Bonus Chapter
Tap. Tap.
Bessie Dove-Lyon looked up from her seat in her private parlor and frowned. She had no more meetings on schedule today.
“Come in.”
A tall man entered, no sign of Helena anywhere.
Bessie raised a brow, needing no introduction for the lean-figured man in her doorway. “Lord Brixby. This is a surprise.”
“A good one, I hope?” he said, closing the door behind him, the firelight dancing over a mop of dark, red hair.
“After all the assistance I provided when you first received your title, you should know me better than that.” Bessie tapped the arm of her chair. “It depends on why you are here.”
Lord Brixby crossed the room and removed a stack of banknotes from his coat to set on the edge of her desk. His gaze was expectant. “And now?”
Bessie did a perfunctory count of the money, her lips parting slightly at the amount: either a small fortune or a down payment for services. “Come to beg my matchmaking expertise, Viscount?”
“Thank you. No.” The last word was firm. “Let us call this interest rendered, and a bit extra for any trouble my sister may have caused.”
“Your sister was more amusement than trouble.” Both siblings were turning out to be.
Lord Brixby smiled, the blue in his eyes bright. “Then, my letter of caution was of use?”
Letter.
Bessie sat straighter in her chair.
Then the anonymous letter, the one informing her chief of security there would be an attempt to collect her personal files, had come from him. In Bessie’s experience, it took a master tactician to make such inferences . . . or eyes and ears placed where people least expected.
“You knew your sister would try to break into my office,” she said.
“My cousin and I happened to share a concern for Anna’s wellbeing.” Lord Brixby smiled, the gesture all innocence. “And I’d point out that my sister did more than try—except that would hardly put you in a mind to forgive me, especially after all your hard work to see my dear Anna married.”
Now this was a surprise. “You meant to match her?”
He shrugged. “My sister vowed she would never marry.”
A sense of the wool being pulled from her eyes had her brows rising. “Did you also know about the duke?”
Another enigmatic smile. “I knew my sister would never be content when Bow Street dropped the case. Knowing Anna, it was only a matter of time before she would use any connection to gain information, even a peer of the realm she claimed to despise.” There was true humor behind his expression this time.
“Your plans happened to see the reunion done quicker, of which I am most grateful.”
Bessie laughed. Amassing a large debt to throw suspicion on his disappearance and to force his sister into confronting her feelings for the duke. This mutt—this pup—had orchestrated quite the coup to see his sister settled, manipulating Bow Street, the Home Office, and her in the process.
What a delightful young man.
“When the time comes for you to take that long walk down the aisle, remember my services,” Bessie said. For the man’s efforts, and her subsequent entertainment, she’d see the man paid half her going rate.
Lord Brixby snorted. “If I am ever forced to that altar, I will require your services to get me out of marriage.”
Bessie wasn’t too sure. The young man was rich, handsome, and clever, and he paid his debts with interest. Give her a fortnight, and she would find a fiery wife to round out the man’s list of assets.
“Would you care to make a wager on that?” she asked, all innocence.
With a boyish smirk, the pup dropped a kiss on her forehead through the veil. “I may be a degenerate gambler, but I never bet against a woman in her element,” he said.
Bessie grinned, her fondness growing. “Charmer.” She waved her gloved hand. “Away with you, then, before I decide I am a sore loser.”
Lord Brixby bowed low. “Good day, Mrs. Dove-Lyon.”
The man walked out the door, his stride sure and his tailored coat sharp.
And with a mind to match.
The acclaimed matchmaking of Mrs. Dove-Lyon was not without moral lines. She never meddled in lives without explicit permission—or enormous debt—and she never went out of her way to see a man brought to heel.
Lord Brixby, however, may be her one and only exception. For whom better to understand that the matchmaker could not match for themselves? She would be doing the man a service by stepping in.
“Yes,” Bessie said to herself, a wave of charity curling her lips into a determined smile beneath her veil. “A wife for that one is just the thing.”