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

Chapter Seven

Discussing the State of Crops and Men

Outside the Lyon’s Den

Cleveland Row, Westminster

“I really wish you would reconsider your insistence that you be wed to a military man,” Margaret stated as she stepped out of the building housing the Lyon’s Den. “Given your dowry and the situation with crop failures these past two years, you could probably land a baron or a viscount who is in need of some money. Can you imagine? You, a viscountess?”

“I cannot,” Amy replied wryly before a look of worry crossed her face. “What’s this about crop failures?” She hadn’t had a chance to learn what had happened in England whilst she was with her father in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

“Too much rain and very little sun, darling,” Margaret said as she climbed into the coach. Once Amy was settled across from her, one arm resting on the valise next to her, she added, “It was all the talk at the last tea I attended at Mrs. Bakersmith’s house.”

“The captain’s wife?” Amy guessed, remembering the name as someone whose regiment had lost a good deal of soldiers in their last campaign against Napoleon. The captain survived, although he had suffered a ruptured eardrum and a cut across his cheek that required stitches. Amy had thought he looked quite rakish when he left the field hospital to return to England.

“Indeed. Apparently, crops are failing all over Europe as well. Cook mentioned it to the housekeeper after she was unable to buy everything on her list when she last went to market.”

“I suppose prices have risen as a result?”

“Oh, it’s as if a highwayman was robbing your reticule,” Margaret replied. “But you shan’t have to worry if Mrs. Dove-Lyon can find you a worthy man here in London.”

“Are there any, though?” Amy asked, her opinion of men had suffered prior to her time on the Continent. “For if there were, I certainly haven’t been introduced to them.”

Well, there was one, but she had no idea where he might be. The last she had heard, he had finally been released from a hospital in Belgium and was to return to British shores at any moment.

Perhaps Mrs. Dove-Lyon had resources who could discover his whereabouts. Amy hadn’t mentioned his name—she didn’t think it wise to do so with her mother in the room—but she intended to send a missive to Mrs. Dove-Lyon once she was home. Giving it some more thought, she decided that perhaps it would be better if she informed the matchmaker sooner rather than later.

Pulling open her reticule, she searched for her notepad and pencil and pulled them out as her mother’s gaze went to the coach window.

“My, but you’ve developed a rather dim view of men,” Margaret accused. “But I suppose that’s what happens when you act as their nurse in their most pressing time of need.” She muttered something about ungrateful patients under her breath, which had Amy frowning.

“That’s not it, Mother. I was referring to those who are supposed to be responsible for their tenants but choose to line their own pockets rather than see to the people that work their land.” She was sure that many of the men who passed through the field hospital were forced into becoming soldiers. Given the poor weather, they could no longer earn their living seeing to their masters’ lands.

Pencil in hand, she wrote her patient’s name as neatly as she could when the coach halted briefly at an intersection. Glancing out the window, she spotted a street urchin holding the reins of a horse. Despite the cold, he wore short pants and a light jacket, both of which had seen better days.

Amy quickly stood and knocked on the trap door above her, glad that the coach was still waiting for a dray cart to clear the intersection. The driver opened the door and peered down. “Yes, miss?”

“Can you give this note and coin to that boy over there, please? Tell him to take it to Miss Dove-Lyon in Cleveland Row. Where we just were. It’s important.”

“Whatever are you doing?” Margaret asked in alarm.

“Yes, miss,” the driver said as he took the paper and coin. The coach jerked as he stepped down from the driver’s seat and made his way to the boy.

Amy watched the driver as he spoke with the urchin, relieved when she saw him nodding vigorously and pointing in the direction from which they had come.

A moment later, the coach once again jerked as the driver mounted the seat. The trap door opened, and the driver said, “He’ll see to it, miss, and he thanks ye for the money.”

“How much did you give him?” Margaret asked in alarm. “And why?”

“I thought of something Miss Dove-Lyon needed to know, is all,” Amy replied with a shrug. “One of my requirements for a husband.” She thought it better e not to mention just how specific she had been with her request or what denomination of coin she had handed over for the boy. “I think it’s unrealistic to expect Miss Dove-Lyon will have me married off to a titled man.”

“All right then. You don’t have to marry a viscount,” Margaret said with an exaggerated sigh. “But you do realize that now that the war is over, there won’t be work for military men. Only officers might have some positions in Whitehall.”

“What I have come to learn is that there is always a need for military men. Just because the Corsican has been defeated doesn’t mean the end of all wars, Mother.”

“You sound like your father,” Margaret murmured.

“Thank you. That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me all morning,”

“Don’t be cheeky,” her mother replied as the coach made its way south.