David Lord of Honor

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 we 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.


In her mind, they would be as if married by this act he contemplated. She would not offer herself to another after she had taken David as her lover. And she knew better than to reveal that bit of foolishness to him.

Not today, not ever.

***

David paused outside his bedroom door and dipped so Letty could lift the latch. She made no protest when he walked right through the sitting room and carried her to his bedroom.

Something in him rebelled against his own headlong desire, though, so rather than deposit her directly onto the bed, he instead settled her on the sofa turned toward the hearth.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, kneeling before her. He’d touched her feet before, and it seemed a safe—and biblically humble—place to start. “Or would you perhaps like a bath?”

She put a hand on his nape, a curiously chivalric touch. “I want only you.”

He said nothing, lest he babble a response. This entire endeavor—an intimate association with virtually no financial protection for her—left him at sea, and yet, it was what Letty wanted. He finished with her shoes then untied her garters, rolled down her stockings, and sat back. “You can manage from here?”

“If you’ll unhook my dress and undo my laces.”

What he knew of Letty’s history suggested he’d had many more intimate partners than she—at least three continents’ worth—and yet, no happy, sophisticated detachment descended as he contemplated the next hour. She rose and presented him with her nape.

This was fortunate, for it meant she could not see his hands shaking as he undid the myriad fastenings down the back of her dress. “I’ll leave the privacy screen to you.”

She sent him a curious look then disappeared into the corner of the room behind a japanned screen. David’s first priority was to banish the damned cat, his second to get himself naked.

“Letty?”

“Just a moment.”

“My dressing—”

She emerged from behind the screen wearing David’s favorite dressing gown, a lovely green velvet lined in blue silk. “I did not bring any extra clothes with me,” she said, smoothing a hand over the fabric. “I did not anticipate, that is—I hope you don’t mind.”

Did not mind that she’d been too innocent to foresee why he’d lured her to his house on a quiet Sunday morning?

David had everything off but his breeches, and he’d managed all but a few buttons of both falls, his thoughts as undone as his clothing.

Could he please her?

Could he pleasure her?

Was she truly attracted to him, or simply tolerating his advances the way women could with men they could not afford to offend?

She smoothed her palm over his dressing gown again, her fingers betraying a slight tremor.

“Letty, come here.” Wariness flashed through her eyes at his blunder. “Please, would you come here and allow me to hold you?”

She crossed the room to stand before him, the hem of his favorite dressing gown dragging on the carpet. “I had not planned on the day taking this turn.”

He slipped his arms around her, he, who had been planning on taking this turn with her for weeks. If he’d shown an ounce of interest in any other woman at The Pleasure House, that woman would have been plotting and scheming toward this moment as well, as would any other lady in Polite Society with whom he waltzed more than once.

“Shall I call for the carriage, Letty?” The question cost him.

Against his chest, she shook her head. “Don’t expect much. I gather from listening to the women at The Pleasure House that Herbert’s demands of me showed a lack of imagination all around.”

She blamed herself for not knowing more of debauchery. “No toys?”

Another shake of her head.

“No games? No bindings? No drugs or potions?”

She shot him a puzzled look. “Is there a list somewhere, of what constitutes a proper romp in bed?”

Every culture kept such lists somewhere. David kissed her nose. “Will you play a game with me?”

The wariness was back, more forcefully, and though she didn’t leave his embrace, she withdrew emotionally. “What sort of game?”

David found it necessary to tuck her more closely against him, so he might address his request to her left temple. “Just for today, might you indulge me in the fiction that you are simply Miss Letty Banks, and I am merely Mister David Worthington. We are attracted to each other, and fate has intervened to allow us to act on that attraction. We are not employer and employee. I am not a viscount, and you are not a madam. You are merely Letty, and I am David.”

Rather than allow her to scoff at such foolery, he kissed her mouth. Today marked a shift in their dealings, and he would seal this new bargain with a sweet, slow kiss.

“Thank you,” Letty said, drawing back a half inch. “And in that spirit, that fictional spirit, you must decide how we go on. For you see, I have never had a lover before.”

When he closed his arms around her this time, the feeling was different, more tender and yet more desperate, because despite all of his experience—swiving, rogering, f*cking, shagging, ad nauseam in ten different languages—he had never been a lover before.

When he kissed her again, she met him. Leaned into him, sank her fingers into his hair, and plundered his mouth and his wits both. They half stumbled onto the bed, and she laughed when he sent his breeches sailing in the general direction of the privacy screen.

“Laugh at me, will you? Naughty wench.” He rose up over her on all fours, wishing he had more clothing to pitch across the room if it would make her laugh.

“I’ve always wanted somebody to call me that,” Letty said, drawing her thumb over his chin.

“Wench?” He treasured her odd admission, because the wistfulness in her eyes said this was truly a wish.

“Yes. I was raised in a pious household, though the local tavern was a friendly place. When I had occasion to go to The Tired Rooster, the serving girls always seemed so merry and full of fun.”

David slipped down to hug her, lest she see what this sort of nakedness did to him. “Then I shall call you wench, and you will feel merry and full of fun. Kiss me, wench, and let me love you.”

Nothing came between them. Not coin, not unequal status, not social expectations, and certainly not the bedclothes. David kissed Letty until she was shifting restlessly beneath him, then probed at her sex with his cock enough to know she was damp and ready for him.

“Stop being polite,” Letty muttered against his throat. “Stop asking.”

He left off tracing her eyebrow with his nose. “I’m not to give orders, and I’m not to ask. What does that leave?”

She kissed his mouth and undulated in such a way that her curls kissed his cock. Had she practiced that exact maneuver, she could not have made it more arousing. “Take what you need. I need you too.”

Need. The word she’d chosen was startling, courageous, and accurate. He drove forward, seeking her heat. She gloved him with her sex, her sigh breezing past his ear like a benediction. In the last reaches of his rational mind, it registered that Letty had kept on not one shred of clothing, not a bracelet, ring, or silk stocking when she’d come to his bed. And her very lack of artifice was a more powerful aphrodisiac than all the tricks, games, toys, or stratagems could ever be.

In David’s long history of seductions, encounters, and trysts, and even a few orgies, his initial coupling with Letty was embarrassingly unsophisticated. They kissed, he mounted her, slid home, and started thrusting.

But the sensations… Ah, God, the sensations.

For the first time, David Worthington, Viscount Fairly, accomplished swain on four continents, wasn’t in control of a sexual joining. Letty was making love with him, arousing him, driving his passions into a spiraling coil of want and pleasure rather than providing him a performance or a mutual accommodation.

“Slow down, love, or I’ll spend.”

“Spend,” she whispered. “Hold nothing back.”

She held nothing back, but instead locked her ankles at the small of his back and urged him closer. The slight shift in the angle of her hips gave David better purchase, and as he thrust more strongly, she began to shudder around him.

She had no artifice in this either, made no attempt to delay her pleasure, to duel with him for greater displays of self-restraint or control. A soft groan slipped from her, full of desire and longing as she bucked hard against him.

Her pleasure was too much for him. He pounded into her endlessly, the mindless violence of his release coming from a place in him as primitive as it was honest, as it was foreign to his usual habits.

When the storm abated, David lay full length on Letty’s limp form. His mind would not work, his body could barely move.

“Merciful suffering saints,” he breathed, chest heaving as he raised his torso up by slowly straightening his arms. He stared down blankly at the woman in his bed. “God in heaven, Letty…”

“Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain.” She kissed his mouth and used her hands to urge him back down to her. “Though there was certainly something of heaven in that.”

He let her hold him, needing her arms around him, not understanding what had been so different. The sexual pleasure had been unprecedented, though he’d barely offered Letty a moment’s teasing beforehand.


Some lover, he.

“I’m too heavy,” he murmured against her shoulder, trying to retrieve his manners.

“Hush,” Letty admonished, her hand stroking the back of his head. “Just hush. You feel lovely.”

Yes, he rather did, feel lovely. He gave up trying to puzzle it out, gave up his attempts at manners, gave up fretting generally, and dozed in contentment on Letty’s sweet body.

When he awoke, he was still right there, lying heavily over her, his cock slipping from her sex while she continued stroking the back of his head. Her hand stilled on his nape when he gazed down at her. She wore such an expression of affection that David felt… shy.

Also profoundly pleased.

“Cloth,” he muttered. He levered off of her, retrieved a basin and towel from on top of his bureau, and brought them to the bed. His own ablutions were brisk and efficient, but when he wrung out the towel and gazed down at Letty, he was momentarily at a loss.

“You are going to be so sore.” He held the cool cloth to her sex. Multiple continents of erotic experience, and he’d fallen on her like a beast. Even in her inexperience, she had to know she’d been ill-used.

“Stop mumbling. Get under these covers, lest you take a chill.” Letty held up the covers for him as he climbed back into bed. If he touched her again, he might become aroused, or possibly weep, so he curled up on his side, facing her.

“Letty Banks, I have never before had to apologize for my conduct in bed, and yet—”

She put her fingers over his lips. “You don’t have to now. I don’t want to know that polite, careful, controlled man who can find his pleasure without engaging his passions. I want to be in bed with you.”

“You make me sound like a courtesan.” Or like a viscount who managed his way through life.

Letty’s thumb brushed over his nipple, and she studied the effect of her touch. “You aren’t a courtesan, but you are as careful as one.”

“Not with you.” David rolled to his back, turning his head to regard her. “Would you like me to take you home now?” Lest he abuse her generosity yet more.

She left off playing with him, her expression suggesting he’d blundered again. “What I would like, is to be held.”

And she’d wanted somebody to call her wench. He threaded an arm under her neck. “Then come here, Letty Banks. Come here and let me hold you.”

She wrapped her arm around his waist, hiked a knee over his thighs, and let him hold her.

***

“By the time I was thirteen, I hated the entire New Testament by heart.”

David’s hand on Letty’s neck paused, while across the room, a shower of sparks shot up the fireplace flue. “That is a lot of hate for one very young lady, Elizabeth Temperance Banks.”

He’d apparently read her signature, and even murmured her name twice in the throes of passion. Letty carefully did not remark on the pleasure of being called by her Christian name.

“When your papa’s the vicar, there’s a lot of New Testament,” Letty said, and such was David’s ability to encourage confidences that she didn’t roll over and draw the covers over her head. “I hated soup grown cold because grace took so long. I hated kneeling, my left knee in particular hates kneeling to this day. I hated Sundays, because the weather is always fine on Sundays until services are over, and then it’s miserable. I hated and hated and hated.”

While her brother Daniel had learned to love.

David’s hand resumed its slow, soothing caress of her nape. “Most adolescents are rebellious. My aunts were determined I should go to university, but I pouted and sulked and raged until they let me go to sea for several years as a surgeon’s apprentice.”

Letty was at sea, though with David spooned around her in his big bed, she was also firmly anchored. “I haven’t discussed my childhood in years.” Hadn’t had anybody to discuss it with.

“You’ve been preoccupied with survival. Given your upbringing, I’m surprised any of the local boys were brave enough to sin with you. Was your foray into romance another rebellion?”

Of course it was, though Letty hadn’t taken the time to realize that. “He wasn’t a boy. I sinned with the curate, of course. Isn’t that how the farce is usually cast?”

She must have surprised her worldly, sophisticated lover, because he gathered her against him, bringing the scent of country-washed sheets and freshly bathed man closer. “Letty, I am so sorry.”

Because her back was to David’s chest, the tears that rose up didn’t need to be dashed away. “Not as sorry as I was.”

Sorry, humiliated, bewildered, and hurt. Very hurt. When David rearranged her so she lay along his side, Letty hadn’t the strength to thwart him.

“You loved him.” David used the sheet to dab at her cheeks. “Must I find this wretch and call him out for you?”

What a hearteningly violent offer. “You need not. Hell should await such a one as him, or so I hope. I did not love him. I flirted with him, and he made promises, and all I could think was I would be out from under my father’s roof if those promises were real. The curate was handsome—there’s a rule somewhere that all penniless curates must be handsome—and when I told him I wasn’t interested in further dealings with him, he went to my father and confessed our misdeeds. I was so stupid, so painfully, wretchedly stupid.”

David kissed her stupid, damp cheek. “You were not stupid. You were young, and he was wicked. The curate told your father that your charms had tempted him beyond his strength, that he repented sincerely of his lapse, and that he’d offered you holy matrimony, but in your wantonness, you’d refused him. He saw no recourse but to seek the forgiveness and guidance of his spiritual superior, who happened to be your father. And there you were, caged between a lying, self-serving bastard, and your father’s judgment. If the man’s not dead, I can make him wish he were.”

Maybe this was what had allowed Letty to join David Worthington in his bed. All that exquisite tailoring and all those fine manners hid a savagery Letty found attractive—an honorable savagery.

“He eventually became a vicar.” Daniel, who’d made it a point to keep up with church gossip, had worried that the news might upset her. He hadn’t been as reluctant to tell her of the man’s eventual death from natural causes.

David’s caresses trailed over her hair, and beneath Letty’s cheek, his heart beat in a steady tattoo.

“As a physician, I became familiar with a number of poisons. I’ve always thought a slow poison would be a good revenge. One could watch the victim fading. You might bear that in mind for future consideration. In any case, I’m glad you didn’t marry him.”

The fire in David’s room was no paltry bed of embers, but it did not cast enough light that Letty could fathom his expression. “You’re glad because I’m available for romping with you now?”

And was this romping, exchanging memories and regrets naked under the covers as the fire burned down?

“A mere romp would never trust me with her cold soup and sore knees, Letty Banks. I’m glad, because if you had married that curate, then night after night, you would have been required to offer your body to a man you did not respect, a man who did not respect you. The law would not have protected you should he have become violent or diseased. On the path you chose instead, you were intimate with a man you at least felt a passing fondness for.”

She had not loathed Herbert. He’d been bluff, self-indulgent, and generous for show rather than out of good-heartedness, but not mean. “You aren’t… wrong,” she said.

“I’m right,” David rejoined, kissing the center of her chest. “If a protector’s attentions become distasteful, you can send him on his way. There’s nothing he can say to it. The life you’ve chosen is hard, but you’ve kept a control over your fate and a dignity the curate’s wife would never have had.”

Everything in Letty came to a still point, as if she could strain to hear a far-off, faint angel chorus over the braying of the parson in his pulpit. “You think I made the right choice?”

Because if even one person agreed with Letty’s choice, even one, then she might hold on to that dignity in truth.

“I know you did. Also the more difficult choice. Imagine the pity you would have been showered with when your husband strayed again. Imagine the piety ascribed to you, the martyrdom, when some other sweet, sheltered young lady tempted him to sin yet again. And again. And again. Like a physician, a man of the cloth has private access to women at their most vulnerable. Your curate knew that.”

Letty sat up, the better to reenvision her entire adult life. “I would have hated that. I would have been filled with hate, every day. For my own husband—for myself.” And raising children in such a household would have made the whole awful, sordid business worse.

David sat up beside her, hiking his knees and wrapping his arms around them. “I came to hate the woman I married.”

Letty’s thoughts stopped midflight, knocked out of the sky as if by a raptor. “You’re married?”