David Lord of Honor (The Lonely Lords) by Grace Burrowes

feathered against her brow, then her cheek, then the side of her neck. He nuzzled and sighed and took his time, following the contours of her face with his lips and his nose and his breath.
    Just as the disappointing thought formed— So, he isn’t going to kiss my mouth. —Fairly’s lips settled gossamer light on hers, as if he rested his mouth on hers, waiting for her to take the initiative. When she didn’t pull away or poker up—the two options she could have envisioned pursuing—the tip of Fairly’s tongue teased along her lips. He’d used a soft, warm, flirting touch, playful and knowing. Letty opened her mouth to ask him what he was doing , but found to her shock his tongue insinuated itself into her mouth.
    Heaven defend her. Her employer took lazy, decadent liberties with his tongue. He tasted; he explored; he seemed to grow taller as Letty clung to him. Her head was thrown back, their mouths fused, and her arms had somehow—she honestly knew not how—wound themselves around his neck, her fingers linked under the queue of blond hair gathered at his nape.
    He eased away from the kiss, keeping his arms around her. Her wobbly knees appreciated that consideration, even as the rest of her wanted to step back, smooth down her skirts, and coolly precede his lordship into the front parlors—provided she could find them.
    Who was she, that she’d thrust her tongue into a man’s mouth? That she’d cling to him so shamelessly? That she’d want him to kiss her and kiss her and kiss her, endlessly?
    And why had Herbert never kissed her thus? Why had he never held her hand?
    “On second thought,” Fairly said, his forehead resting against hers, “a sign hung ’round your neck might be the safer option all around. You practice very convincingly, Letty Banks.”
    A real courtesan, a woman who understood the profession and accepted it for what it was, would have had something clever to say. Letty was not such a woman, and hoped she never would be. “I thought we were kissing.”
    “My mistake, for we surely were kissing after all.” He bussed her nose, took half a pace back, and reached for her hand. Letty was glad he did, for she still needed some kind of support if she was to remain upright and yet move.
    “Ready to face the lions?” he asked, opening the door and tucking her hand around his elbow.
    “As ready as I’ll ever be.” Which was to say, not ready at all.
    Four
     
    “If it warms up, we’ll get another damned snowstorm,” David observed, poking at the logs in his madam’s sitting-room fireplace. Logs were an extravagance he hoped she would not scold him for, though Jennings certainly had. “Do you prefer brandy, or perhaps a cordial?”
    Because after hours of trying to remain close to Letty without hovering, of touching her hand, her hair, her anything with an appearance of casual affection, he needed a drink.
    “May I please have a hot chocolate?”
    So polite, in this most impolite of venues. “Of course you may.” David opened the door and gave their request to the footman at the end of the corridor. “You may swill hot chocolate the whole night through if it’s what you prefer. You mustn’t spare the small indulgences, Letty. The nights are too long and the pleasures too few.”
    Sometime in the course of the evening, he’d gained the privilege of calling her Letty, though she did not call him David.
    “What you require of me isn’t that difficult,” she replied, closing her eyes and resting her head against the back of the couch. “One smiles, greets, chats, and moves on to the next for more of same. One mustn’t flirt too hard or give offense to any party, or be overly boisterous or overly withdrawn. One mustn’t imbibe to excess or comment uncharitably on the social habits of others. Rather like a village assembly.”
    Not a comparison David would have ever thought to make. “You sound like you’re reciting a catechism.” And like she’d been to many, many village