The Lyon Won’t Lose (The Lyon’s Den Connected World)

Chapter One

“Miss Smith, a word, if you please.”

Felicity turned away from the flowers she was adjusting on the table to see Mrs. Bessie Dove-Lyon, the infamous Black Widow of Whitehall, standing in the entry of her private parlor.

She had shrouded herself in mourning black after her husband’s death many years ago and hid her face behind a veil.

You couldn’t meet her gaze, but you could feel it.

Since that tumultuous evening when Felicity had her “Miss Smith” identity revealed to the Earl of Alston—and she’d refused to marry him—they hadn’t spoken.

Felicity nodded and joined her in the parlor.

To her surprise, Mr. Chase was not present.

They’d gone from seeing each other every day while she assisted Dr. Sloan with Lord Alston’s recovery to not at all.

She could feel his absence like a void in her chest. He was charming, funny, and he made her feel safe—something she hadn’t felt in a long time with a man.

His blue eyes and dark hair had such a striking quality she couldn’t help but stare at him after they first met.

“Close the door, dear.” Mrs. Dove-Lyon sat in a plush wingback chair and picked up her cup of tea from the side table.

Felicity softly closed the door, straightening her spine as she went to sit in one of the leather chairs beside the settee.

“You intend to still use my alias?” she asked.

“I think it best to keep that protection outside these four walls. The fewer people who know who you are even within them, the better. We don’t want word to spread to your beastly former fiancé.”

Felicity nodded. Mrs. Dove-Lyon never said his name. She always used some other moniker or insult to refer to him. Felicity appreciated the gesture, but it didn’t change anything. Chadwick Revere was still present in her mind and in the ghosts of the bruises on her body.

Felicity cleared her throat. “Is there something I can do for you? I don’t have much to do now that I’m not Lord Alston’s nurse.”

“Indeed. I’ve been watching you. You’re sullen. Dreary like a little gray cloud floating about the halls with no direction.”

Felicity swallowed. “I’m sorry.” What was she supposed to be doing? She had no purpose here other than hiding and searching for a husband. A difficult task to accomplish when in hiding.

“You’re wilting, my dear, and we can’t have that. I’ve been searching for a new suitor for you. The prospects are many, but I’m not sure what we should be looking for. Someone who doesn’t fall in love with another under your nose, preferably.”

Felicity let out a whisper of a laugh. She thought of Lord Alston and Miss Blakewood, now betrothed, she assumed.

The moment Miss Blakewood had arrived at Alston House to stay with her brother, Felicity could see the change in Lord Alston.

His mood and therefore his health had improved drastically with Miss Blakewood’s presence.

It had become obvious early on to Felicity that the two of them shared something special, a current of some invisible mystical element that flowed between them, drawing them together.

Mrs. Dove-Lyon grew silent. “You wear your fear like a cloak, but fear can’t protect you from this dismal world any more than a cloak could stop a bullet. You need to get out more—see the city, smell the flowers, stroll Bond Street, what have you.”

Felicity bit her lip. One never wanted to disagree with Mrs. Dove-Lyon, but the prospect of leaving the house without the cover of a carriage made her stomach hollow out.

“But . . . what if someone sees me?”

“You’ll return to your Miss Smith disguise, and of course, you will have protection. As much as I’d like to coddle you and allow you to stay in, it is in your best interest to gain a bit of independence.”

Felicity closed her eyes and swallowed. “I don’t know what I could do outdoors. Is there another position I could take as a nursemaid for a child, perhaps? Something charitable? I could assist Dr. Sloan with his patients, like I did with Lord Alston.”

Mrs. Dove-Lyon chuckled. “Dear, you are so concerned with serving others and never yourself.”

“I don’t know how else to live,” Felicity confessed.

“I know, dear. Fret not. I won’t throw you out the door and expect you to fend for yourself. Mr. Chase will escort you to various excursions I have arranged. A night in my theater box. Covent Garden. Walks along the Serpentine.”

The mention of Mr. Chase set off a flurry of butterflies in her stomach.

She would be alone with Mr. Chase. He’d made her feel more at ease than any man of her acquaintance.

His friendly smile and kind eyes settled her nerves, and his amusing stories kept her captivated enough that she forgot, for just a little while, that she was hiding from the world.

That she was an outcast. That she was absent from her family, her home, her village.

That she’d run away from everything she knew, leaving her two sisters behind.

Emotion knotted her throat. “What is the purpose of these excursions?”

“To introduce you to life outside of your little village. You need polish, dear. You can’t marry a peer and not expect to engage in some of these activities. You’ll feel better for it. More aligned with the man you’ll eventually marry.”

Felicity knitted her fingers in her lap. “When will this begin?”

“Right now. Mr. Chase is waiting for you at the ladies’ entrance. Grab your cloak. Your first adventure is the dressmaker. Your wardrobe is in desperate need of an update. Consider it another loan to be paid from your inheritance. I’m still reviewing candidates and—”

“Wait,” Felicity blurted. At the rate her debts to Mrs. Dove-Lyon were accruing, she wouldn’t have any inheritance left, but that wasn’t her most pressing worry.

Mrs. Dove-Lyon tilted her head to the side just a hitch, the veil swaying.

Felicity sucked in a breath. “I want to choose my next suitor. I want to see them for myself.” Felicity couldn’t see through the half veil Mrs. Dove-Lyon wore over her face, but she felt her scrutiny.

“Hm, I suppose that can be arranged. Carefully, of course.”

Relief swept through her. She’d been wanting this, hoping this time she could choose for herself.

The idea of marrying a total stranger was preposterous to her now.

She’d played that game at Alston House and lost. Not that she had any feelings toward Lord Alston.

He was a nice man, if a little immature in her mind, but he’d made her realize things about herself.

She preferred men with dark hair, for example.

“Good. Good.” Felicity stood. “I won’t keep Mr. Chase waiting.”

“This is a private appointment. Don’t worry about being seen. Madame Justine knows you are a special friend of mine.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Dove-Lyon.”

Felicity left her parlor, her heart tripping over itself as she dragged on her plain, green wool cloak.

Her hands shook as she pulled on her gloves, the buttery soft leather a gift from some unknown person in the Den.

Felicity suspected Mrs. Dove-Lyon. When she’d first arrived, Felicity had balked at any extravagance thrown her way.

She’d promised herself she would earn her keep, that she was not deserving of charity.

But the people of the Lyon’s Den paid no heed.

The ladies upstairs who entertained the gentlemen had given her a comb and some hair ribbons.

A simple blue gown was left on her bed one afternoon.

And the gloves—oh, these gloves. They were sinfully luxurious.

She’d never felt anything so soft. Kid leather, for certain, dyed to a deep burgundy.

They must have cost a small fortune. She’d wanted to put them in a drawer and never look at them again, but .

. . just as her father had said, she was a charlatan, a deviant.

She couldn’t resist the lure of their buttery texture. The perfect fit.

She’d worn them, and lightning had not struck her down.

But guilt did taste sour on the back of her tongue every time she slid her fingers inside.

She didn’t know who to thank for them. She only prayed they’d come from some lost property bin and not purchased from a shop.

She couldn’t bear to know the actual cost of these gloves.

Felicity folded herself in her cloak. The morning was crisp and clear.

From her window, the sky had been a bright lapis blue, but frost clung to the roofs where the sun had not yet warmed the tiles.

Spring was fading to summer slowly, clinging much like Felicity was to this season where she’d known safety and comfort.

But seasons changed, and so must she. It would start now, despite the anxious drumming of her heart.

At least she had Mr. Chase to blunt the edge of her fears.

She entered the servants’ stairs leading to the nondescript ladies’ entry for the Lyon’s Den.

She nodded to the women who held the door as she settled her straw bonnet on her head and knotted the white strings.

A carriage waited. Mr. Chase leaned against the side, chewing a bit of straw as he watched laborers unload crates from a wagon.

His gaze flicked to her, his piercing blue eyes pinning her like an insect to cork, and she couldn’t move.

Heat washed over her body, her nerves and courage unraveling.

One side of his mouth curved up, but his smile did not meet his eyes, and that was not usual for him—for them.

He always had something pleasant and amusing to say.

He straightened and opened the carriage door.

“Thank you,” Felicity said, her voice barely above a whisper. He nodded.

Why wasn’t he speaking to her? In fact, they hadn’t spoken at all, not since that night at Alston House. He’d been a shadow, passing in and out of the Den over the last few weeks, but he’d never approached her.

She’d thought . . . they were friends? She must have been wrong. And now, unlike the times he’d ferried her back and forth to Lord Alston’s residence, he did not sit inside the carriage with her. He climbed to the top beside the driver.

Felicity swallowed her hurt. She blinked rapidly as she examined the luxurious interior of the carriage and bit her lip. The door whipped open again, startling her. Mr. Chase climbed inside, his face set in hard lines.

“He refused my company,” he said.

“Oh?” Felicity fisted her hands under her cloak.

“It’s chilly this morning.”

“Indeed.”

He was looking everywhere but at her, and Felicity didn’t know what to make of this new person who was not the man she’d come to know. Had that man been a performance? For whose sake, exactly?

“Mr. Chase?” Felicity asked before her brain could catch up with her mouth. “Why won’t you look at me?”

His chilling gaze met hers. His eyes were the kind of blue one only saw on expensive fabrics, sapphires, or the radiant blue of a peacock’s feather. It was unfair, really, for a man to have such beautiful eyes.

“My apologies, Miss Brandon, if I gave you the impression that I am avoiding you.”

Not a drop of his teasing smile or tone inflected his words. What was wrong?

Oh.

Oh.

She was no longer Miss Smith, the nurse, a working-class commoner.

Not that a vicar’s daughter held much power in society, but she was now an unwed young woman of at least some social standing.

To a bachelor, that was like having the pox.

Young women were best avoided, at least in her limited understanding of men and social affairs.

Though perhaps limited was an understatement.

Felicity came from a village so small and backward that men and women were not permitted to dance.

But she was no longer trapped in that village, and she had to learn to embrace the modern rules of society.

“I’m still the same person I was before.”

His gaze held hers as the coach rocked into motion. “But you aren’t. You’re a young lady. It occurred to me that I was too familiar in our previous interactions.”

Felicity dropped her gaze from his, straightening the invisible wrinkles in her skirt to hide her disappointment. “I’m four and twenty. I’m a spinster. You weren’t forward. You were my friend.” She hesitantly looked up at him.

His jaw flexed, and he looked away. The smudges under his eyes darkened.

“Are you not sleeping well?” she asked.

“I’ve been too busy for sleep.”

“You needn’t come with me then. Return and rest.”

He sighed. “Miss—”

“Felicity. Please. I give you permission to use my given name. We’ve spent too much time together to revert to such formalities. I live in a gaming club, after all. Hardly the height of propriety.”

“Regardless of the residence you occupy, I’d be remiss in my duties if I were to overstep the bounds of propriety.”

“Tristan,” Felicity pleaded. He was one of the few people she knew in this city. She didn’t want to lose him just because now she was deemed to be something fragile. “Why does my name change anything between us?”

His lips thinned. “Your name has changed, as has your status, but my job has not. My purpose is to protect you. That is my job.”

Ah, so that is all she was to him. A job. Felicity bit her tongue. If that was all she was, she didn’t need to continue embarrassing herself further. Her hands felt sweaty, and she pulled off her gloves, twisting them in her hands as she stared out the window instead of at him.

The carriage came to a stop, and Tristan leaned forward to open the door and step out.

Felicity caught a whiff of his cologne, soap, or whatever it was he used—a scent that reminded her of spiced punch.

Orange, cranberry, and cloves. A rare delicacy reserved for Christmas day back home.

He turned and presented his hand stiffly.

Felicity set her hand in his, shocked by the feel of bare skin.

Her gloves. She’d taken off her gloves. Her eyes met his, and he stared down at her.

The warmth between their hands grew hot.

Felicity tugged her hand away and curled her hand into a fist behind her back, praying he hadn’t felt how damp her palm was.

He looked away from her. The back door of the brown, stone building opened, and a maid waited.

Felicity hesitated.

“Don’t be scared. It’s just a dress fitting,” he murmured.

“What would you know about dress fittings? You’ve never been stuck with a pin over and over.”

“Is that what they do?”

“It’s what my mother did when I or my sisters couldn’t stay still.”

In her periphery, she could see his frown. But as he’d made clear, they were not friends. She was alone. Felicity lifted her chin and entered the shop.