“A damned lot of work.”
“A bloody damned lot of work, and I’ve done enough of it.”
Cursing sounded good from the saint—relaxed, casual, fun, the way a man should curse.
“If we leave them alone in the kitchen much longer, there won’t be any chocolate left.”
“Nothing for it then.” Banks tossed back his drink, set the cat down, and pushed to his feet. “Time to defend the damned chocolate.”
***
“How does Daniel seem to you?” Letty asked David as they strolled his back garden two weeks from what she thought of as That Day. That Day she’d become a mother once more, a proper sister, and a woman who took responsibility for her own happiness.
“I don’t know your brother well, but he seems lighter, more aware of the potential gain before him, less preoccupied with the losses.”
Since Daniel had come to Town, Letty and David had spent many pleasant hours like this. They walked in the garden or in the park. They indulged in a quiet chat over tea. They took time for Danny and Daniel to adjust to the changes in their lives. But at no time had David pressed more than chaste affections on her.
“I agree with your assessment,” Letty said, “though I think my brother would find this whole process easier if he knew Danny and I would be provided for.”
David paused to snap off a white rose and pass it to her. “You have enough money at your disposal…”
Letty accepted the rose, which was pretty but had thorns and little fragrance. “I meant, if Daniel knew we were loved, provided for in that sense.”
Because that was the sense that mattered most. Around them, the gardens were approaching their finest summer glory, and yet Letty wanted only for David to look at her the way he used to—with love.
“You are loved, Letty Banks,” he said quietly. “You know this.”
How many men had hidden behind the fig leaf of passive voice because women had driven them there?
Letty kissed his cheek and leaned against him. Slowly, his arms stole around her.
“What I meant, David Worthington, is that my brother’s conscience would be more at ease if I were married to you, and Danny was a part of our household.” She’d meant to ask if David might still be interested in fashioning a life with her.
“You’d marry me to appease your brother’s conscience?” He didn’t kiss her back, didn’t stroke his hands down her spine, didn’t brush his fingers over her nape.
She would stand here all day having this discussion if necessary—and all night. “Daniel’s welfare is a concern. Then, too, I want to set a better example for my son.”
How she loved those two words. Probably the only two words more lovely would be “our child.”
“Setting an example is important,” David murmured. “Very important. May we sit?” He gestured to a bench near the roses, a spot where they’d spent hours before Letty had parted from him weeks ago.
“You have refused proposals of marriage from me in the past,” David said when Letty had arranged her skirts. “What has changed your mind?”
This was not a proposal from him, but neither was it an academic inquiry. Letty sorted through the available answers and found the most honest.
“If Daniel ever asks you, you must tell my brother my change of heart was entirely his doing, and know you’ll be imparting a falsehood.” That falsehood, though, she could live with, easily, provided David accepted the truth from her.
She set the rose aside and took David’s hand. “After weeks apart from you, what affected me most was regret that I had left you.”
“Your brother must have delivered quite a sermon to you in that parlor while Danny and I were at Tatt’s. What did he say?” His arm rested along the back of the bench behind her; his hand brushed her nape, his touch spilling a sensation like sunshine down her spine.
“When you proposed to me before, I was concerned that Olivia’s blackmail would only get worse were I to marry you. If I had told you what she was about, then you would have become involved in her web, and Daniel’s position would suffer. If I didn’t tell you, then it would always be between us, a dirty secret that Olivia could use to undermine Danny’s happiness and Daniel’s dignity. I did not want you to attempt to wrest Danny from her… But all of that is moot, now, isn’t it?”
“It never was of merit. Never.”
Disparate impressions came together in Letty’s memory: David, smiling at her across the parlor as the truth of Danny’s parentage was revealed. David, insisting on the language in his legal documents.
“You weren’t surprised to meet Danny, were you?”
“My love, I fear you will be wroth with me.”
He hadn’t used that endearment for weeks. Letty was anything but wroth, though she was anxious. “Tell me.”
“You have stretch marks on your belly and other indicators that, to a physician’s eye, shout your status as a mother. I noticed even before… I noticed some months ago, the first time I saw you as God made you.”
He’d walked in on her in her bedroom, and Letty had been torn between modesty and the hope that he’d be interested in what he saw. How slowly she’d donned her robe, and how mistaken she’d been about what she’d seen in David’s eyes.
The bench was solid beneath her, David’s arm came around her shoulders, and that was good, because Letty’s world threatened to slip off its axis. “You’ve known all along that I have a child?”
“I knew you had carried a child,” David said, kissing her jaw. “I did not know if the child lived or had been taken from you or was dependent on you but dwelled in some Scottish croft. I knew only that you had carried a child. You could not trust me with your secrets, and I had to respect that. I was not very forthcoming about my own past, was I?”
She leaned into him, needing to breathe in sandalwood and a forbearance that had respected her more than she’d respected herself. “That’s why you wrote up a document that required me only to prove I’d conceived, didn’t you?”
His arm around her became more snug. “I wanted you to have independence. I wanted to know you were safe, and you would not have to ever again manage a Pleasure House or put up with a Herbert Allen, unless you chose freely to do so. Or a David Worthington.”
A David Worthington. A man who had kept her secrets, who valued her independence, who’d offered her marriage when he’d had more questions than answers.
And yet, he was not precisely proposing.
“I am concerned, David, about how our children would be received were we to marry. I worried about it when Danny was going to be raised as the vicar’s treasured son, but now… I don’t expect he can be raised as my indiscretion, much less in a viscount’s household.”
David reached past her to retrieve the white rose, and gently touched it to her nose. “We can raise him as the vicar’s son, if you like.”
We.
We can raise him.
If you like.
“What do you mean?”
“Olivia has two options,” David said, very much the man of business sizing up a contretemps. “She can take a settlement and let Banks dictate the terms of their separation, or she can contest those terms. She is shrewd and was planning on leaving him anyway, so let’s assume she’ll cooperate.”
“Cooperate with what?”
“Banks’s decision, at this troubling crossroad in his life, to place the child with his wealthy brother-in-law, the viscount, where the child will have love, stability, every material advantage, and a doting aunt.”
How long had David been hatching this scheme; how many angles had he considered before broaching it with her?
Every possible angle, no doubt. “It could work… I don’t know if Daniel would be comfortable with it.”
David enfolded her hand against his heart, a steady, reassuring beat under Letty’s p
alm. “The thought of abandoning this child is killing your brother. He can do it only because he saw you make the same sacrifice at a young age, followed by other sacrifices of similar magnitude. In the eyes of all save Olivia, this is Daniel’s son. Your brother does not love by half measures.”
Daniel did nothing by half measures, and thank God for that. “The truth is that Danny is illegitimate, and my son. You would have him legitimate, and my nephew.”
“The very same outcome you sacrificed greatly to bring about, with two significant differences. First, the relevant parties, including the child, all know the truth. Second, Olivia is no longer an element in the equation, and even if she were, as a married woman, she has no legal right to the child whatsoever. The children of a married woman belong exclusively to her spouse, as if they were his chattel, and his alone.”
What a wonderfully cheering thought. “You’re still not telling me everything.”
He rose, and though that meant they were not touching, it also meant Letty could think more clearly.
“My willingness to suborn this scheme is derived in part from the fact that I was regarded by my peers as a bastard, at least when I was a child. I would spare your son that experience, and if I have to do business with Olivia to ensure it, then I will.”
“I forget the twists and turns your life has taken, David, and that you did not spring up out of the ground, whole cloth, Viscount Fairly at your service. You’ve traveled, held a profession, found your sisters, you were married, lost a child, for heaven’s sake… Will you ever tell me about these things? Really talk to me about them?”
She wanted to know—wanted desperately to know—and yet she had firsthand experience with the burden a troubled past could be.
“Will you marry me, Elizabeth Temperance Banks? Will you be my viscountess and the mother of our children?”
His diffident tone belied the intensity of his gaze.
“Gladly. Twice a day, if you like.”
All manner of tension drained from his posture, as if against all odds, a royal pardon had been handed down with his name on it, even as a noose of loneliness and misery hung inches from his neck.
“That’s all right then.” He resumed his place on the bench, taking Letty’s hand in his. She limited herself to that connection and waited for him to gather his thoughts.
And his courage.
“You know I went to Philadelphia to start my medical practice,” David said, “and that I met a woman there, whom I took to wife before understanding how troubled she was. You know she bore me a child, a daughter.” He paused, took another deep breath, and a breeze brought Letty the scent of honeysuckle and fresh-cut grass.
“What you do not know was that I named the child… I named her Hannah Grace. Her eyes were so blue, perfectly blue, Letty, not like mine. And we shared… one sunrise. She smiled at me, Letty. I swear to God… she smiled…”
His voice broke, his grip on Letty’s hand became desperately tight, and among the fragrant flowers and the soft evening sunshine, the tears finally, finally came.
***
“So what necessitated this ingathering of the clan, Fairly? With the Season winding down, shouldn’t you be larking off to Kent?”
The Marquess of Heathgate was at his customary perch, sitting on his vast mahogany desk, David’s sister Felicity beside him. Greymoor sat with Astrid on the hearth, holding hands in plain sight, for God’s sake. Douglas and Gwen were on the couch, indulging in a similar shameless display, and David had never been more aware that he loved each and every one of them, and their children. Hell, he even loved their horses and their dogs.
“I’ve done it,” he said. “Earlier today, Miss Elizabeth Temperance Banks was married by special license to yours truly, her brother Daniel Banks presiding.”
They’d not asked Banks if he was willing to officiate, he’d insisted—rather colorfully.
Greymoor shot to his feet, grinning and thwacking David on the back. “Well done, old boy.” He pulled him into a hug that ended only when Astrid and Felicity came at David at once, followed by the rest of the assemblage. Last to come was Amery, who was as close to smiling as Amery ever got.
“I’m proud of you,” Amery said, his blue eyes beaming. “I’m happy for you, and proud of you. When is the baby due?”
The question detonated a silence, a surprised silence, but not a shocked one. David was among family, after all.
“Well, as to that…” David’s demurrer was greeted with whoops and hoots and general ribaldry, all intended in good fun. When the riot subsided, David took up his usual spot by the French doors.
“I was concerned you would not understand the need for haste,” David said. Heathgate treated him to an arched eyebrow half the City had reason to dread. “Or even the need for marriage, given the circumstances.”
The eyebrow lowered. “I believe,” Heathgate said, “every person in this room was married at least once by special license. Only Astrid and perhaps yourself were initially married with full honors. Even so, you might have let us know.”
As scolds went, particularly scolds from Heathgate, that was the merest observation of good form.
“Letty is concerned her past will necessitate that we live quietly, for there’s more to the story than most of you know.”
Heathgate pulled his marchioness closer, and Felicity made not even a token resistance. “Then I suggest you give us the details sooner rather than later.”
David launched into an explanation of Danny’s upbringing, and the vicar’s current marital situation. When he was finished, the room was ominously quiet.
Astrid spoke first. “My heavens, David. When you land in a pickle, it’s the pickle to end all pickles. I can see why Letty anticipates a quiet life.”
“It might not be so bad as all that,” Felicity said soothingly. “In time…”
“And it might not come to an annulment for the vicar,” Gwen added philosophically. “Many couples married that long don’t dwell together.”
Another silence fell, this one more awkward.
Amery crossed his legs at the knee, a gesture that would be fussy on anybody else but looked elegant on him. “What is needed is a betrothal ball.”
“What?” Greymoor was off the hearth and pacing in an instant. “Do you want to hold Letty up to contumely from the entire peerage? They’ll cut her in the damned receiving line, and not all David’s gold or Heathgate’s intimidation or my own considerable charm will be enough to prevent that.”
Bless Douglas, for he’d anticipated David’s plan wonderfully. “We have something better than gold, intimidation, or even your charm,” David said.
“I don’t know…” Felicity exchanged anxious looks with the other ladies.
“Madam,” Douglas interjected, “this family has survived bigamy, illegitimacy, suspicious deaths, adultery, all manner of misbehavior on the part of the Alexander brothers, as well as Guinevere’s silly contretemps with Moreland, and we are received everywhere. We will still be received everywhere after this.”
More murmuring followed, but then a grin spread across Heathgate’s face. It was an unholy, dangerous, decidedly not-nice smile, and it had the rest of his family looking at him worriedly.
“My dears,” Heathgate said, slipping off the desk and crossing the room to stand before David, comprehension in the marquess’s gimlet blue eyes. “Fairly has a plan, and it’s a very good plan, brought to us by one of the most diabolical minds of all time. There will be a ball, and Letty and David’s children will be received—all of their children. Viscount Fairly, you have the floor.”
***
“Chin up, my lady.” The Duke of Moreland smiled down at Letty, age making his courtly gallantry all the more impressive. “The jackals want to see you cringe and duck, so flirt your eyelashes off. I will endeavor to return the favor within the limits of my maturity an
d station.”
He whirled her away to the strains of the waltz, only to be succeeded by his son and heir.
“Is it working?” Westhaven asked. “Has my mother once again cowed the tabbies of titled Society and their camp followers into doing her bidding?”
Letty smiled up at him, a genuine smile that acknowledged him as a friend when a friend had been needed. “I hope so, for my husband’s sake, but as for my own, all I know is that the most handsome men in the room seem to be dancing with me.”
Westhaven was not above a bit of flattery, which was probably a good thing in a ducal heir. “While your husband glares daggers at our backs.”
“Oh, you really mustn’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Smile, my lord.” She let him turn her under his arm. “When you smile, you look so convincingly human.”
“And when you steal a glance at Fairly, you look so convincingly happy.”
“I am, you know. I am so happy, and it’s generous of your family to make this effort on my behalf.”
“To have two weeks at Morelands with her granddaughter,” Westhaven rejoined, “my mother would present Attila himself at court. In a dress. With a smile.”
“Rose seems to be looking forward to the journey, provided she can take Sir George, of course. Will you be joining them?”
“That was part of the bargain,” Westhaven said, holding Letty a trifle too close on a turn. “To keep His Grace in check, of course. But I’ll take any excuse to leave Town, as will Valentine.”
The dance came to an end, and when the next set started, Letty whirled off on the arm of the marquess. She spent the entire evening partnered by one impressively titled gentleman or another. The Duke and Duchess of Moreland had mustered unbelievable influence to make it so, but Letty was also touched to see that many of the former patrons of The Pleasure House were present, and to a man they treated her with utmost courtesy and sincere good wishes—though their ladies were a much cooler group.
She scanned the Moreland ballroom, looking for her husband. By agreement, David was to partner her in the supper waltz, and happily, that time drew near. When he found Letty, she stood flanked by David’s family—Heathgate, Greymoor, Amery and their ladies, Westhaven and Lord Valentine, a brooding Thomas Jennings, and her own brother. Decked out in evening finery, they ranged around her, tall, handsome, and impressive, even at play.
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