hot, and cold soup has little appeal.”

Daniel obliged by holding a chair first for his wife and then for his sister. He sat between them at the head of the small table and held out a hand to each of them.

“I’ll keep the blessing short then, so as not to offend the dignity of the soup,” he said with a smile.

He held each woman’s hand while he said a few words. Had Danny been present and not consigned to a tray in the kitchen with Nan, the child would have completed a circle of hands held during the blessing. It was a lovely tradition, one of many Daniel had instituted in contravention of the rituals he and Letty had been raised with.

In his own quiet, smiling way, Daniel Banks was a fighter.

Letty gave her attention to her soup, finding it was in fact wonderfully hot and delicious. “Have you a recipe for this soup, Olivia? I can’t remember when I’ve had better.”

“No recipe. I use whatever is to hand, and we make do.”

“It is good,” Daniel added, patting his wife’s arm. “You are a genius in the kitchen, Olivia. Your table makes me the envy of many men.”

“Needs must,” Olivia rejoined evenly.

Letty restrained herself from rolling her eyes, but felt the barb just the same. Needs must when one couldn’t afford a cook, when one couldn’t afford but one maid, when one couldn’t afford a real pony for one’s only child…

Olivia would be like this until Letty got back on that vile, bouncing coach. Veiled hints that finances were inadequate, pious little asides suggesting Daniel wasn’t a competent provider. Olivia would do no overt complaining, no blaming, no railing against an unjust God. She’d instead keep up ceaseless sniping and implying.

Daniel was either a saint, or so overcome by some misplaced guilt, that he’d put up with whatever snide innuendo Olivia served with each course.

Four days later, Letty was in some part relieved to find herself standing beside Daniel at the local crossroads, waiting for the horn blast to signal the approaching coach.

“Thank you for making this journey, Letty,” Daniel said, peering down at her. “The weather is too cold by half, and the roads have to be awful. But seeing you has done me and Danny good.”

“And I’ve loved seeing you, too.”

He wrapped his arms around her and simply held her as they waited in the bitter breeze. She let her forehead drop to his chest, wishing for the thousandth time that she had the strength to confide in him. Her brother had never once judged her, never found fault with her, never offered her anything but loving kindness.

She couldn’t risk telling him the truth, no matter how badly she feared what was to come, no matter how much she despised her choice of livelihood.

“Your chariot approaches,” Daniel said, stepping back at a distant blast of the coaching horn. “I love you.”

Those were the words of a brave man, because from Daniel Banks they were honest and true.

“And I love you,” Letty said, stretching up to kiss his cold cheek. She felt tears threaten when Daniel caught her up again in a fierce hug and then handed her into the coach. The horses were thundering on their way back to London before she even had her handkerchief out.

***

“You are back!” Lord Fairly spotted Letty as she came in the side entrance of The Pleasure House, his demeanor exactly that of a barn cat spying a limping mouse.

And wretched mouse that she was, Letty was glad to see him too. Glad he wasn’t going to leave her to fend for herself on her first night as a madam, glad his smile was so genuine and pleased.

“According to your missive, I am to start my duties this evening,” Letty said, noting not for the first time how quickly his lordship could move, like one of those hawks plummeting from a great height with unerring accuracy.

“That you are.” He took her arm and paused in his forward progress long enough to kiss her cheek. “You have the most delightful scent,” he observed as if to himself, and then he was off again, leading Letty toward the back of the house. “First, I must introduce you to the kitchen staff. I know they’re busy, but it can’t be helped, and this way, Etienne, Pietro, and Manuel will keep their flattery to a minimum.”

She wore plain rosewater, and yet his lordship had noticed.

He spun her toward the kitchens, making Letty feel as if she were in the grip of a polite, charming human tornado—one scented with sandalwood and sporting a smile that ought to be banned by royal decree. The tornado brought her to a halt next to a swarthy, portly man shouting in Italian.

Fairly said something quietly in the same language.

Did Lord Fairly speak Italian in bed? French? Or was he silent, the better to hear a woman’s sighs and whispers?

And where were these extraordinary, useless thoughts coming from?

As Pietro turned to her, his ferocious scowl melted into a smile. “Lord Fairly, and a charming lady, in my kitchen. This will only distract the help, but it cheers me, bella donna, to feast my eyes upon you.”

“Mrs. Banks, may I make known to you Pietro Giancarlo Bertoldi Timotheus Verducci. Pietro, Mrs. Letitia Banks, who will be managing this house for me henceforth. You are to obey her in all things outside the kitchen, if you please.”

Fairly smiled, though his words held a hint of steel. He’d introduced Letty to his fancy chef properly, too, indicating by sheer force of personality that Letty was to be treated respectfully.

Pietro lifted spaniel brown eyes to her and kissed her knuckles. “Though there is no universe outside the kitchen worth mentioning, I will obey you, Mrs. Banks, as directed.”

“He lies,” said a whimsical voice from the other side of the long counter. “That one is not to be trusted. He skimps on the butter, you know.”

“Mrs. Banks,” Fairly began again, turning to a slim, handsome Gallic fellow sporting a hint of gray at his temples. “May I make known to you Etienne Charbourg de Vancourier; Etienne, the new mistress of this house, and your superior outside culinary matters.”

“Madame.” Etienne bowed over her hand and offered her a suave smile. “Do not trust the Italian, but do not even think of turning your back on the Spaniard. He flirts.”

“At least,” said the gentleman in question, “I flirt only with women. Madame, Manuel Cesar de Villanueva y Portemos, at your service. Enchanted.” He bowed over her hand with utmost gallantry, but came up yelling in several languages when a resounding crash from the back of the room brought all activity to a hushed halt.

“Excuse us,” Fairly murmured, pulling Letty by the hand from the kitchens. He tugged her down a short corridor into the office, closing the door firmly behind them as if they’d narrowly escaped capture by highwaymen.

“I avoid the kitchens at the start of the evening. The staff is quite busy, and I know next to nothing about what goes on, other than Etienne and Musette have undertaken a flirtation. How was your trip?”

Three Continental chefs at his beck and call, and his lordship looked beleaguered. Though how did Fairly know she’d left London? “My trip?”

He led her to a beautiful Louis Quinze escritoire and sat her down behind it. “I assume you needed several days before starting this position, because you had matters to attend to outside of Town. Anything local you could have managed during the weekly hiatus in your employment.”


Hiatus—a gap, a pause, a break to the common man. Lord Fairly spoke like a vicar. He wasn’t being superior, merely using that all-too-quick brain of his to deduce things about Letty that were none of his business. He’d been the same way on their tour of the facility, showing her a supply of jade phalluses, a room sporting an entire wall of whips, riding crops, manacles, and blindfolds, and another room decorated to look like some sultan’s tent—all with a sense of brisk, clinical disinterest.

Which had fascinated and appalled her as much as the premises themselves.

“So who are your people, Mrs. Banks?” he asked, taking the seat facing the desk.

“What business is that of yours?” And why had he seated her behind the desk and himself before it?

“Interesting word choice—business. I keep a record of next of kin for my employees. Most of them are recently moved to Town in search of employment. They hail from all over, and sometimes I can make an educated guess, based on accent, mannerisms, and so forth, but it’s much easier simply to ask.”

“Why would you want to know?” And when had he ordered the calling cards stacked neatly on one corner of the blotter? They bore Letty’s name and the direction of the house in a tidy, flowing script, as if she were some baronet’s daughter, not a newly minted madam.

That he’d have cards printed was both considerate and… wrong, for she’d have no opportunity to use them.

“When one is in strange surroundings,” his lordship said with peculiar gentleness, “it can make a difference that someone else knows how to locate one’s next of kin—in case of physical injury, death, difficulties, illness, that sort of thing. It’s all too easy to die alone when one is far from home, Mrs. Banks.”

He said this as if the opportunity had nearly befallen him, as if he knew what desperate thoughts a young woman alone and far from home might entertain in her worst moments.

“I should hope not to be doing any dying while here in London, sir, and if I do, I will hardly be concerned for my next of kin.”

She’d be desperately concerned for them, of course. Would his lordship’s family be similarly concerned for him?

“So you do have family. You might as well tell me who they are, Letty.”

He could seduce with that teasing, confiding tone of voice alone. “Mrs. Banks, if you please.”

“Sometimes I do please, sometimes I don’t,” he replied, rising. “Come, I’ll introduce you around tonight and stay close to you. The dress will do, but tomorrow we are sending you to Madame Baptiste’s. Spring is coming—one desperately hopes—and your wardrobe must be adequate to the challenge.”

He held out a hand to her, and Letty found herself taking it.

“You like to hold hands,” she observed as he once again led her through the kitchens and up toward the front of the house. He’d pretty much dragged her by the wrist through the whole building on her last visit. She’d enjoyed the simple contact, enjoyed that at no time had Fairly intimated that he’d wanted to put the premises to their commercial use with Letty.

Heaven defend her, on some level she felt safe with this man.

“I like to hold hands with you,” he replied, smiling over his shoulder. “In part, I like to see you get that puzzled, bothered look you’re wearing now.”

Letty couldn’t help but smile at him, a smile that appreciated the impossibility of such a big, elegant man indulging in impishness. He stopped in the middle of a deserted hallway, his hand still in hers.

“She smiles,” he said as if to himself. “She truly, truly smiles.”

He smiled too, not the dazzling, exuberant smile, something far more personal and equally devastating.

“What’s the other part, your lordship?”

“Beg pardon?”

“What’s the other part? You said you hold hands with me in part to see me get that puzzled, bothered look. What’s the other part?”

“The other part, Letty-love, is that I want you accustomed to my touch.”

Years ago, she might have chided him for his impertinence—she was not his Letty-love—except he was her employer, and given the venue, endearments and hand-holding were more civilities than offenses.

Then too, nobody had ever called her Letty-love, much less in such wistful tones, and she rather liked holding his hand too.

“Why should you want me accustomed to your touch?” she asked, glancing down at their laced fingers.

His smile faded, which was fortunate for a lady’s composure. “Once we walk through that door, I want it understood by all that you are under my protection, and rather than hanging a sign around your neck, or calling out the first fellow to trespass, I will instead touch you. For the display to be convincing, you should look as if you’re enjoying my attentions, hmm?”

He was logical. How did a logical man go about his seductions, and what was wrong with her, that she liked the notion he’d defend her honor if a patron of the establishment took uninvited liberties with her person?

“You want me to hang all over you?”

“Must you sound so appalled?” His smile was back: lovely, warm, and genuinely amused at her. “Nothing so vulgar as that, but let’s practice a bit, shall we?”

She had no warning, not even a moment to prepare herself, before he stepped in closer and grazed his nose along her cheekbone. He stood, his head bent to her cheek, holding her hand and giving Letty a moment to wish they’d met under any other circumstances.

A courtesan, a whore, would pretend she enjoyed such attentions. How much worse was it that Letty enjoyed them in truth? Enjoyed his lordship’s scent, his strength, his sense of energy and competence, and most of all, his sense of self-restraint.

“Relax,” he murmured. “I’ll behave, Letty-love, but you have to meet me halfway.”

If she permitted him these liberties, she would be safe from the pawing and pinching of other men. And from him, affection would mean nothing, merely a courtesy extended her to allow her bodily privacy from other customers.

And yet, her heart sped up, and not with dread.

He’d introduced his staff to her with punctilious courtesy. He’d had cards printed for her that she’d never use. He’d given thought to how to safeguard Letty from uninvited advances, and he wanted to know she had people to worry for her, should illness strike.

Any woman would be attracted to Lord Fairly’s charm, his good looks, his élan.

As Letty stood close enough to him that his breath fanned over her cheek, she forgave herself for the frisson of arousal his proximity caused. What alarmed her was that she respected this man, and—truly, she must master this lapse—she liked him, too.

“I’m about to kiss you, Letty,” he whispered. “You will allow it?”

Her liking rose toward something more dangerous yet, because when—when—had any man ever asked for her permission before he kissed her?

She nodded but couldn’t bring herself to turn her face up to his. She wasn’t expecting it when his lips feathered against her brow, then her cheek, then the side of her neck. He nuzzled and sighed and took his time, following the contours of her face with his lips and his nose and his breath.

Just as the disappointing thought formed—So, he isn’t going to kiss my mouth.—Fairly’s lips settled gossamer light on hers, as if he rested his mouth on hers, waiting for her to take the initiative. When she didn’t pull away or poker up—the two options she could have envisioned pursuing—the tip of Fairly’s tongue teased along her lips. He’d used a soft, warm, flirting touch, playful and knowing. Letty opened her mouth to ask him what he was doing, but found to her shock his tongue insinuated itself into her mouth.

Heaven defend her. Her employer took lazy, decadent liberties with his tongue. He tasted; he explored; he seemed to grow taller as Letty clung to him. Her head was thrown back, their mouths fused, and her arms had somehow—she honestly knew not how—wound themselves around his neck, her fingers linked under the queue of blond hair gathered at his nape.

He eased away from the kiss, keeping his arms around her. Her wobbly knees appreciated that consideration, even as the rest of her wanted to step back, smooth down her skirts, and coolly precede his lordship into the front parlors—provided she could find them.

Who was she, that she’d thrust her tongue into a man’s mouth? That she’d cling to him so shamelessly? That she’d want him to kiss her and kiss her and kiss her, endlessly?

And why had Herbert never kissed her thus? Why had he never held her hand?

“On second thought,” Fairly said, his forehead resting against hers, “a sign hung ’round your neck might be the safer option all around. You practice very convincingly, Letty Banks.”

A real courtesan, a woman who understood the profession and accepted it for what it was, would have had something clever to say. Letty was not such a woman, and hoped she never would be. “I thought we were kissing.”

“My mistake, for we surely were kissing after all.” He bussed her nose, took half a pace back, and reached for her hand. Letty was glad he did, for she still needed some kind of support if she was to remain upright and yet move.


“Ready to face the lions?” he asked, opening the door and tucking her hand around his elbow.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Which was to say, not ready at all.