David

by Grace Burrowes

  “You’re not selling it?” Windham asked, rising and coming to stand beside David at the doors.

  Somewhere beyond the garden wall, a batch of kittens was being enthusiastically conceived, which ought not to be an occasion for sadness—or envy—though it was.

  “Selling that establishment won’t serve,” David said. “I might have sold it to Letty, but neither she nor I aspire to make our coin in the flesh trade. Anyone else would be too likely to take advantage of the women—even more than I do—and cut corners, and so forth.”

  “Why this sudden change of heart?” Windham settled in for a comfortable lean against the doorjamb. “It’s a perfectly profitable, well-run business, and if you don’t supply the need, many others—with a lot fewer scruples—will. One hears even the Church of England owns a few discreet establishments, so why shouldn’t you?”

  David tried to be grateful for Windham’s willingness to play devil’s advocate. This decision wasn’t something he’d had a chance to talk over with anybody—and who would he discuss it with? Jennings would shrug and march out smartly, David’s in-laws were arse over teakettle agog over their latest progeny, Letty was trying to recover from a knife wound…

  “The decision has been under consideration for some time, though it cannot be implemented of a sudden. Portia, Desdemona, Etienne, and Musette are already moving on in one sense or another. I simply won’t replace them. Bridget and her entire clan can be installed on one of two estates in western Ireland, if they’re willing. It will go like that, one footman, one chef, one… woman at a time, until they’re all taken care of, unless one of the women wants to buy me out.”

  Windham scratched one broad shoulder on the doorjamb, the way a cat might. A very large cat. “So if I offered to buy it from you, you’d turn me down?”

  David flicked an assessing glance at his guest, but could tell little in the moonlight. This might be more devil’s advocacy, or it might be the beginning of a business overture from the duke’s son who chafed mightily against his father’s meddling.

  “You would certainly be welcome to buy the property itself, but the practice of prostitution is not something I want to personally facilitate anymore.”

  “Unless, of course”—Windham’s voice was sardonic—“you’re procuring the services for your own enjoyment.”

  “Your sisters are showing, Lord Valentine,” David said mildly. “I cannot speak for the rest of my life, and you probably shouldn’t speak for yours, but it is time I take a wife and have done with the things of my boyhood. I may find a suitable mistress, between now and when I wed, but only if the arrangement is entirely satisfactory to her.”

  Though finding a mistress generally entailed looking for same, and David could not imagine such an undertaking.

  “And you think Letty will be that mistress?” Something about Windham’s tone bore a hint of the growling and hissing in the alley.

  “She will not.” On this point, Letty had been clear from the start. “She will not accept coin, in any sense, in exchange for her affections. I respect her preferences in this regard.” In all regards, because when a man was in love, what else could he do?

  “You will cast her aside because you respect her?”

  “My dear man,” David said evenly, “I am not casting Letty aside. She, by contrast, has waited patiently for me to realize that I am the one being cast away. And lest you feel the need for further inquiries, I will not allow Mrs. Banks to suffer poverty or want, regardless of the dictates of her pride. She put her life at risk on my behalf, and that entitles me to see to her welfare in at least a financial sense.”

  Which was some relief, but little satisfaction.

  “You’ve informed Letty of your decision?” Windham asked, his tone now more curious than indignant.

  “I have not.” And he dreaded the task heartily, for all it was the right thing to do. “I suspect she senses my thoughts on the matter.”

  “Westhaven might have her.”

  David would have bristled at this observation, except Windham’s words bore more warning than lewd speculation.

  “Valentine, if she thinks herself unworthy of me, a mere viscount-come-lately, whom she loves, what could possibly make your brother think she’d have him, heir to a dukedom?”

  Windham pushed away from the door with his back and crossed to the piano, likely a sign that he found the next words difficult.

  “Westhaven isn’t as… perceptive as you are. He would have her for his mistress, I’m thinking. And Mrs. Banks might consider it, on the grounds that she doesn’t particularly like him.”

  This again?

  “At times, neither do most people, but that will be up to Letty. I will ensure she has adequate finances to render consideration of such propositions purely a matter of her own whim. I can’t see Westhaven being comfortable with a mistress who can afford to leave him, but that will be none of my business—or yours.”

  A silence stretched, while a breeze lifted the scent of honeysuckle into the room and Windham closed the cover over the piano keys. He touched the instrument the way David touched Letty, a blend of torment and reverence in his caress.

  “How can you do this?” Windham asked finally. “You love that woman, and you know she loves you. How can you neatly cut your lives apart, as if this kind of feeling can be found any day of the week? As if you’re removing stitches that have served their purpose? She was willing to die for you, Fairly, and you think this is the appropriate response?”

  Bless the man for his tenacity, and damn him for his late-night sermons.

  “I know this is the appropriate response, for she cannot marry me. And if I were to force her to remain at my side, I would be killing her, by slow, well-intentioned degrees, over months and years. We’d have children, and for the children, she would try to be happy, try to make me happy, but she deserves more, and she’s right—any child of hers does too.”

  David had reached this conclusion on the coach ride back from Wellbourne, when thoughts of his daughter had refused to fade. He’d held that baby for a few hours, and those few hours were never far from his heart. How much more entangled would a mother become in the happiness of a child she’d carried beneath her heart and nurtured at her breast?

  Windham finished his drink in a single toss, and set his glass down a bit too hard on the music stand. “So you’ll marry another?”

  Perhaps the hardest question of all, and Windham was not David’s conscience, that an entirely honest answer was required. “I will try to find a woman with whom I can be content, because again, Letty would feel responsible were I to remain unwed. I will encourage her to find happiness without me as well.”

  “This”—Windham waved his hand toward the piano—“this melodrama is more than I can grasp, Fairly. People who love each other should be together, and you believe this as well. Your sisters married for love. Gwen Hollister married for love, despite all my dear father’s machinations to the contrary. You can tell yourself that your contented marriage will be for love as well, but it won’t be for the love of your wife, you idiot, and that simply isn’t right.”

  David said nothing, wishing Letty believed as Windham did: people who loved each other ought to be together. Maybe Letty did believe that, but she wasn’t willing to accept that people who love each other should also trust each other, and on that detail, the entire balance shifted.

  “I hope,” Windham said slowly, “you reconsider this scheme, Fairly. I don’t like many people, but I like you, and I more than like Letty Banks. I would see you both happy. More to the point, I would see Letty happy, and your prescription sounds to me like a nostrum guaranteeing a damned lot of foolish, unproductive suffering. I’ll see myself out.”

  He took the sting from his words by laying a hand on David’s arm before departing, but Windham had hit a nerve: David’s decision to close The Pleasure House and settle a sum
on Letty would allow him to part from her before his frustration and hurt feelings could fester and poison their relationship further. This choice would allow Letty to take up a life of obscure virtue, where no strangers could take intimate liberties in exchange for coin. It would allow David to get a legitimate heir.

  It would meet so many practical, desirable ends—while absolutely, unequivocally causing a damned lot of foolish, unproductive suffering into the bargain.

  ***

  As the pain in Letty’s shoulder subsided, the pain in her heart grew.

  She and David ate every meal together, and if he had appointments that took him away from the house, he managed those while Letty napped in the afternoons. When he walked with her in the back gardens, he put an arm around her waist or took her hand in his. The evenings they spent side by side on the sofa in the library, David pretending to read medical treatises, Letty staring at poetry.

  He washed and braided her hair, managing it so that her injury stayed dry. He read to her, he hung a hammock in the shade that they might lie in one another’s arms and simply rest together, he curled up with her each night until she fell asleep, and shared breakfast with her in the morning.

  But he did not sleep with her, did not kiss her on the mouth, did not offer her the touches of a lover. The wound in her shoulder was healing, but other wounds were tender, their healing not yet begun, their worst suffering yet to be endured.

  Letty did not want to speak of their parting, any more than she’d wanted to lose every shred of respectability she’d been raised with, and David, perhaps sensing her dread, would subtly turn the discussion whenever Letty tried to bring up the future.

  They shared the sofa in the library, a cozy fire taking the chill from the rainy evening, a tea service on the low table before them. She could lift a full teapot with her left hand now, though David scolded her when he caught her at it.

  “How will I regain my strength if I don’t use my arm?” Though she didn’t particularly want another cup of tea.

  “Strength comes back slowly,” David said, taking the pot from her grasp. “In small steps, and all your patience will be for naught if you overdo. Let me pour.”

  The moment was upon them, with no warning, no preparation, even though it had been approaching since the day Letty had agreed to become his madam.

  “David, you cannot protect me indefinitely from the risks and effort involved in making my own way. I will manage. I always have.”

  He returned the pot to the tea tray and enshrouded it in white linen. “You will manage without me.” He might have diagnosed her with a wasting disease in the same bleak tones.

  Yes, she would manage without him. He needed a wife whose past would not obliterate his place in Polite Society, and she needed… to be welcome to visit occasionally in Little Weldon, and pretend her life in London had not become every cautionary tale her papa had ever preached against.

  She kissed his cheek, the movement pulling her shoulder. “If we’ve only a little time left to share, let’s not waste it—particularly not by pretending this doesn’t pain us both.”

  David slid his spectacles down his nose, folded them, and placed them on the tea tray next to the pot. His movements were unseeing and gingerly, like those of an old man.

  “A little time?” he said softly. “Pain us?” He threaded an arm around her waist, drawing her closer. How much easier and less honest would it have been if he’d pretended to misunderstand her.

  “Letty, I do not want to lose you. To lose you will devastate me.”

  She heard in his voice that the process of accepting that loss had already started, and she replied accordingly. “To care for someone should not be devastating, David. Not if it’s truly caring for them. You were working up to this topic, too, so don’t pretend otherwise.”

  He drew her onto his lap, so her injured shoulder bore no weight and her uninjured side rested against his chest. “How did you guess I was considering this?”

  “Your eyes. You have the most beautiful eyes.” They were sad eyes, though. She understood that now.

  He was quiet, his cheek resting against her hair. Letty felt his heartbeat, felt him searching for kindness when pain lurked on every hand. She should never have become his madam, he should never have taken on ownership of a brothel, and they should, neither of them, have permitted an attachment to form.

  Much less a love to flourish.

  “You will stay with me until you are healed. I can remove the stitches then, rather than inflict weeks of itching and bother on you while the sutures dissolve. Then we’ll see what’s to be done.”

  “I will stay that long, but no longer.” Letty neither knew nor cared what was to be done, other than the fact that their inevitable separation would soon be effected. The thought should bring relief—she tried to force herself to feel relief—but relief was not the emotion that lodged like a bone in her throat.

  She had become his madam, he had taken on ownership of a brothel, but those decisions could be reversed. Letty very much feared that the attachment she’d formed for David never could be, and that she’d never want it to be in any case.

  ***

  “Your stitches come out tomorrow, Letty,” David said after seating her at breakfast one bright and pleasant morning.

  She used her good right hand to lift the teapot. “And then?”

  This was a courtesy, that she would ask him how he preferred to lose her. David knew Letty could climb into a hackney and disappear, and in some ways that might be kindest.

  “I will have the staff pack most of your belongings today, and transport them back to your house. I’ve taken the liberty of having some minor repairs made to the premises in your absence, and of installing a maid of all work, along with a man of all work. You will also find, Letty Banks, that your wardrobe and effects from The Pleasure House have been moved to your dwelling.”

  David had packed them himself, unwilling to allow a violation of even her sartorial privacy.

  He spoke briskly, not knowing how else to push the words out. Letty couldn’t possibly think he’d expect her to continue her employment at The Pleasure House, and yet he’d not broached this aspect of their situation.

  Hadn’t been able to.

  “Whatever you think is best.” She brought her tea to her mouth, having added neither cream nor sugar, when he knew she enjoyed both.

  “Are you turning up meek on me, Letty? Showing a biddable streak at this late date?” He guided her hand back to the table and doctored her tea.

  “This is difficult, David. I appreciate that you are giving thought to how we should go about it.”

  Her appreciation was a wretched, rank stench in his soul. He stirred her tea and set the cup and saucer before her. People who love each other should be together. But that was selfishness on his part.

  “Tell me, Letty, that this is what you want.” He did not ask her if leaving him would make her happy, because he had the small satisfaction of knowing it would not.

  “This is what must be.”

  Glorious morning sunshine poured in the windows, a bouquet of roses graced the table, some bloody bird chirped its idiot head off in the garden, and David had never felt closer to violence under his own roof.

  “Here’s what I propose.” Where were the damned tomcats when a songbird needed murdering? “We will spend today together—I have documents for you to read, and I suspect you will want to argue over them with me—and then tomorrow, after breakfast, I will escort you to your house. I will not expect you to resume your duties at The Pleasure House”—he would not permit her to—“and you will be free to pursue whatever path beckons you.”

  “What kind of documents?”

  David suspected she did not care; she was humoring him.

  “We’re not going to eat breakfast, are we?” He certainly wasn’t. “Very well.” He held ou
t his right hand. “Let’s to the library, and we can commence a rousing donnybrook, perhaps to give us an appetite, perhaps to ease what lies ahead.”

  Letty hadn’t even commented on the fact that she wasn’t to return to The Pleasure House, further proof that she’d realized she didn’t belong there.

  He sat her down at one of the chairs across from his desk and took the other one himself. “These”—he handed her a sheaf of papers—“are what you need to read and eventually sign.”

  If he had to forge her signature, he’d see the documents executed.

  “What are they?” Letty asked, paging through them.

  They were the only means David could devise of placating his conscience.

  “First, you’ll find the deed to your house and its grounds, in fee simple absolute, and all its furniture and furnishings. If anybody asks, you’re a widow, lest your title to the property be questioned legally, but they won’t ask.”

  He’d made sure of that, and should anything happen to him, say, for example, a ten-year-long spate of inebriation, Jennings would make sure of it, and Douglas would make sure of it as well.

  “Second,” he went on, “I’ve drawn up a trust document that puts a sum certain at your disposal, interest income in perpetuity, etc. Third, there is what amounts to a custodial quitclaim deed on any right, title, or interest I might have in children born of your body, though obligating me to support same, provided they appear within one year of the date of signing. Am I going too quickly?”

  Letty stared at the papers while holding herself very erect in her chair. David covered one of her hands with his and went silent, thinking that in some ways, lawyers dealt with more suffering than did physicians. When Letty remained in her chair, still, tense, and barely breathing, David nearly snatched the papers from her, wanting to tear them to bits.

  Lest he do just that, he rose. “Say something, do something. Tell me I have offended you, hurt your feelings, misread the situation, been too miserly—anything, but don’t sit there suffering this recitation.”