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Marcus nudged her. “Hey now, am I to be left out of all the fun and gossip?”
She lifted her other arm around him and leaned her head against his heavyset frame, solid and comforting. “There is no fun to be had for me, alas. I pine for the unreachable, a twinkling star of which us lowly creatures dare not dream. I am again to a lonely bed tonight.”
Fraser gave a little two-fingered wave at a fine-faced fellow with fashionable sideburns and a natty coat and ducked as Marcus leaned over Letty to cuff his ear. “It’s not hard to find company. Let yourself be open to the moment.”
This might be the problem, she thought. Not that she wasn’t open to encounters. But that she spent a good deal of time with men, in abodes where they liked to flirt with other men. How was she to find companionship forherselfwith such company as she kept?
Swann chortled. “You two ought to work out your tensions elsewhere, Marcus and Fraser. Might I suggest a bout upstairs for you both?” He was a big man with a bushy beard and a wolfish look in his eye.
“I think not,” Fraser said. “He knows what he’s done.”
Marcus snorted. “I’d gladly go up withyouif you’re in the mood, Swann.”
Fraser stiffened. “George, how about you? Would you care to joinmeupstairs?”
“Am I to be left alone for supper?” Letty asked. “What a shameful lack of camaraderie tonight.”
George smiled. “I’ll stay with you, Letty. These days, I’m a taken man. I shan’t be available tonight or any other.”
This distracted Marcus and Fraser enough to forget their quarrel and to start ribbing him, but he would say no more of it, claiming a lady’s name was at stake and he was too much a gentleman to ever compromise it.
When their meal arrived, Swann got up to take his turn at pulling drinks at the back of the eatery. “Sort yourselves out or I’ll crack your sodding heads together the next time I come round, lads.”
Fraser took a bite of pigeon pie. “Well then, Letty lass, let’s get back to your tale of woe as you’re the only one willing to talk about your love life tonight.”
“I may be willing to talk of it, but the problem is that the lovely duchess refuses to hear even a hint of such conversation.” She told them about their walk through Mayfair, then sighed. “At least we seem to be forging a friendship, of sorts.”
“Perhaps then it’s time to take another job if this one is giving you trouble.”
“You know I can’t.” She poked Fraser’s rib with her elbow. “I need this job, and I need her to review my services highly. This is important for my future.”
Marcus snorted. “I know which of your services youwishshe was reviewing.”
“That’s all you think about,” Fraser muttered.
She gasped in mock outrage. “You are far too much.” She tore off a piece of crust from Fraser’s pie and popped it in her mouth. “This is business only.”
“Why notsexonly?” Marcus said, leaning back. “Nothing to it. I’m sure we’ve all had thoughts of getting beneath the skirts or trousers of the upper class and being on top for once.” He laughed. “Don’t you want to know what it’s like with a duchess? Maybe her quim is covered in diamond dust.”
“Don’t talk about her that way,” Letty snapped. “I can’t imagine it.” She could, of course. Shedid. All too vividly. “I swore I would never be involved with the nobility. It was bad enough with John, sneaking away our indiscretions, for the reward of being cast out of my own family. The last thing I want is to be someone’s secret again. Especially not for someone who can’t even voice her own desires.”
“There are far less complicated women in far closer proximity,” Fraser broke in. “With so many people like me willing to overlook a woman’s attractions, there should be a whole host of opportunity if you look hard enough.”
“Maybe I’ll have time after the job is done.” She frowned and took another bite of crust.
He pushed the plate at her. “Eat the damned pie, Letty, and I’ll order something else. When is the job projected to be done?”
“Forever from now. Months. Maybe a year.”
A whole year of pining would test her limits, Letty thought. Fraser was right. There were other women, and she needed to find one.
The door opened and a chill wind swept three night watchmen into the eatery. It was a neighborhood of solicitors and barristers and lawmakers, many of whom jostled about here and sneaked upstairs like the rest of them for a spot of fun now and again, knowing it was an establishment generally friendly to men like themselves. It wasn’t often that they saw the watchmen in these parts.
The noise level dropped like a tide retreating to the ocean, leaving ripples instead of crashing waves of conversation. With heavy-booted steps, the men marched to a counter at the back ofthe restaurant where the drinks were pulled. On their way, an errant nightstick poking out smacked someone in the back of the head, who bore it without a murmur, not looking for trouble.
Letty eyed her walking stick. But a ruckus was what they all wanted to avoid. It was much better to exist peaceably with the law, paying exorbitant fees as protection when necessary, confining their attraction to arenas like this where they were accepted among their own, and not out in public where they faced persecution.
Or the hangman’s noose.
