David Lord of Honor (The Lonely Lords) (17 page)

“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, fucking, 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.