Chapter Two
The Lyon’s Den, Cleveland Street, London
The Honorable Sinclair Robertson, Master of Armytage, sat glumly in his chair, staring at the cards in his hand.
They weren’t what he had hoped for, and now he was looking at losing yet again.
He glanced up at the woman across the table from him, with her beringed fingers and the impenetrable black netting she wore to hide her face.
Recognizing his predicament, she sighed. “Sinclair, you are playing atrociously.”
He choked out a laugh. “I know. Apologies, Mrs. Dove-Lyon. I am so very sorry you are winning my money tonight.”
“I like to keep my hand in,” she said with a shrug. “And usually you are good company, Sinclair. Why so gloomy?”
Sinclair knew that Bessie Dove-Lyon, who was the owner of the Lyon’s Den gambling club on Cleveland Street, was fond of him.
He wasn’t sure why that was so, apart from a comment she had made after they had first met when she said he reminded her of someone.
Her past was a mystery, however, and he hadn’t dared to ask who it was he reminded her of.
For whatever reason, she had taken him under her wing.
When he had first visited the Lyon’s Den, he had been feeling like a fraud.
His life was a cage of his grandfather’s making, and he had no key to escape it.
He didn’t know where to turn for help and advice.
When Mrs. Dove-Lyon had sent her servants down to the gaming room and brought him to her private chamber, he had been sure she was going to ask him to leave.
But instead she had sat him down with a nice glass of cognac and proceeded to interrogate him.
Feeling nervous, he had probably said far more to her than was wise, but she had listened—possibly the first person to truly listen to him since his mother had died—and then she had given him some sage advice.
“You say you feel like a fraud. No, Sinclair, you are an actor playing a part. You just have to learn to do it well. If you want to fit in with the sort of aristocratic gentlemen who come to the Lyon’s Den, then you must assume an air of boredom.
Of disdain. As if you have seen it all before and really can’t be bothered. ”
That had made him laugh. “Some of them terrify me,” he admitted. “Surely they will guess that I am nothing but a carpenter’s son?”
“You may well terrify them, but they will never show it. Emotion is not allowed among the upper classes, Sinclair. You must remain unmoved, whatever happens.”
“Unmoved,” he had repeated. “Yes, I understand.”
And he did, although he wasn’t sure he could ever achieve that level of sangfroid. He had been a happy boy, full of life, but that had all changed when his father and then his mother had died, and his grandfather had swooped down from the far north of Scotland and removed him from his former home.
At first, Sinclair had welcomed the old man, seeing him as a connection with his dead parents and someone who might care for him. It did not occur to him to wonder how his grandfather had found him after Sinclair and his family had spent so many years in hiding.
Sinclair’s mother, Elspet, had run off when she was barely eighteen with Robert Robertson, one of the soldiers billeted at her father’s castle.
Her father, Lord Amytage, had refused to countenance her marriage to a lowly soldier, but Elspet was in love.
She and Robert had made a home in the south of England, and their son Sinclair became a carpenter, the trade of his father before he had joined the army.
At the time, Sinclair hadn’t realized how lucky he was.
That he had grown up feeling his life had meaning, a reason to get up in the morning.
The sort of deep happiness and content that came from a sense of self-worth.
He had had a trade and worked with his hands, seeing the results of that labor every day.
He might not have been a titled gentleman, but that never mattered when he loved and was loved in return.
Sinclair hadn’t known then that his parents were hiding from his grandfather, or why.
When he was thirteen and his father died, his mother had sat him down and explained the situation.
He had been shocked, but he could see from her expression that she had felt she’d had no option but to make a choice between father and husband.
When Elspet had unexpectedly died a year later, he had tried to comfort himself with the thought that at least she had known happiness.
He hadn’t realized that in her last weeks she had finally written to her father, terrified at the thought of Sinclair being left entirely alone in the world, and given him their address.
The old man had arrived on the day of Elspet’s funeral.
He had barely paused to see her coffin lowered into the ground before he told Sinclair to pack his belongings and prepare for the journey north.
His grandfather was not the jolly gentleman he had hoped for, but cold and dismissive.
Sinclair had tried to argue, to talk about his trade and the joy it gave him, but his grandfather would not listen.
His voice was intractable as he explained that a gentleman did not work.
It was only the common people who worked, and one day Sinclair would inherit his grandfather’s title and fortune, and therefore he must learn to dress and speak and behave like a gentleman.
“You will be known as the Master of Armytage,” he had said. “That is a Scottish title for the heir to a lordship. People will call you ‘Master,’ and you must strive to be that man. Do you understand?”
Sinclair hadn’t understood, but for the past ten years that was what he had tried to do.
First during his lessons with a stern tutor at his grandfather’s bleak northern home, and then at the school in Edinburgh where the rod was not spared, and now in London.
He had done his best to fit into the future that lay before him, despite feeling that every single thing about it was wrong.
He kept pushing away his memories of his past, telling himself that he must look to the future, that he should be grateful for the opportunities before him, and in doing so he had become a man he hardly recognized.
But that wasn’t enough for his grandfather. He wanted more. He wanted Sinclair to immerse himself in society and rise to the top. Instead, Sinclair was hiding here at the Lyon’s Den, which had become his place of refuge. His home away from home.
“Sinclair?” Bessie Dove-Lyon was watching him, although it was difficult to tell behind that thick black veil.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’ve heard from my grandfather.”
It wasn’t really a letter, more of a demand, and it made him feel slightly sick.
“And what does Lord Armytage have to say?”
Did the woman know his grandfather? Sometimes when she spoke in that scathing tone, he thought she did.
“Some months ago, he sent me a letter of introduction to a duke. I don’t know how he came to know this person, probably he had something to blackmail the man with.
My grandfather likes to collect secrets.
Anyway he seemed to think the duke would welcome me into his home and I was then to ingratiate myself to his daughter with a view to marriage.
” He had done as he was bid, and like a nightmare it had played out.
“After that one time, I haven’t been back.
Now my grandfather is demanding I do as I was told, but I don’t want to. ”
“That idea isn’t to your liking?” she asked curiously.
Sinclair began to shake his head and then shrugged.
“No, it isn’t. When I met the duke’s daughter, we loathed each other on sight.
She no more wants to marry me than I do her.
It is all very well for my grandfather to decide on paper that it is the perfect match, but my parents loved each other.
I’ve always hoped to marry a woman I love and who will love me.
If I marry the duke’s daughter, then my life will just carry on as it is now.
Sometimes I feel as if I will never escape this trap.
Every time I try, my grandfather tightens it around me. ”
“Hmm,” she said, and he could almost see the wrinkle in her brow. “I agree you should choose your wife carefully. You need the sort of woman who will understand your predicament, Sinclair. A woman who will love you no matter who you think you are. Leave it with me.”
He really didn’t want to “leave it with her,” but he didn’t know how he could refuse. There was no denying Bessie Lyon-Dove when she was set on something, and she had a genuinely kind heart. Or at least he believed so. He hoped so.
There was a smile in her voice when she said, “Come back tomorrow evening, and I will have some suggestions to lay before you.”
His eyebrows rose. “So soon!”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon chuckled. “You have no idea how many women come to me wanting to marry. Their reasons are various—mostly some scandal in their past has made them ineligible—but there must be one among them who would suit. Forget your grandfather’s demands, Sinclair,” she went on, as if it were that simple.
“You need someone to share your life with. Someone who will love you. Perhaps if that happens, you will be able to come to terms with your future.”
Easier said than done, Sinclair thought, but he took the hint and rose to his feet, leaving her alone in her private rooms.
Downstairs, the gaming room was heaving with men and women.
He heard laughter and cries of “You have the devil’s own luck!
” And glasses of alcohol were being consumed at a fast rate.
There were some pretty females lurking about the edges, keen to catch his eye, but Sinclair did not want company.
Not tonight. There had been times when he did, and he knew his status and his future inheritance were all draws to those who had little or nothing.
“Master?”
He looked up. Lord Harcourt was approaching, a smile on his handsome face. Christopher was one of his few true gentleman friends, and he was glad to see him. “You were upstairs with Mrs. Dove-Lyon?” he said, with a raised eyebrow. “Quite the pet, aren’t you?”
“Hardly,” Sinclair drawled. “She thrashed me at cards.”
Christopher laughed. “I saw you riding yesterday. I was going to catch up to you, but you looked damned grim, Sinclair. What on earth do you do during your days?”
Sinclair didn’t want to tell him about his projects. Recently he had built a chair, spending endless hours making it perfect. It was a child’s chair, which he could hand off to an orphanage or charity.
The enjoyment he felt when returning to his carpentry roots brought him a great deal of pleasure. Sometimes he thought that if his grandfather found out and made him stop, which he knew he would, he may as well jump off a bridge into the Thames and be done with it.
“My mother has arranged a ball,” Christopher went on without waiting for an answer. “She sent you an invitation, but she tells me you haven’t accepted. Can I tell her you are coming?”
Sinclair had seen the invitation. It was one of many he had ignored. But Christopher was his friend and now he felt a twinge of guilt. He should go. The other man had shown him nothing but kindness, and there was really no reason why he shouldn’t accept. Apart from his current low mood.
“Who knows, you might find it cheers you up!” Christopher said, as if he had read Sinclair’s mind.
That made him smile. “Very well. I have a new jacket I can wear.”
One thing he did enjoy about being Master of Armytage and having a reasonable income was his ability to buy clothes. He’d always had an interest in nice things but hadn’t been able to indulge it before.
Christopher grinned. “You should give me the direction of your tailor. My mother was telling me only yesterday I looked like a ragbag.”
Sinclair’s mother had not seemed to care what he wore.
She had loved him for the boy he was. Sometimes he wondered whether she would still love him for the man he had become.
Had he betrayed her and his father when his grandfather set him up as a gentleman.
He was an imposter and he couldn’t see any way out of his predicament.