David Lord of Honor (The Lonely Lords) (12 page)

“Letty Banks can handle you,” Douglas said, and his tone suggested this was high praise. “She is kind, perceptive, and intelligent, also honorable within the limits of her station. You respect her, and you have no other current attachments, at least not that your sisters or their husbands know of.”

Because Douglas, too, would be kept apprised of the family gossip.

“How did you and Mrs. Banks meet, if I may ask?” David refreshed his drink, but wasn’t surprised when Douglas declined.

“She contacted me when she was pawning her jewelry. She’d learned that some of the pieces Herbert had given her belonged to the estate, and returned them to me.”

“She sold them back to you?”

“She
gave
them back to me, reasoning that Herbert could not give her what did not belong to him. To her, the transaction was simple. Mrs. Banks regarded the right to wear those jewels as Astrid’s, at least until I married.”

“Letty has said nothing about any of this.” Though she’d been hoarding coal and rationing her tea leaves, and the sum Thomas had invested for her was all but gone.

“She wouldn’t say anything,” Douglas replied. “The situation reflects poorly on my brother’s memory, who for all his faults, provided well for her during their association.”

Douglas understood this sort of moral clarity, while David understood hunger and cold.

“And on the strength of your one meeting with her, you think Mrs. Banks and I would enjoy each other’s company?”

Douglas resumed his place by the cozy hearth, to all appearances a gentleman happy to prose on about his acres and his broodmares, rather than his friend’s next choice of inamorata.

“I don’t know Mrs. Banks that well,” he said. “All I am trying to say is that Mrs. Banks is lovely, honorable in her way, and available. You are similarly situated, and in need of… recreation.”

Outside, scattered snowflakes began a sidewise dance toward the cold, hard earth. “You are presuming to comment on my personal life?”

“I presume,” Douglas said, “because I owe you, and I can plainly see that you are lonely as hell. I know from experience that lonely men do stupid things. Becoming intimate with Mrs. Banks would not be stupid.”

“Lonely and lecherous are not the same,” David retorted, purposely using crude language with a friend who was himself never vulgar, because this snow would likely keep up the entire distance to Kent.

Douglas did not so much as twitch an eyebrow. “Indeed, they are not. Loneliness can kill a man; lechery is easily managed by any fellow over the age of twenty-five.”

The scold was all the more effective for being delicate. “You think I should simply bed Letty Banks?”

“No, again.” Douglas’s calm should have been a warning. “Bed her if the two of you are so inclined, but my opinion is that you should marry her.”

Long moments of silence ticked by, while David stared incredulously at a man he considered a friend, someone he respected as eminently rational, shrewd, and observant to a fault.

But also
kind
. Douglas was reserved and much concerned with propriety, but he was also painfully kindhearted.

“Damn you, Douglas Allen. I’ll bite: Why should I marry Letty Banks?”

“I’m not going to tell you that your title means you have to marry someone,” Douglas began as patiently as if he were teaching a catechism. “You will pressure yourself to marry and produce an heir and a spare—you’re an English peer, after all—so one could say that you
should
marry, not that you must.”

“One could.” Though Douglas, in his orderly, rational, goddamned reasonable way, was apparently not.

“Mrs. Banks would be a scandalous choice, of course. But your sisters both married amid scandal, and they’ve been happy for it nonetheless.”

“My sisters’ husbands would not appreciate my choice, were I to take Mrs. Banks to wife.” Because a rake reformed was a hypocritical bastard, and a pair of rakes reformed was a heavenly chorus of how-could-you’s and I-told-you-so’s.

Douglas waved a hand. “The only true reason for you to avoid scandal is to ensure your marital options remain flexible. Heathgate and Greymoor were a couple of scapegraces before they married; they can hardly point fingers at you. And as far as that goes, my impression was that Herbert was the first man to offer Mrs. Banks his protection. Other than whatever missteps she took out in the shires, she is not known intimately to any living man.”

“You are saying she is only slightly used goods, and if I want her, I should have her.”

Douglas leveled a stare at David, as if willing insight into the brain of a lout. “My wife,” he said softly, “thought herself slightly used goods. She hid with the shame of it, because her family’s wealth allowed her to do so.”

David had the grace to look away, to acknowledge the punch in the gut Douglas had just delivered to his conscience. Douglas—proper, stodgy, reserved Douglas—had schemed and planned and moved heaven and earth to marry his slightly—badly—used Guinevere.

“Letty isn’t Gwen.” Though even a moment’s reflection pointed out similarities between them.

“And you are not me,” Douglas agreed, oh, so very pleasantly. “You are wealthy, you have the devotion of your sisters, you have properties from here to Halifax to which you can repair, and you have wit, charm, and influence in abundance. No.” Douglas took David’s half-empty glass from him. “You are certainly not me.”

“I’ll consider your counsel.” The very next time he became too drunk to ignore it.

Or all the way to damned, freezing Kent.

“See that you do. Now, you are due to spoil my daughter, who is at this moment stuffing treats into that market hog thrust upon us by her ducal grandfather, though it’s hard to fault Sir George, when he takes such good care of Rose while hacking out.”

“She hasn’t come a cropper yet?”

“No, thank the gods.” Douglas’s expression was the epitome of a papa who regarded his daughter’s pony as his first rival. “I’m not sure my heart could take that, and Moreland would be on the premises, demanding explanations of the pony at gunpoint. With Guinevere in an interesting condition, such mayhem and riot must be avoided.”

“Are you worried for Gwen?” Douglas seemed so composed—at all times, under all circumstances.

“Not worried, terrified. She delivered Rose without complications, but that was years ago.”

In the dead of winter, Surrey was producing an excellent crop of anxious prospective fathers.

“No matter how concerned you are, your job is to be the soul of patient good cheer, to shower your wife with affection, and to exude confidence and optimism. Consult Heathgate and Greymoor if you need further pointers. They’ve both become proficient at dealing with gravid wives.”

Douglas raised a thoughtful eyebrow, which from him qualified as an indication of burning curiosity. “Shower her with
affection
?”

Oh, for God’s sake
. “In abundance. She’s not concerned about getting pregnant, so you might as well enjoy the resulting lack of inhibition.”

Douglas straightened up the already tidy set of glasses remaining on the sideboard. “My wife has assured me of the same, but one feels hesitant nonetheless.”

“Listen to your wife,” David admonished. “Once the baby arrives, Gwen will need weeks to recover from the birthing. Then it will be weeks more, if not months, before the child sleeps for more than a few hours at a time. You’re newly wed, Douglas, don’t deprive yourself
or
Gwen
of the pleasures to be had now.”

“Pity,” Douglas said, shifting the decanter half an inch to the left.

“What’s a pity?”

“Pity you don’t practice medicine any longer,” Douglas murmured, absolutely straight-faced. “One could certainly use your sage and comforting counsel if you did.”

***

“David?” Guinevere, Lady Amery, found him packing his belongings after a noisy midday meal en famille with young Rose. “There’s a fellow in the kitchen who’s been sent for you from Town. He says his news is urgent, and asked that you attend him at once.”

David slung his saddlebags over his shoulder, his first thought that Letty might have found other employment. “Let’s see what he’s about.”

The man in the kitchen was Watkins, not the messenger David had left with Letty, but the head footman and a trusted retainer.

Watkins bobbed a bow. “It’s sorry I am to be botherin’ ye, yer lordship, but Mrs. Banks said it were urgent.”

Which meant—thank ye gods—Letty was still at her post and capable of giving orders. “What’s urgent, Watkins? You can speak freely here.”

Watkins darted an anxious glance at Gwen, who rolled her eyes at David and withdrew from the kitchen without further comment.

“It’s young Portia, my lord,” Watkins said. “She’s in a bad way, and the quack won’t come, even when Mrs. Banks went to fetch him personally.”

“Is it flu?”

Watkins colored to his ears. “I don’t think so, your lordship. I think it be a female complaint. Mrs. Banks didn’t want to bother you, but it’s been since Thursday, and Portia’s faring very poorly.”

“So I’m to come to Town, is that it?” David asked, mentally rearranging his travels to detour through London, because Letty would not have sent for him unless the matter were serious.

“If’n you please. Mrs. Banks is worn fair to a nubbin worryin’ for Portia, and Desdemona is fit to be tied. Portia’s at Mrs. Banks’s house, where she’ll at least have peace and quiet.”

Only the very ill needed peace and quiet that badly. Watkins was worried too, as was David.

“Let your horse rest, Watkins, and I’m sure there’s a toddy to be had and some victuals in the meanwhile. I’ll see you back in Town.”

“Best bundle up, my lord. It looks to start snowing again, you ask me.”

***

“Letty? It’s David, and my hands are full with the tea tray, so open the damned door.”

He’d come.
All Letty could think as she opened the door was that he’d come, and his presence would mean a lot to the woman dying in the bed.

“What in the hell is wrong?” His lordship put the tea tray down on a bureau and took a step toward her, but Letty nodded toward the bed, lest she collapse into her employer’s arms.

“Portia’s bleeding to death.” Letty kept her voice down, though the stench in the room likely proclaimed the truth loudly enough. “She went to Old Meg, at least that’s what the women told me. Portia wouldn’t say a thing to me, and apparently timed her visit such that most everyone was getting their courses—her bleeding wouldn’t have been unusual, then.”

“Old Meg?” Fairly added a short, filthy oath as he sat on the bed. “You know who she is?”

“I gather from your expression she’s not a midwife.”

“She’s a damned butcher,” Fairly shot back. “She’s an abortionist, a whore whose protector slashed her face rather than let her leave him. She took to her trade when her looks were ruined, but she’s as jealous of the young women who come to her as she is likely to help them. Many do not survive her assistance.”

Something else to hate about this new occupation Letty had taken on. “I sent word to Ridgely that Portia’s health was gravely endangered, and he didn’t bother to send a reply.”

“Ridgely is probably the reason Portia went to Meg in the first place. We’ll need hot water, towels, lye soap, and some laudanum if you have it.”

Letty returned with the hot water—thank heavens Fanny was at least keeping the well full in the oven—and found her employer in his shirtsleeves with his cuffs turned back to the elbow.

“Have you ever assisted at a birth?” he asked as he used the soap on his hands, wrists, and forearms.

“I’ve been present. What are you going to do to her?”

“I will try to save her life. You are going to have to fold back the covers, Letty, and clean Portia up as best you can before I touch her. Can you do that?”

She passed him a clean towel, one of the last ones in the house. “I can, but I’ve changed the linens enough to know she’s literally a bloody mess.”

“Then we’ll change them again, and sooner is better than later.”

Portia was not only a bloody mess, she was a bloody, stinking mess, and yet, his lordship was undaunted.

“Change the towels and ease her legs up so her knees are bent.”

Letty complied, though how one woman could lose so much blood and yet draw breath she didn’t know. “I ought to send for a parson, but I doubt one would come.”

As Letty swapped clean towels out for the soiled ones, fresh blood seeped from between Portia’s thighs.

“Bend her knees, and if I send for a damned priest, the man will come posthaste.”

Letty turned her head rather than watch what came next. Portia remained inert on the bed, but Fairly was soon swearing softly.

“That damned old bitch. I need bandages. Linen if you have it, and fast, and we’re going to bank the pillows under her hips to help slow the bleeding.”

He tossed a length of bloody, curved wire onto the brick before the hearth, and Letty wanted to be sick as she passed David a wad of cloth.

“Infection is almost a foregone conclusion,” he said, “but Portia’s young and otherwise healthy. She might pull through and surprise us all.” He worked in silence for a few minutes, then stepped back, his hands bloody, and motioned for Letty to replace the covers.