Her tirade, so completely out of character with the rest of her interactions with Fairly, appeared to leave his lordship stunned, offended, and at a loss. He picked up her gloved hand by the wrist, put it back on his arm, and resumed walking through the thickening snow at a deliberate pace.
While Letty battled back another bout of tears.
“I have never,” he said at length, “given anyone cause to doubt my honor, and I do not intend to start with you. Will you receive me, Tuesday next?”
She didn’t answer, though he was observing the courtesies, when in truth, he could barge into her home at any time and appropriate what she had given others more or less willingly.
“I am not propositioning you, Mrs. Banks. I am asking permission to call on you, nothing more.”
His lovely voice was as cold as the snowflakes melting against Letty’s cheeks.
He would call on her Tuesday next no matter what she said, so Letty remained silent until they’d reached her door. He led her up the steps of her house, onto a covered front porch. The housekeeper had lit a lantern for her, but in the increasingly dense snow, it cast little real light.
“Thank you, my lord,” she managed, though that didn’t seem adequate when her belly was full for the first time in days. “Thank you for bearing me company on my way home and for your conversation.” She sensed he’d be offended if she thanked him for rescuing her in the jeweler’s shop—more offended. “You will call on me next week?”
One way or another, she needed to know what his plans were.
“I will call. Whether you receive me is entirely for you to decide. Good night, Mrs. Banks.” He bowed over her gloved hand, and waited politely while she opened the door and turned to leave him.
“Until next we meet, my lord,” she said, her back mostly to him.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Until Tuesday.” She stepped into the house and closed the door without further comment. Blast the man and his lovely eyes; she was already wondering how much he might pay a woman to tolerate his intimate attentions.
Though that woman would not be her. That woman would never be her again.
***
From behind the window of her front parlor, Letty watched Viscount Fairly walk away, his long-legged pace far more brisk than it had been at her side. He gave off a sense of energy and purpose rather than the exuberant high spirits of the young men newly down from university. David Worthington was not a boy, had probably never been a boy. He was in every sense a man, and that made him… tricky.
“Your tea, love.” Fanny Newcomb put the tray on the low table before the settee, then straightened and regarded the falling snow dourly. “Won’t be fit for man nor beast out there before too much longer.”
She was a plump, gray woman, her face lined with the passing years and with concern for her employer. Fanny was also a connection with home, and for that reason alone, Letty would sell off the last bucket of household ashes before she’d let Fanny go.
“You are too good to me,” Letty said, sinking down onto the sofa. Beside the tea lay two fresh, buttery pieces of shortbread—which they could not afford.
“Those boots have to be cold and wet. Best get them off if you’re not to take a chill.” Fanny’s concern was served with a dash of scold, as usual.
“I did well at the jeweler’s. Still, you need not have used new leaves for the tea.” The scent of the tea was marvelous, and steam curled from the spout into the chilly parlor air.
“This is not a night for weak tea,” Fanny said, tugging the curtains closed. “You were gone quite a while, and I was getting that worried about you.”
“I met someone,” Letty admitted, glad for a chance to parse the encounter with a friendly ear.
Fanny gave up trying to drape the curtains so they entirely blocked the fading afternoon light. “Not a female someone,” she concluded with some interest.
“I met him once before.” Letty bent to unlace her boots, knowing the women at Fairly’s establishment had ladies’ maids for such a task—also coal for their parlor grates. “David Worthington, Viscount Fairly. He called on me when Herbert died.”
“Is he related to Herbert?”
“No.” Letty slipped her feet from her boots and tucked her legs under her on the sofa, because the parlor floor was positively frigid. “Not directly. There’s some connection now through the in-laws to the surviving brother, but Fairly was not close to the deceased.”
Thank heavens.
They fell silent as Fanny perched on the edge of an upholstered chair, fixed Letty a cup of tea, and passed it to her. Maybe some fallen women could observe strict propriety with their last and only employee; Letty was not among them.
“Just shy of bitter,” Letty murmured, closing her eyes with the small bliss of it.
“Did this viscount fellow suggest he’d be interested in further dealings?”
Letty put down her teacup. “Must we discuss that, Fanny? I understand how strained my finances have become, but your wages are up-to-date, there’s food in the larder for your meals, and the thought… I don’t know if I can.”
Worse, she was nearly certain she could not.
“Well, ducks, you have to do something, and sooner rather than later. Needs must. And certain burdens are a woman’s lot whether she’s married or not. There are fellows who can make the business bearable. Find one of ’em, or find another way to pay the bills, lest you spend next winter on a street corner or on your brother’s charity.”
On that mercifully brief summation of the relevant truths, Fanny withdrew.
Letty’s reticule lay next to the tea tray, the beaded bag another small reminder of home, for it had been a gift from Daniel on Letty’s sixteenth birthday.
She picked up the bag, hearing coins clink within—not enough coins, of course. Never enough.
In the cold, dark parlor, Letty ignored the coins, took out Viscount Fairly’s silk handkerchief, and held it to her nose.
***
When Tuesday came around, David nearly missed the time for his call on Mrs. Banks. Desdemona and Portia had gone at each other over Portia’s decision to accept carte blanche from young Lord Ridgely. Desdemona had also entertained the man on occasion, and made comments disparaging his skills.
“Hell hath no ability to hurl the breakables,” David observed, “like a pair of women after a few glasses of wine. And all over some young twit’s ability to keep it up.”
Jennings put the bottom half of a porcelain angel on the mantel. “Or over Portia’s ability to snag the twit’s heart, while Des is left behind. That has to hurt.”
David found the angel’s wings under the piano and set them on the mantel among the collected shrapnel. “Yes, but Portia has to tolerate a steady diet of the twit, who doesn’t strike me as any great bargain.” Certainly not worth shattering hundred-year-old Meissen over.
“None of us are great bargains,” Jennings said, surveying the wreckage in the main parlor. “At least not enough to merit this kind of display. Maybe they’re angry as hell on general principles, and so they squabble with each other over the small things.”
“Angry or scared. You’ll have it cleaned up before this evening?”
“Of course, though Des has a black eye, and Portia’s lip is split. We’ll be a little shorthanded.”
Such violence, and in a residence supposedly devoted to pleasure. “Then tell the ladies not to linger above stairs. Fortunately, the weather has turned cold as hell. Maybe that will keep things quieter tonight.”
“Or make everybody want to snuggle up.” Jennings glanced at the clock—mercifully unscathed—on the mantel. “You’d better toddle along if you’re to pay a call on Mrs. Banks.”
“Mrs…?” David was momentarily at a loss, though this appointment had loomed large in his awareness for days. “Mrs. Banks. Blessed saints, I
’ll be off then—dock the damages from the offenders’ pay, and tell them I’ll expect written apologies by week’s end.”
“You’re cruel, Fairly. A nasty, heartless, cruel man.”
In fact, the written apologies were not going to be easy, not when some of the women in David’s employ were all but illiterate. He offered them the chance to learn to read, and without exception, they took advantage of it.
Mrs. Banks, he was sure, could read English, French, and Latin—fat lot of good it seemed to be doing her. When he knocked, her door was opened by an older woman in an apron and cap, who apparently couldn’t be bothered to greet visitors with a smile.
David handed her his card, and she disappeared without offering to take his hat, coat, or gloves. He used the time to study what he could see of the house, and had to agree with Jennings that the place seemed subtly less well-appointed than it had months ago.
Cobwebs grew in the hallway corners, the rug running down the hallway was long overdue for a sound beating, and the air was so cold in the foyer David could see his breath. Perhaps leaving him in his greatcoat had been more consideration than rudeness.
“This way, if you please,” the unsmiling woman said. She led David to a small informal parlor at the back of the house. The hearth sported a coal fire, though by no means would David have called it a cheery blaze.
“Mrs. Banks will be down shortly,” David was informed. “Shall I be getting the tea, then?” The accent was Midlands rural, and the tone entirely put-upon.
“Why don’t you wait until Mrs. Banks joins me, and she can decide whether libation is in order? I doubt I’ll be staying long.” Because even a tea tray was a luxury in this household.
David earned the barest indication of a curtsy for that remark, and was left alone in the little room to remove his coat, hat, and gloves unassisted. The last time he’d been here, Mrs. Banks had received company in the front parlor, a roomier, graciously appointed space at the front of the house.
Why was Mrs. Banks seeing him in this oversized broom closet now, and why was she making him wait?
“My lord.” His hostess stepped into the room, carrying a tea service on a lacquered tray. “I would curtsy, but one of us might end up with a scalding, and I am looking forward to my tea.” She smiled at him, a pleasant if not quite gracious greeting.
“Mrs. Banks.” David bowed then took the tray from her. “A pleasure to see you again, particularly bearing the tea tray on a day such as this.”
“The winters since I’ve come to London have been colder than any I can recall as a child. Shall we be seated?”
David was struck again by Letitia Banks’s quiet loveliness. Here in her own home, she was more comfortable than she had been at his unrented town house. Her attire was simple—a brown velvet skirt, white shirtwaist, brown shawl, and wide red sash—but with her coloring, the shade and texture of the velvet were elegant rather than plain.
He sat at right angles to her perch on the couch, the better to enjoy simply beholding her.
“You must forgive me for using the family parlor,” Mrs. Banks said, passing him a steaming cup of tea. “It is easier to heat, and gets more light. This room also has the advantage of being closer to the kitchen.”
“I had wondered if you weren’t making a comment on my station, though this is cozy, which given the weather, is a mercy.” There. They had discussed the weather quite thoroughly, and avoided the notion that she had secreted him in the back parlor to hide the very fact that he was calling on her. “Have you considered the topics we discussed last week?”
He might have made more small talk, except he’d held this woman in his arms and brushed his thumb over the too-prominent bone in her wrist.
She paused in the middle of fixing her own cup of tea. “My lord?”
“Your finances merit some attention, Mrs. Banks.” Panic might be a better word than attention, there being not a single tea cake on the tray, and the service being arranged to obscure, but not quite hide, chips in the lacquer.
She sat back, cradling the teacup in her palms, likely the better to treasure any source of warmth. “One should always mind one’s finances.”
She sounded as if she were quoting from Proverbs, though her teapot was wrapped in a thin, dingy towel that might once have sported some embroidery, and she looked paler than she had last week. David did not ask his hostess to pour him a second cup.
“I have need of a competent housekeeper for my estates in Kent,” he said. “I own three, and I use only the one. You could have your pick of the other two.” This was a stupid plan—a stupid idea, for David hadn’t planned much of anything about this encounter, except that he’d see Letty Banks again. If she were in Kent, he’d find reasons to drop in on those other estates, reasons to stay there from time to time.
Perhaps remove there entirely, because this reluctant courtesan intrigued him inordinately.
“My thanks, but I cannot remove to Kent, my lord. I have obligations that require I bide in London.”
He could not offer her a domestic post in London, for his family would drop in from time to time, and Letty Banks was likely known to at least his brothers-in-law.
As he considered a niggardly piece of shortbread that could not possibly be fresh, inspiration struck.
“You could instead be madam at The Pleasure House. The place is driving me to Bedlam, and if I don’t do something with it soon, I’m likely to burn it down.” And then, lest he appear desperate, “You could, in the alternative, ensconce yourself as chatelaine at my estate in County Galway, though it is remote as only rural Ireland can be.”
“I cannot remove to Ireland, but why ensconce me anywhere at all?” she asked in a bewildered tone. “You hardly know me.”
He knew her, despite short acquaintance. Knew she’d been saving those last few bites of shortbread, likely for days, in anticipation of his visit, knew were he not with her, she’d be wearing a second shawl for warmth, one that did not go at all with her ensemble. Yet more inspiration came to his rescue, the kind of honest inspiration she might appreciate.
“I have sisters. When our father died, he expected me to provide for them, but there were hostilities with Bonaparte, and I was prevented from returning to England. My sisters faced dire circumstances by the time I reached them, and they could easily have ended up living… as you do. My younger sister was barely out of the schoolroom.”
Rather than comment on a recitation that surprised the man making it, she got up and poked at the fire, though she added no fuel to it, and her efforts sent a sulfurous cloud of coal smoke into the room. “What does a madam do? Specifically.”
Mrs. Banks wasn’t rejecting him out of hand, not yet, though clearly she wanted to.
“You do not entertain men.” To her, that would be most important. “Not unless you choose to bestow your favors from time to time for your own pleasure. You are a combination hostess, mother hen, gunnery sergeant, and steward. The position is demanding. Mr. Jennings and I, between us, barely keep up with it. You wouldn’t have to live on the premises, but there are private quarters for that purpose if you need them. The nights, particularly on weekends, can be quite late.”
And the mornings early, when the girls were out of sorts and prone to squabbling, which was to say—always.
Mrs. Banks studied a small orange flame flickering above the coals, while the idea of depositing the burden of the damned brothel on her elegant shoulders gained appeal with each moment David considered it. She had the presence for it, the self-possession, the ability to manage unruly boys in perpetual rut and unhappy women.
“Please be more specific, my lord. Do I keep the books, decide who is to spend the evening with whom, choose menus, collect money? What exactly would I do, and for what kind of compensation?”
David badly wanted her to agree to this. He hated—yes, hated—seeing that smirk on Jennings’s
face almost every morning, and the headaches it presaged. He hated the way his in-laws teased him, and the way Douglas Allen, the present Viscount Amery, had simply admonished him weeks ago to find a madam, as if women willing and able to manage such a human circus could be found beneath any hedge.
So he schooled himself to apply his strongest negotiating tactics, and let the silence between them grow.
“The compensation, my lord?”
“Mrs. Banks, you have subdued that fire halfway to next spring. I beg you to resume your seat while we converse.”
Get your opponent to give you something small.
She took her seat and unwrapped the teapot, revealing a predictably chipped article of imitation jasperware.
“Thank you,” David said softly, the state of her tea service providing him needed encouragement. “Your duties can be somewhat flexible. If you detest bookkeeping, we can hire you a bookkeeper. If you are indifferent to wines, you may rely on the good offices of my sommelier. If you prefer not to interact directly with the domestics, we can hire you a house steward.”
“Lord Fairly,” she interrupted him through gritted teeth. “What are my duties?”
Something militant in her eye caught his attention, and abruptly, the discussion went from encouraging to… fascinating.
“Are you asking if one of your duties would be… me?”
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?”
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