Eight Hunting Lyons (The Lyon’s Den Connected World)

Prologue

March 7th, 1814

M adeline Keyes stared down at the posey in her hand as she stood at the altar before the assembled guests that filled the chapel at St. Paul’s Cathedral. She hadn’t wanted lilies. Specifically, she hadn’t wanted the overpoweringly fragrant yellow lilies from her soon to be mother-in-law’s hothouse. They always made her sneeze. One would think, after a years-long courtship and betrothal, Edmund would have remembered that little detail. As it was, she could feel the telltale itch at the back of her throat and the slight watering of her eyes.

The heavy brocade of her gown was stiff and uncomfortable. While her chemise and petticoats afforded some protection, in the places where the fabric touched her skin, it itched abominably. There was also one hairpin from the vast assortment that had been used to tame her dark hair that seemed determined to pierce her skull. In short, standing next to the man who would be her husband, she couldn’t think of her marriage. She couldn’t even think of being his wife. All she could think of was all the myriad of ways that she was uncomfortable.

The vicar was speaking, his nasal voice droning on endlessly. “If there is any man who can show just cause why they may not lawfully be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

There was a rustling sound from the pews behind them. Madeline wanted to look, but it would be terribly improper to do so when it was likely only someone shifting in their seat. Watching the bride craning her head around like some sort of gawking bumpkin would displease everyone—Edmund, Mrs. Wortham, her parents.

Then the whispers began. They grew to a roar. Even more telling, the vicar was no longer looking at them. His attention was fixed instead on a point behind them. A feeling of dread, deep and overwhelming, began to wash over her.

“I must speak, though I may never be forgiven for it,” a very familiar voice uttered. There was a tearful and anguished quality to that voice, one that sounded quite rehearsed.

“Hush, Child! What are you doing?”

That had been her father’s voice. Madeline couldn’t quite register all that was happening beyond knowing it was something horrible… and her sister was at the center of it all.

“I will not be silenced, Father,” her sister said. “I will not stand idly by while a good man is duped into marriage by a vile strumpet!”

Madeline did turn then, her head whipping around to take in her sister’s triumphant gaze. She wouldn’t! Surely, despite their often contentious relationship, her sister would not see her ruined for nothing more than spite.

“What is the meaning of this?” the vicar whispered, his tone scandalized and impatient.

“Indeed, I’d like to know myself,” Edmund, her groom, said. “What is the meaning of this, Madeline?”

“Beyond Coraline’s pettiness, I cannot say,” she replied honestly. Coraline had forever resented anything Madeline had that she did not.

“We shall all retreat to a more private location to continue this,” the vicar said, beckoning Madeline’s father forward. Coraline and their mother came as well, as did Edmund’s mother.

Led to a small room just off the central chapel, the vicar began by addressing Coraline directly. “Now, what is this all about? It is scandalous and will not go unremarked. Think, Girl, before you speak!”

“My sister is not chaste!” Coraline all but shouted, loudly enough that the gathered guests would be certain to overhear. “She has been having inappropriate relations with a footman for the last six months!”

It was a blatant lie. But it had been uttered so theatrically and with such volume that, even from the small chapel, everyone who was anyone in society had heard. Truth no longer mattered. Whatever the outcome of the day, Madeline’s reputation would forever bear the stain.

Her father collapsed onto a chair, clutching his chest. Her mother wailed piteously. Coraline stood triumphantly beside those broken people—broken by humiliation and not by concern for her—as what had been whispers amongst the gathered guests erupted into buzzing and shrill conversation not muted in the least by the wall between them.

“Is this true, Miss Keyes?” the vicar demanded.

“It is not true,” Madeline said, appalled at the suggestion. “I have never behaved improperly!”

“I require proof,” Edmund said. His tone was intractable and colder than she’d ever heard him.

“Proof,” Madeline repeated. “You wish to speak with the footman in question?”

“Do not be coy, Madeline. This is not the time!” Edmund’s mother snapped.

Edmund sneered again, more disapprovingly than before. “You will submit to an examination by a doctor who will be able to confirm whether or not you are chaste,” Edmund said, sniffing disapprovingly. It was an affectation so like his mother that it made her cringe.

“I have been betrothed to you for four years, Edmund. And in that time, I have never behaved inappropriately. I will not permit such an indignity when you, of all people, should know me better,” Madeline said.

“Then you must release me from my promise. I cannot marry a woman I cannot trust,” he said. Even as he said it, his gaze slid past her to the exact spot where Coraline stood. It softened almost imperceptibly. Had she not been watching him so closely, it might never have been noted at all.

“Then you are released,” Madeline replied. “For I will not marry a man who would take the word of a petty and vindictive child over that of a woman he knows and has professed to love.”

“There are contracts,” her father protested. “This is far more than a simple verbal agreement! Money has changed hands.”

“I will marry Edmund,” Coraline said. “That will fulfill the contracts, will it not?”

Madeline watched all of this happening as if she were no longer inside her own body. It was almost as if she were staring down on the horror of her life falling apart around her. She was ruined. Coraline’s pettiness had ruined not only her, but everyone else, as well. Their father and stepmother would never recover socially from this. And if Edmund refused to exchange one Keyes sister for another, then they would be ruined financially, as well.

She looked back at her father, who appeared resigned and broken. He nodded.

Madeline turned back to Edmund. “I will not interfere if that is your wish.” It hurt to utter it. It wasn’t even that she particularly wished to marry Edmund anymore. In the last few moments, she’d seen something in him she did not recognize. A coldness and casual cruelty that both shocked and appalled her. It was the notion that she was giving Coraline precisely what she wished. She was ceding the field.

Edmund looked away from her to his mother. The woman sniffed, a gesture that Madeline was growing to despise.

“She is the more attractive of the sisters, at any rate… and at least this one is not a harlot,” Mrs. Wortham sneered.

No one in the room defended her. No one protested the assassination of her character. Looking at her father and mother, they were simply allowing Coraline her way, as they always did, at the expense of anyone and everyone else.

“There is the matter of the license,” the vicar protested.

“It is a common license and does not specify Miss Madeline Keyes. Only Miss Keyes,” Edmund stated. “It should not signify as we have parental consent.”

And with that, the vicar nodded. Edmund and his mother walked out of the small room. Coraline preened. “Are you ready, Father?”

“Aye,” William Keyes said, his Scottish accent creeping in, thick and heavy. “I am ready, though God help us all for what has been wrought here today.”

Madeline was alone then with her mother, Alice. The older woman rose from the chair she’d taken and smoothed her skirts. “I cannot think what possessed her to do this.”

The same devil that has possessed her all of her life , Madeline thought bitterly. “It doesn’t matter.”

“No,” Alice said sadly. “I suppose it does not. Under the circumstances, I think it best that you leave the church by the side door and return home. There is no need to face that pack of wild jackals. They’ll turn on us sure as the world.”

No, there wasn’t. Not yet, at any rate. But Madeline would correct that soon enough.