David Lord of Honor (The Lonely Lords) (34 page)

Letty went utterly still in her rocking chair. “That money was for Danny. Olivia was to save that money for Danny. That was our arrangement.”

David laid a quieting hand on her arm when Banks blinked at her in confusion.

“The second piece of correspondence?” David prompted.

“That missive,” Banks said, “had been penned to my wife by Mrs. Fanny Newcomb. Mrs. Newcomb cheerfully related that because Letty’s current protector was every bit as titled as the last one, and much, much wealthier, the Ladies’ Guild could expect a great deal in the way of remuneration. Mrs. Newcomb hinted that Letty might bring this gentleman up to scratch, which would cost her the position of madam at his brothel—
‘A pity, that’
—but would ensure the greatest gain for the Guild in the end. Viscounts, Mrs. Newcomb noted with appalling authority, are particularly susceptible to blackmail.”

Banks had a beautiful voice, one that likely beguiled his parishioners to services for their weekly dose of scripture and gossip, but he also had beautiful eyes, and those eyes were devastated.

“My dearest sister, what have we done to you?”

***

“You alluded to an arrangement, Letty,” David said into the strained silence. “What was that arrangement?”

Brother and sister shared a look, and some communication beyond David’s ken passed between them.

“Tell him,” Banks said. “I’ve never been comfortable with the deception, and I see little point to it now.”

A pure white cat came strutting into the parlor. It hopped onto Letty’s lap, and David felt a spike of resentment for the beast and its presumptuousness, until the cat gazed at him with one blue eye and one green eye.

“The money I sent to Olivia,” Letty said, stroking the cat’s back, “was for the support of my son, and to buy Olivia’s silence. She implied, Daniel, that you knew the money was coming in, but I wasn’t to bring up any particulars in your presence, lest your pride be offended.”

Letty’s admission was made softly, and she did not so much as glance at David when she spoke. He wanted to take her in his arms, to shout with relief, to toss Banks from the room and kiss the lady senseless, because her secret no longer stood between them.

Instead, David twitched the crease of his breeches and prayed for wisdom.

Banks was apparently not a man made for bitterness, but neither did sorrow look well on him. “My pride is in tatters, Letty, that you could think I would ever ask for money to support my own nephew. I love that boy, and I love you, and I never asked you for money.”

“Olivia did.” Letty lifted the cat to cradle it against her shoulder. “She made my own home a hell for me, with her veiled insults, her hints, threats, and false piety, and then, when I resolved to leave, she told me I’d pay a price for that as well.”

“I don’t understand,” David said as the cat began to purr. “You lived with your brother when Danny was born?”

Letty did not reply, her silence an echo of the same silence David had been enduring from her for months.

Banks provided the answer, regarding his sister with such compassion, David suspected the man qualified for sainthood.

“Letty found herself with child when she approached her seventeenth birthday. The child’s father, Uriah Smith, had been our father’s curate, and while Father was hardly fair to Letty, he was properly incensed with Smith. Smith departed for parts unknown in the dead of night, though we later learned he took a post in the North and perished of influenza. I became my father’s curate, and then replaced him when, shortly after the whole situation erupted, Papa died of a heart seizure.”

Letty cuddled the damned cat, while David wanted to pitch the beast through the window and draw her into his arms.

“Olivia and I,” Banks went on, “had not been blessed with a child in the five years of our marriage, but it still surprised me when she suggested raising Letty’s baby as our own. Letty was willing, however, so at the appropriate time, the ladies went on an extended holiday and repaired to the home of Olivia’s mother, where Danny was born.”

“And the vicar’s beaming wife,” David supplied, “came home with his son in her arms, just like that.”

Letty set the cat down. “This scheme was a chance for my son to be respectable. To have a gentleman for a parent, not a slut—”

“Letty,” Banks remonstrated her, but it was David who passed her his handkerchief.

“So what went amiss?” David asked, picking the cat up, despite how easily white hairs would show against excellent tailoring. “You could have remained in the vicarage household, a significant figure in your son’s life, and he in yours. The situation would not be ideal, but I suppose something like it happens more frequently than we know.”

“Letty decided to leave,” Banks said. “She could not bear watching the child refer to Olivia as Mama or see him crawling up to Olivia for comfort and reassurance.”

Letty abruptly stopped dabbing at her eyes. “I did no such thing. Olivia told me to go when I’d weaned Danny and it became obvious he still viewed me as his mother. The day Olivia overheard him call me Mama was the day she started campaigning for my departure.”

The cat in David’s lap purred contentedly, while brother and sister regarded each other with bewilderment.

“Campaigning? Olivia assured me you wanted to go.”

“For God’s sake, Daniel, I never wanted to leave my son. What kind of mother do you think I am?”

David
thought she was a heroic mother, a mother who’d stop at nothing to see her child safe and well cared for.

“Then why did you go?” Banks asked.

“To earn the money,” Letty retorted, tears tracking down her cheeks. “To earn the damned money and to keep Olivia quiet.”

“Quiet, how?”

The question took courage. David rather wished Banks hadn’t been able to ask it.

“Olivia became convinced she needed to confess our situation to the bishop, much as Uriah Smith had been smitten by the need to confess. You were involved in a monumental deception, Daniel, and allowing a woman without virtue to live at the vicarage, among your congregation. Olivia implied, amid much reference to Christian duty and my immortal soul, that if I did not leave and begin producing the money you had admitted would be a welcome contribution, then her conscience would continue to plague her.”

The irony of Letty’s fate, ending up in a brothel as a result of the selfishness of a curate and a vicar’s wife, had David on his feet, the cat vaulting to the floor and scampering for the door.

“I’m sorry, Banks,” David said, “but your wife is a scheming, conniving, heartless, unfeeling, unnatural—”

“Bitch,” Banks concluded wearily.

“But clever,” Letty added as the cat stopped in the doorway, sat, and curled its tail around its haunches. “She made the choice easy: I could leave, allowing my son to grow up as a gentleman, while I contributed to his welfare and provided a blessing Olivia and Daniel had given up hoping for. In the alternative, I could live in constant fear that Olivia would expose my brother and my son to scandal, while every day Olivia hurt me through the people I loved most. The decision was simple.”

“It was not easy,” David said, but this tale smoothed all those small puzzle pieces into a single image of sacrifice and sorrow. Letty had protected first her son, then her brother, and then—humbling realization—David, too.

Viscounts being particularly susceptible to blackmail—in the opinion of some.

“Living apart from my son was miserably difficult. It still is.”

“So you did not decide to leave of your own volition,” Banks said. “You were blackmailed into leaving.”

Ugly word, though the man’s fortitude was impressive.

Letty regarded David’s handkerchief—one she’d embroidered with pink roses—rather than meet her brother’s eyes. “I can’t blame Olivia for the fact that, having surrendered my virtue, I chose to trade on that lapse to make my living on my back.”

“Oh, can’t you?” David said softly. “Let me speculate here, and suggest Olivia fixed for you a sum you had to regularly remit, lest she bring her fears to the bishop, and such a sum would never have been within the ambit of a woman in service even in London, though you likely didn’t know that when you agreed to her scheme. When you left the shires, your sister-in-law’s carping was fresh in your ears, insisting you could not expect decent men to take an interest in you, and you would be well-advised to use your venery to support your son. Am I right?”

The cat hopped into Banks’s lap, which meant more of David’s own fine tailoring would be sporting white hairs. “And,” Banks said, stroking a hand over the presuming cat, “Olivia recruited Fanny Newcomb to keep an eye on you, or maybe their collusion was a simple, rotten coincidence.”

Letty folded David’s handkerchief into quarters on her lap, probably adding cat hair to that too. “I’ve wondered how Olivia knew where to find me. She sent letters to The Pleasure House when I worked there, but I never indicated to her where I was employed, or in what capacity. She just knew.”

“And exploited the knowledge,” David added. “Does Olivia at least love the boy?”

Banks found it expedient to scratch the cat’s chin. “He does not go hungry or want for clothing and hygiene, but she is not warm toward him—toward him
either
, truth be known. When he was a baby, she delighted in showing him off, but now that he’s older, she seems to resent him. I love him,” he added quietly. “I love him like he was my own.”

David guessed Banks loved the boy like a man who had no children would love the only youngster ever to come into his keeping.

“It grows late,” Letty said, tucking David’s handkerchief into a pocket. “I am sure you have more questions for me, Daniel, but you’ve had a long, trying day, and I should see about supper.”

When she left the room, Banks cradled the cat against his shoulder, exactly as Letty had. “Does your offer of marriage still stand? Knowing my sister bore a child out of wedlock, would you still have her for your viscountess?”

A brother was entitled to ask. “I knew months ago she’d borne a child.”

“She
told
you?”

“She didn’t need to. But yes, of course I would still offer for her. The issue is, will she have me?”

***

Letty returned to the parlor to find both men rocking silently in the chairs near the hearth. They were not at each other’s throats, but then, on what grounds would one castigate the other? David had slept with Letty—albeit with her enthusiastic consent—while Daniel had failed to protect her from his own wife, in which arrangement, Letty had also been complicit.

What were they thinking of
her
?

“I propose we share a simple meal here,” she said. “Daniel, I have an extra room for you and Danny, though Lord Fairly has also offered his hospitality.”

And the idea of housing Danny and Daniel in the front bedroom turned her stomach.

Daniel considered
his
lordship
, who looked all too dear and hard to read in his rocking chair. “My horse is enjoying the viscount’s accommodations as we speak, so perhaps Danny and I had best do likewise.”

This was no relief, not when Letty hadn’t seen Danny for months. “As you wish.”

She wanted to argue, wanted to point out that with her secrets splattered all about like an upended tea tray, she no longer had a reason to tolerate separation from her son.

Except, she had a reason. For Danny’s sake, she would not start ranting and weeping—again.

Danny joined them for the meal, volubly excited to be at table with guests, and to have his Aunt Letty as his hostess, which was a small consolation.

“London is muddy, wet, and cold, but I don’t want to go home,” Danny announced, shooting an anxious glance at Daniel.

“We won’t be going home tonight, Danny,” Daniel explained. “We will ride in Viscount Fairly’s coach and stay at his house, where Zubbie is staying.”

“Will we see Aunt Letty again soon?” Danny asked, fiddling with his potatoes.

“We will see her tomorrow. Now eat your potatoes, and there might be some pudding for well-behaved young men from Little Weldon.”

The exchange was prosaic, and yet, in Letty’s wildest, most irrational moments, she never would have guessed she’d one day have her brother and son sharing a table with her—
and
David
. And yet, Letty kept missing parts of the conversation, turning over in her mind how willing she’d been to believe Olivia’s venom and mischaracterization. Very likely, Daniel, who was married to the woman, was experiencing the same sort of consternation.

Several times, Letty caught herself staring into space, preoccupied with odd memories, times when Daniel had looked puzzled by a remark she’d made, times when he’d not responded as she’d expected to something she’d said.

Daniel, too, dropped out of the general discussion at odd moments to stare at his plate. David took up the burden of keeping the child entertained, though Danny was tiring.

“Might I suggest,” David said when the trifle had been served, “that I take Danny with me to Tatt’s tomorrow? They won’t be holding a sale, but I’d like to have a look at some of the new stock, and Tatt’s is a stop a young man ought to make when he comes up to Town.”

Whom was he asking? Letty, as the child’s mother, or Daniel, as the man who’d raised the boy since birth?