David

by Grace Burrowes

  “I’ll wait tea for you. And know that you will be distracting me as mightily with your absence as you do with your presence.”

  He smiled at her, a smile Letty had rarely seen from him: sweet, warm, quietly radiant. It filled her with a sense of well-being, of connection to him, and contentment. This smile wasn’t for show, but was instead a genuine reflection of his private joy.

  “I’ll be thinking of you as well.”

  And she did think of him as she went about the mundane tasks of keeping her rented house in usable condition, as she took a solitary luncheon in her own kitchen, and as she patrolled the shops, making very few purchases but satisfied with what she’d bought. By the time she returned to her house and took up her mending, she was tired—she and David had kept each other up late the previous night, and he’d been awake early, eager to get to his library and the work that awaited him there.

  As David’s unmarked coach rumbled through the streets back toward his town house, Letty came to the realization that her emotions—uncertainty of his regard, a sense of being neglected simply because he had other matters to deal with, resentment of his other responsibilities, and unwillingness to surrender her day to him—they were old feelings, familiar to her from her childhood.

  At the vicarage, her father and mother had always been available to members of the congregation, regardless of the day or the hour. The vicar’s children understood that service to God could not wait for a child’s nightmares to be comforted or her artwork to be admired.

  How odd, that a viscount’s unpaid mistress and a vicar’s daughter should have that much in common.

  ***

  When Letty joined David in the library, he took foolish satisfaction from the fact that she was twelve minutes early.

  “I’ve missed you, Letty-love.” And those were foolish words, also true. He drew her against him, wondering if she’d notice he’d doubled the number of roses placed about his house.

  “You’ve had a busy day, I’m sure.”

  Not the words he’d wanted to hear, though she seemed in no hurry to leave his embrace; but then, “I’ve decided to accept your proposal” wasn’t a likely greeting.

  “I had good news today.” And because he’d had no one, not even Jennings to share his news with, David kept his arms around Letty, lest she see the glee in his eyes. “A ship I’d thought lost came into port today, six weeks late. The captain was blown off course in a storm, and laid over in some obscure little bay to make repairs.”

  “That is good news indeed,” Letty said, hugging him gently. “You must be especially grateful, having weathered storms at sea, and knowing how dangerous they can be.”

  “I am.” Though ebullience figured into his emotions, too, as did exultation and profound relief. She’d put her finger on a truth: all of his commercial endeavors earned his attention, but the seagoing vessels held a place in his heart that harked back to the terror and wonder of his adolescence. “Are you falling asleep, my dear?”

  “I’m enjoying a nice, cozy hug. They come my way with lamentable infrequency.”

  “I’ll speak to your employer about remedying that oversight.”

  She pulled back and frowned up at him. “You’re jesting. I’m never certain with you.”

  “And you’re tired. I kept you up last night.” Though he himself did not feel tired, he felt… pleased to see her. “Shall we sit? I don’t like the idea that you’re uncertain with me.”

  And yet, he liked that she’d admit as much.

  Letty allowed him to walk her over to the sofa, but when they sat, she took a place a good two feet away from him. “My uncertainty isn’t something you can address.”

  “How can you say such a thing when—” A knock interrupted his rejoinder, which was a good thing. Faint heart might not win the fair maid, but lecturing her was likely to send the lady pelting for the door.

  David waved off the footman who’d wheeled in the tea cart, and set the tray down on the low table before the hearth. “You’ll pour out?”

  “Of course. Your staff takes excellent care of you.”

  The tray sported more than tea fixings and a few pieces of shortbread, David’s usual late-afternoon fare. Small sandwiches—no crust—crisp apple slices, and pretty little frosted tea cakes graced the platter—silver, rather than the everyday Sevres.

  Downstairs was rallying to the lady’s cause—or perhaps to David’s.

  “They’re paid to take good care of me,” David said, taking a seat closer to her. “Two sandwiches, please, but I’ll hold off on the cakes.” The sight of her fixing him tea soothed something in him, not an anxiety so much as a tension.

  She passed him a plate, and poured herself a cup, holding it under her nose for a moment before sipping. “Even your tea is difficult to decipher.”

  “It’s a blend. I went on a gunpowder spree for a while, but this suits me better in cold weather. Am I difficult to decipher, Letty?”

  “In some things.”

  She took a sip of her tea, and because her expression suggested she was truly savoring it, David savored the pleasure of watching her.

  “When you greeted me, for example,” she said, “I was somewhat at a loss.”

  He’d hugged her, plain and simple, though the pleasure of it had been neither plain nor simple. “That was complicated?”

  She set her teacup down and picked up a sandwich, but didn’t eat it. “You held me, and I could not tell…”

  “I was glad to see you.” Surely that had been obvious?

  The sandwich went back on her plate. “But were you in a state of inchoate arousal? I felt… you, but I haven’t the experience to know what contours are consistent with—that is, whether even in an unaroused condition, a man might be…”

  David had never had occasion to study a woman’s blush so minutely. Color rose up Letty’s neck and washed over her features and even her ears.

  “Letty, would you oblige me for a moment?”

  “Of course.”

  He drew her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her, bringing her flush against his body. “I’m not now aroused. This is what I feel like when I’m merely glad to see you and not anticipating erotic pleasure. Any more questions?”

  She ducked her heated face against his neck. “A madam would have known. Any woman of experience would have known.”

  A wife would have known, at least by the end of the first week of marriage.

  “Not unless she and I were regular partners.” He didn’t turn loose of her, but rather, nuzzled her ear. “For the past year, I have found myself possessed of significant self-restraint where the ladies are concerned, a nearly alarming amount of self-restraint. If you need to sleep tonight, then sleep you shall.”

  He allowed her to resume her place on the sofa, though the source of her upset was… endearing. Touching, even, and a bit silly. Men could not tell if women were aroused under any but the most intimate circumstances, and yet, the species survived.

  She passed him his plate, which still sported a sandwich and, now, a single tea cake. “You’ve been self-restrained with women or indifferent?”

  A bite of sandwich allowed him a moment to ponder the distinction. “At some point, excesses of self-restraint can feel like indifference.” Or boredom?

  Letty’s blush faded, though she still didn’t pick up her plate. “Caution, then. After your sister nearly died delivering twins, you became cautious. Would you like more tea?”

  He held out his cup, and yet, Letty had served him another insight: Felicity’s harrowing delivery of the twins had affected him, and not in any positive sense.

  “Eat, Letty-love. I didn’t tell you about the emeralds.”

  She took a nibble of her sandwich, and even that—the plainest food David’s kitchen could muster—seemed to please her tremendously. This cozy tea tray was different fr
om the first one they’d shared, and yet, not different enough.

  “What emeralds?”

  “If my ships are traversing the tropics, I send them out with extra stores of netting.”

  She paused between bites. “And you will tell me why?”

  “Infants, in particular, seem to do better if their beds are under netting. They get fewer fevers, and that is a profound advantage—it also keep the mosquitoes away.”

  The library had never struck him as a cozy room, but rather, as the place he worked. Books were found here, and a sizable desk, upon which sat the largest wax jack in the house. The walls held art—art was supposed to go on walls—but the space had had no sense of… haven to it, until Letty had served him tea here.

  “What has the netting to do with… emeralds, did you say?”

  She was more concerned with the tea tray than with jewels, and more concerned with his day than the tea tray.

  What man wouldn’t love—

  David jammed the tea cake into his mouth, knowing it was chocolate and raspberry, not tasting either flavor.

  Something about some gems…

  “Emeralds, a bag of emeralds, and they appear to be excellent quality. My captain left some netting behind at this obscure little bay, as a token of his thanks for the hospitality. Apparently, it’s the custom in that region to repay a token with a token.”

  “And your token was a bag of emeralds?”

  “Enough to make every tar on that ship comfortable into a ripe old age.”

  She dusted crumbs from her fingers, poured herself a second cup of tea, and studied him. “You enjoyed the practice of medicine, didn’t you?”

  The human body, man might eventually understand; the mind of woman, never. “How do you reach that conclusion?”

  Letty passed him a second tea cake and kissed his cheek. “Your secret is safe with me, David. I saw you with Portia, and I can promise you, there isn’t another ship owner in all the realm who’s sending his ships out with extra stores of netting for purposes of goodwill with the locals. Emeralds are worth more than rubies, aren’t they?”

  “More, even, than diamonds.” He munched his second tea cake, sweetness and a hint of lemon gracing his tongue. Her question brought to mind a line from Proverbs: She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.

  “Would you like another sandwich?”

  “No, thank you.” He wanted simply to sit with her as the day slid into darkness, to bask in her company, and that would not do. “If you don’t object, I have reading to do. You’re welcome to grab a nap while I finish up down here.”

  “And then I won’t be able to sleep tonight,” she said, pushing the tea tray to the side. “Do your reading. I’ve brought work.”

  Because he employed a number of fallen women, David could conclude with some confidence that not another such lady in all of London would turn to work and tell him to get back to his reading. Letty’s counterparts at The Pleasure House would have pouted, flounced, fumed, tantrumed, and otherwise extracted vengeance for a man’s neglect.

  Letty produced a cloth bag—she’d brought it in with her apparently, and he had been too busy greeting her to notice.

  Too busy hugging her.

  He ran his hand over a patchwork of blue and brown velvet. “Pretty bag.”

  “You see here the mortal remains of the curtains in my father’s study,” she said, drawing out an embroidery hoop. “Sun is hard on velvet, but few fabrics will check a draft or a sunbeam as effectively.”

  Velvet blocked air and light, in other words, and she’d kept a version of those curtains as a memento. Her stitchery, by contrast, was full of colors.

  “My mother used to embroider flowers on everything,” David said, though he’d forgotten this about her. “Handkerchiefs, pillowcases, my shirts. Her flowers were not as delicate as yours.” He touched a rose that shimmered as if illuminated by real sunbeams. “Will you embroider a handkerchief for me?”

  She poked the needle up in the middle of a pale pink bud, gilding its edges with golden thread. “Of course. Is your mother’s love of flowers the reason you keep flowers here in your house?”

  Letty had bent her head near her hoop, and she drew the needle up and down, up and down, in a rhythm so fundamentally feminine David might have been watching a Renaissance tapestry come to life. When he didn’t answer her question, she paused and studied her initial efforts.

  “I thought you had reading to do?”

  “I do.”

  And yet even when David moved to his desk and picked up his pamphlet, he merely held it and watched her making tiny stitches with golden thread.

  Letty Banks kept handing him pieces of himself, little insights, small appreciations, connections that he, in his headlong, self-important sprint through life had missed. Of course the flowers were a tribute to his mother; of course he had enjoyed the practice of medicine; of course Felicity’s difficult delivery had affected him deeply…

  “I want to make love to you,” he said quietly. “Now.”

  Letty looked up at him again, and then, without a word, put down her embroidery hoop and rose. She didn’t wait for his escort; instead, she preceded him up the stairs, walked into his bedroom, and took off her shoes and stockings. David followed her a moment later, and taking his cue from her, also started disrobing.

  He wasn’t particularly aroused, though he was aroused enough. He knew only that he wanted closeness with Letty, significant closeness, and he hadn’t any means other than his body to bring this about.

  This joining was also erotically unremarkable. Again, they kissed, he mounted her, and then eased into her body. She was ready for him, her body welcoming, her hands roaming his skin with eager curiosity. She moved with him, let him set up a slow, lazy rhythm, and didn’t seem to need anything more than him, moving inside her.

  He held back, determined to savor the lovemaking, the sound of Letty’s sighs, the feel of her mouth on his skin. And he sensed that she comprehended his mood, his need to join with her, for her caresses were easy, her touch light.

  She comforted him in a way he hadn’t realized he needed comforting.

  He’d thought himself beyond infatuations, though surely, this upwelling of tenderness toward her could be only that?

  Her caresses became lavishly caring, imbued with tactile lyricism as she stroked him everywhere, as if she were unwilling to lift her hands from his flesh. Her body hummed with the silent pleasure of loving him, of being loved by him, and David’s awareness of where he stopped and she started, blurred.

  He moved languidly in her, sending a sweet, relaxed pleasure through his body, one slow, deep thrust at time. His hands brushed at her forehead and then into her hair; his mouth brushed over her features. Every caress, every undulation of his hips, every kiss they shared surrendered into her keeping some burden he’d felt but never named.

  She cared for him. She said it in her sighs and caresses as clearly as if she’d printed it in The Times, but she said it as a woman would. Such tenderness could come only from the heart, from the soul. From the good places…

  “Elizabeth,” he whispered, moving yet more deeply inside her. “My sweet Elizabeth…”

  He uttered her name, the name she’d trusted to him alone, and felt her desire take flight. The pleasure shimmered through her, through him, and back again, in endless cycles of satisfaction and sentiment. He took her with him into a place of light, oneness, and communion, and held her there, as she held him.

  Resting on his forearms above her, David gradually returned to awareness of his surroundings. Something numinous had happened to him in Letty’s arms. Something indescribable, transcendent, and unprecedented.

  Something he was wise enough to accept without attempting to analyze, label, or take apart. But this loving left him feeling as if
all of his considerable sexual experience put together was so much folly, compared to what he could share with Elizabeth Temperance Banks.

  ***

  Letty dragged her hands through the silky abundance of David’s hair, his undone queue a metaphor for her emotions.

  “You have the sweetest touch,” he said, resting his cheek against her shoulder.

  “And you are the sweetest man.” She turned her face to kiss his cheek. “I never want to leave your bed.” Or his embrace, or the ambit of his soft, private smile.

  How had she landed in such trouble so quickly?

  He inflicted that particular smile on her, the one that made her insides hop about like robins at a puddle on the first spring day. “The sentiment is mutual, my love, but I forgot to set dinner back, so we will shortly be dining on cold victuals if somebody doesn’t bestir himself.”

  My love. That was part of her trouble right there. “Lucky me, I do not qualify as a himself.”

  “Letty?” He brushed her hair back, and studied her with beautiful, serious eyes. “You are… special to me.” He held her gaze for only a moment before leaving the bed and moving to the other room.

  “And you are special to me, too,” Letty murmured to the empty room.

  Special was likely a sophisticated man’s way of warning her that he might care for her, but he was not smitten. Prudent people did not become smitten, and for all her mistakes—because of her mistakes—Letty had thought of herself as prudent.

  She sat up and found her dressing gown at the foot of the bed. As she crossed the room, she caught a glimpse of herself in David’s dressing mirror and was astounded at what she saw.

  Her eyes were luminous, her hair falling around her in soft waves. Her skin glowed, and her smile was secret, knowing, and altogether feminine. Her father would have said she looked wicked, and her father would have been wrong.

  This is how David sees me? Does he ever see himself as I see him?

  For long moments, she regarded the woman in the mirror, amazed at the beauty, grace, and mystery she saw in her reflection.

  And observing her folly was David, propped against the doorjamb and smiling faintly. “Her name is Elizabeth Banks. She is a woman more precious than rubies.”