David Lord of Honor (The Lonely Lords) (37 page)

“Daniel, you don’t understand. David is a good man, and he has a title, and he was above my touch before I met Uriah Smith. He will love his children to distraction, and when they are not accepted socially, it will be my fault, and there will be nothing I can do to make it right.”

Daniel rose and closed the parlor doors. When he turned back to face Letty, his expression was incongruously relaxed and untroubled.

“Letty, it is for Fairly to say whom he loves to distraction, and for me to protect Danny from the disgrace association with me will visit upon him. It is for you, my dearest sister, to recall the simplest tenet of faith: with love, anything is possible.”

He was a man facing ruin and the loss of all he held dear, and yet he was smiling. Letty pitched into her brother’s arms and started to cry.

Sixteen

“Zubbie’s a good sort,” Danny said, “but he’s only four, and little boys are bound to get into mischief at that age.”

How expertly he mimicked his father—his uncle.

“And how old would you be, Danny? Eight at least, I’d guess. Maybe even nine, judging from those muscles in your arms.”

Danny giggled from his perch on David’s shoulders, a sound that went wonderfully with the bustle and bonhomie of Tatt’s at midday. “I am five and a half, and soon I shall be six.”

“Why will you be six?” For that matter, why be twenty-eight?

“Six comes after five. You only get to be five for one year, and then you have to go to the next number. How old are you?”

Children were so patient with their elders. “Four thousand seven hundred eighty-two,” David replied, eyeing a chestnut mare. “How do you like the looks of this one?”

“Chestnut mare, better beware. She’s pretty. Zubbie would like her.”

“She isn’t for Zubbie. She would be for your Aunt Letty.”

Because the child was sitting on David’s shoulders, David experienced physically the tension that straightened the small spine and had the boy clutching David’s hair more tightly.

“Shall we watch her trot out?” David hefted the child off his shoulders and settled him on his hip, and sure enough, Danny’s expression was one of wary tension. “Danny, is something wrong?”

Danny shook his head, then buried his face against David’s neck.

“Well, let’s have a look at the mare, shall we?” They watched her walk, then trot up the aisle, and David liked what he saw. Her gaits were rhythmic, smooth, and relaxed, and the mare regarded the hubbub of the stables with placid condescension. She put David in mind of a more elegant version of his own mare, so he asked to have her saddled.

He sat Danny down on a pile of straw, while he tried the mare out himself. She was sound, patient, and every inch a lady. She responded to his aids with alacrity, and was as comfortable to sit as she had been to watch.

“Danny, lad,” David called to the child, “up you go. You tell me if your aunt would like her.”

Danny scrambled aboard and barely let David shorten the stirrups before he was off around the yard, posting the trot as if born knowing how.

A grizzled stable lad shook his head. “Them little ones. The horses just know…”

“Have you any ponies?” Because David had been little once long ago, and because back at Letty’s modest house, two adults needed time for a difficult conversation.

“Have we!” The man thwacked his cap against his thigh, which sent a nearby yearling dancing on the end of its lead rope. “The Quality is all leaving Town for summer, and we’ve ponies coming out our arse, pardon me language.”

“The boy is clearly well off the lead line,” David said as Danny guided the mare through a change of direction. “Show me what ponies you have that are safe both in harness and under saddle.”

Young Danny had fun with the mare, and the mare with him. They trotted every which way, halted, backed, trotted some more, and eventually came to stand right before David.

“She’s splendid,” the child cried, beaming. “Do I have to get off now?”

“You do,” David said, reaching up for him. “You think Aunt Letty will like her?” A cloud passed across the boy’s expression, so fleetingly that David would have missed it were he not watching closely.

“She will,” Danny said, watching as the mare was led away.

“But?”

“I know some things,” Danny said, looking abruptly sullen and mulish.

“Are they important things?” David asked, taking a seat on a saddle rack.

“They are
secret
things. Bad secrets.”

“And who,” David asked, not a murderous thought to be seen—on his face—“asked you to keep these secrets?”

“She didn’t ask me, she
told
me. If I tell, she’ll throw me on the rubbish heap.” He glanced around nervously, probably checking for a nearby rubbish heap.

“That does not sound like a very nice or fair thing to do to a fellow who isn’t even six yet,” David said, settling a hand on Danny’s bony little shoulder. “Do you want to tell the secrets, Danny?”

Danny nodded, staring down at the dirt floor, then rubbed his nose on his sleeve. “I mustn’t. She said.”

“Do you know, Danny”—David began to rub the child’s back in the same soothing circles he’d seen Banks use the night before—“a viscount is a very important fellow. We’re such important fellows that I’ve met the regent himself.”

“You’ve met Prinny? Oddsboddykins! Is he quite stout?”

“He’s very grand, and because the prince was once himself a little boy, he told me he takes a dim view of anybody who thinks they can toss little boys—English little boys, in particular—onto rubbish heaps, as do I.” The stable manager led up a Welsh pony gelding, but the beast was quite small, and David shook his head.

“I won’t get thrown on the rubbish heap if I don’t tell.”

“You won’t get thrown on the rubbish heap no matter what. I won’t have it, Danny, and I am a viscount.” For once, David could say that with relish. “The vicar would not hear of it either, nor would your aunt Letty. Not if you teased Zubbie, not if you said very bad words, not if you punched an old lady in the nose and knocked her into a hog wallow. Nobody is allowed to throw little boys onto the rubbish heap, particularly not little boys whom I happen to like.”

“But you’re not my papa,” Danny said in a miserable whisper.

David spoke very quietly, knowing the exact contour of a boy’s torment when his paternity was in doubt. “Who is your papa?”

Danny shook his head and buried his nose against David’s thigh. David scooped the child into his lap and
felt
the boy start to cry, felt the heat welling up from the small body, felt the tension, misery, and bewilderment overcoming the child’s fragile dignity. He wrapped his arms around Danny and prayed—honestly and sincerely
prayed
—for fortitude.

“Might I ask a favor of you, Master Banks?”

“What favor?” The child’s tone suggested important viscounts shouldn’t need favors from anybody.

“I know a young lady whose name is Rose, and she loves ponies. I was wondering if you’d try some of these ponies out and let me know if there are any you think she might like.”

“I get to ride them?” Danny asked, head coming up.

“You can’t ride all of them, or your papa will wonder where we are.” The cloud passed across Danny features again, but his attention was on the ponies lined up down the aisle.

“Select three.” David put the child down, though Rose had already chosen her steed—a gift from old Moreland, no less—and nobody and nothing would part her from Sir George.

An hour later, David had made his decision—decisions, rather—and he and Danny were on their way back to Letty’s house, Danny up before him on his gray mare.

“She’s bigger than Zubbie, even,” Danny marveled. “What’s her name?”

“Honey,” David said, patting the mare on the neck. “And she has to be big, because I’m big.”

“You’re as big as my pa—” Danny’s face fell and he went silent.

David spoke close the child’s ear. “I don’t know what your secrets are, because you haven’t said one word to me about them. But I do know Vicar Daniel loves you, and loves you and loves you. He would never toss you on the rubbish heap, and he would be
exceedingly
angry at anyone who did. You should tell him your secrets and let him help with this other person who is threatening such mean things.”

“But he’s not…” Danny fell silent again, a child struggling to explain the simplest logic to a thickheaded adult.

“Even if he isn’t,” David said firmly, “he is your vicar, and vicars protect the innocent and weak, like the sick people and the old people, and little boys who are being threatened. He loves you, and you can tell him. If you want me to, I’ll come with you.”

Danny twisted around in the saddle to peer at David.

“What if he gets mad?” Danny asked in a small voice. “She said he’d get mad, and then…”

“Then he’d throw you on the rubbish heap? My God, the nightmares you must have.”

But Danny had nodded and was looking to David for further reassurances.

“I will keep you safe, lad,” he said, tightening the arm he had around the child’s waist for emphasis. “No matter what, I will keep you safe. It’s what viscounts do.”

It’s what this viscount would do, and devil take the hindmost.
Danny faced forward again and seemed lost in thought. As they turned onto Letty’s street, Danny whipped around and speared David with a look.

“You’ll come with me?”

“I shall.” David swung off, tossed the reins to the groom who had accompanied them to Tatt’s, and lifted the child from the saddle to his hip. “Do you want to tell him now?”

“Will Aunt Letty be there?”

“Do you want her to be there?”

“Aunt Letty is nice,” Danny said. “She loves me, and she’s my… he’s her brother.” Complicated business, indeed, from a small child’s perspective.

“So why don’t we ask Aunt Letty to join us?” David suggested as he climbed the steps. He didn’t knock on the door, but opened it as if he were family and hallooed in the entryway.

“We’re in here,” Letty said, emerging from the parlor. “How were the stables?”

She’d been crying, though she looked… not unhappy.

“Fun,” Danny murmured, again burying his nose against David’s neck.

Letty frowned at the child then at David. “Is somebody tired?”

Several somebodies were likely weary to death.

“Somebody,” David said, leaning in to kiss her cheek, “is burdened with secrets, but not for much longer. Is the vicar about?”

“Here,” Banks said, coming up behind Letty with a smile. “I smell the most wonderful perfume—like horses, only mixed with little boy. Did you see anything you liked, Danny?”

Danny wasn’t to be cajoled, and Banks shot David a perplexed look.

“Into the parlor, shall we?” David suggested. Letty and Banks followed him, both clearly puzzled by Danny’s behavior—and David’s. David sat in one of the rocking chairs, Danny in his lap, and set the chair in motion.

“Danny has matters to discuss, but first you must both promise him sincerely that you won’t be mad at him, and you won’t toss him on the rubbish heap,
no
matter
what
.”

“I promise,” Letty said instantly. Banks paused a moment though, waiting for the child’s eyes to meet his—probably a maneuver taught in vicar school.

“Danny,” he said, “I will not be angry with you, no matter what you tell me. And I would not toss you on the rubbish heap, or suffer anyone else to do that, no matter what. I promise. Do you believe me?”

He was good at being a vicar, at being a papa. And Banks was just plain good, as Letty was good.

As David himself could be good, when he tried very hard and didn’t own any brothels.

Danny returned Banks’s regard, looking very like him. “But you are not my papa.”

That was all he got out before bursting into tears and pitching against David’s chest. Banks fished out a handkerchief and hunkered beside the rocker, while Letty crouched on the other side, looking dumbstruck.

“Danny, hush,” Banks coaxed, taking the child from David’s arms. “I love you, Danny, that’s what matters. I love you.”

“But you’re not my papa!” the child wailed, clinging to Banks’s neck. “I haven’t a papa at all!”

While Banks slowly paced the room with the child in his arms, Letty rose, her movements burdened and creaky.

“Take it,” David said, shoving his handkerchief at her. He rose and kept an arm around her waist as Banks continue to try to reason with Danny.

Who was only becoming more and more upset.

***

A mother, a real mother who hadn’t abandoned her son to the care of a viper, would know what to do. Letty hadn’t the right to interfere between her brother and her son at that moment, and yet, she could not keep silent.

“Daniel Temperance Banks, hush before you scare my cat.” The heartrending sobs ceased, as both Danny and Daniel turned surprised expressions on Letty. “Thank you, that’s better. Gentlemen, if you’d have a seat.”

She put as much command into her tone as she dared, more than she’d ever used on David’s employees at The Pleasure House, more than she’d attempted on David himself. Almost as much as her own mother might have used when in a taking with her offspring.