David Lord of Honor (The Lonely Lords) Read Online Free PDF Page B

unmistakable clink of coins, and not all that many coins.
    Why was Letitia Banks pawning her jewelry even as she turned down an offer of protection from a perfectly acceptable, attractive, pleasant young gentleman?
    ***
     
    Walking along beside Lord Fairly was a surprisingly painful business, for the handsome, blond viscount was everything Letty had given up.
    No… He was everything she’d never had and would never have. Sophisticated, wealthy, good-humored, well-mannered, and with a bred-in-the-bone sense of consideration that made her want things she had once dreamed could be hers.
    “Penny for them,” he said when he’d escorted Letty halfway home.
    “I have enjoyed this visit with you.” Which ought to occasion pleasure rather than an inexplicable melancholy—her belly was full, after all, and she hadn’t had to part with a single petticoat.
    And for a few minutes, despite all her determination to the contrary, she’d cried on a man’s shoulder and been… comforted.
    With that thought, Letty slipped on the dusting of snow underfoot, the soles of her boots being worn smooth, though her escort righted her with no effort at all.
    “I am almost sure I hear a but coming,” he said, “perhaps of the same variety you inflicted on poor Windham.”
    Poor Windham, the handsome, wealthy, talented, musical prodigy of a duke’s son. “I discouraged Lord Valentine out of motives other than spite, my lord.”
    “Befriend him,” Fairly urged her. “He’s recently lost a second brother, this one to consumption, the heir having died several years ago on the Peninsula. If your terms are clearly stated, he won’t trespass.”
    “I will consider it.” When the English put Napoleon on the throne.
    “May I be honest?” Fairly asked, some of the pleasantness leaving his tone.
    “Of course.” Though she wished he wouldn’t be. For two hours, his parlor hadn’t been merely bearable, it had been warm . Fairly wasn’t merely polite to her, he was gracious. The food had been plentiful and fresh, and the tea hot and strong. She’d put as much sugar in hers as she liked, not doled herself out a miserly serving and pretended it tasted just as good.
    “I am quite frankly puzzled, Mrs. Banks. You appear to have no source of income, and yet you refused Windham. How do you sustain your household, if not by bartering your favors?”
    She forced herself to continue walking, to keep to herself how mortifying his inquiry was. Perhaps by literally crying on his shoulder—in his arms, into his monogrammed silk handkerchief—she had granted him permission to presume this far.
    “You needn’t answer, of course.” His tone was concerned rather than curious. “But your circumstances worry me.”
    “I appreciate the thought, though I am not your worry.” She had lost the right to be anybody’s worry years ago. Lost it in the vicarage rose arbor, within sight of the peacefully moonlit gravestones.
    “You appear to be nobody’s worry. Thus I am anxious, because you are a woman without protection, and my extended family had a hand in authoring difficulties for you.”
    “How do you reason that?”
    “Your last protector was my brother-by-marriage. I have the sense Herbert did not comport himself well with respect to you, and sometimes it isn’t finances needed to redress a wrong.”
    True chivalry, rather than pretty manners, empty flattery, or even the lure of coin, was a courtesan’s worst, most beguiling enemy.
    Letty increased her pace, despite the slick footing, and Fairly kept up—easily. “I had choices, my lord.” How often had Olivia reminded her of that very truth?
    “Somehow, Mrs. Banks, I doubt you had choices in any meaningful sense. When the girls leave my employ, my most stern admonition to them is to always have their own money, somewhere, and to keep its existence and whereabouts a complete secret. Even so, I worry. A woman who has placed herself outside the protections of decent Society is always at