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door and turned to leave him.
    “Until next we meet, my lord,” she said, her back mostly to him.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Until Tuesday.” She stepped into the house and closed the door without further comment. Blast the man and his lovely eyes; she was already wondering how much he might pay a woman to tolerate his intimate attentions.
    Though that woman would not be her. That woman would never be her again.
    ***
     
    From behind the window of her front parlor, Letty watched Viscount Fairly walk away, his long-legged pace far more brisk than it had been at her side. He gave off a sense of energy and purpose rather than the exuberant high spirits of the young men newly down from university. David Worthington was not a boy, had probably never been a boy. He was in every sense a man, and that made him… tricky.
    “Your tea, love.” Fanny Newcomb put the tray on the low table before the settee, then straightened and regarded the falling snow dourly. “Won’t be fit for man nor beast out there before too much longer.”
    She was a plump, gray woman, her face lined with the passing years and with concern for her employer. Fanny was also a connection with home, and for that reason alone, Letty would sell off the last bucket of household ashes before she’d let Fanny go.
    “You are too good to me,” Letty said, sinking down onto the sofa. Beside the tea lay two fresh, buttery pieces of shortbread—which they could not afford.
    “Those boots have to be cold and wet. Best get them off if you’re not to take a chill.” Fanny’s concern was served with a dash of scold, as usual.
    “I did well at the jeweler’s. Still, you need not have used new leaves for the tea.” The scent of the tea was marvelous, and steam curled from the spout into the chilly parlor air.
    “This is not a night for weak tea,” Fanny said, tugging the curtains closed. “You were gone quite a while, and I was getting that worried about you.”
    “I met someone,” Letty admitted, glad for a chance to parse the encounter with a friendly ear.
    Fanny gave up trying to drape the curtains so they entirely blocked the fading afternoon light. “Not a female someone,” she concluded with some interest.
    “I met him once before.” Letty bent to unlace her boots, knowing the women at Fairly’s establishment had ladies’ maids for such a task—also coal for their parlor grates. “David Worthington, Viscount Fairly. He called on me when Herbert died.”
    “Is he related to Herbert?”
    “No.” Letty slipped her feet from her boots and tucked her legs under her on the sofa, because the parlor floor was positively frigid. “Not directly. There’s some connection now through the in-laws to the surviving brother, but Fairly was not close to the deceased.”
    Thank heavens.
    They fell silent as Fanny perched on the edge of an upholstered chair, fixed Letty a cup of tea, and passed it to her. Maybe some fallen women could observe strict propriety with their last and only employee; Letty was not among them.
    “Just shy of bitter,” Letty murmured, closing her eyes with the small bliss of it.
    “Did this viscount fellow suggest he’d be interested in further dealings?”
    Letty put down her teacup. “Must we discuss that, Fanny? I understand how strained my finances have become, but your wages are up-to-date, there’s food in the larder for your meals, and the thought… I don’t know if I can.”
    Worse, she was nearly certain she could not.
    “Well, ducks, you have to do something, and sooner rather than later. Needs must. And certain burdens are a woman’s lot whether she’s married or not. There are fellows who can make the business bearable. Find one of ’em, or find another way to pay the bills, lest you spend next winter on a street corner or on your brother’s charity.”
    On that mercifully brief summation of the relevant truths, Fanny withdrew.
    Letty’s reticule lay next to the tea tray, the beaded bag another small