Excerpt from Lie Down With a Lyon
Chapter One
Monmouth Street
Seven Dials, London
April 17, 1805
D áire O’Neill peered up at his man, Bart Morris, of Dáire’s Shadows—one in a team of three assigned to follow the lady whom Dáire could not burn from his mind. Blanche Delacourt was a fire that raged in his heart. Morris had no idea, nor would he. To him, the lady was his latest assignment.
Proficient at his work, Morris stood like the soldier he was.
Dáire fisted his left hand. His iron knuckle duster, cool on his skin, had him flexing his fingers. That was the only sign he allowed himself to display of any worry. “Repeat that for me, Morris.”
The man winced.
“Every detail,” Dáire urged his man.
Dáire had three rules for himself: Be nimble. Be thorough. Be honest.
If the first two necessities seemed simple, he required the last to focus on execution. After all, the business he was in required a mind that was cunning, ruthless, and profitable. Not always did he expect financial gain from that last principle. But it smoothed any pain in the execution of the deal. “A right cove” was not a phrase he favored, though many in Whitehall and Carlton House applied it to him. Still, in his dealings with friend or foe, he’d earned it. For he had rules of engagement for those jobs he took. Ethics for those he employed.
Bart Morris understood his challenge. Delivering bad news to the man who ran a gang of fourteen and who could raise an MP or restore a lady to Society’s good graces was not an act destined to bring a smile to the boss’s lips.
Hands behind his back, spine straight, eyes front, not a move from the stalwart body, Morris did not even breathe.
His large green eyes blinked. Dáire never needed a rehash of his men’s reports. They knew they were responsible from tip to toe for their work. That meant each detail had to be firmly in their minds…or they were demoted to the status of runner and had to begin their climb up O’Neill’s ladder once again.
But this time, what Morris had said was no failure on his part. And Dáire—unlike Blanche’s father, Jonathan Rivers—did not penalize his men for facts beyond their control. After all, to most it appeared that O’Neill was a rival to Rivers, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Morris, a handsome fellow with copper-bright hair and green eyes, was a big man. Many a lady noticed him. But on the street at his job, Morris took pains to appear poor and downtrodden. He spoke like what he was—a ne’er-do-well up from the fish market in Billingsgate. He wore ragged clothes. Slumping, head forward, he walked off-gait, as if an old injury or malnutrition had deformed him. His disguise was a good one because, so far, Blanche Delacourt had not appeared to notice him on her heels.
But as he stood now, tall and broad shouldered, Morris was a strapping, good-looking fellow. Sharp of mind and with a penchant for humor to show it off, he could be quite a catch for a girl. Dáire knew him not to be interested…until he had significant money to marry properly.
Morris sucked in air, then braced his feet wider and began. “I took me shift at seven this morning, as you said, guv. I relieved Billy Latham from his night’s work.”
Dáire nodded. He had assigned three men to a twenty-four-hour surveillance over Blanche. Morris for early, seven to three. Pip Starling from three to eleven. Latham from eleven to seven.
Morris went on. “Starling told me this morning nothing happened last night. Our lady remained at home.”
“Our lady” was his team’s term for the woman whom Dáire assigned them to track.
Dáire’s two Irish wolfhounds strode toward the marble fireplace and sank down, a sign they were bored with Morris’s interrogation. Dáire needed more. “Go on.”
“This morn at six ten, Starling said the greengrocer arrived at the Delacourts’ kitchen door with his vegetables. No one else came, unless ye want to know that the night soil collector came to empty the house rubbish at three twenty-three this morning.
“At ten twelve”—Morris took out his pocket watch as if to affirm the time—“the family butler opened the front door and Miss Delacourt came out. She wore a blue coat and one o’ them tipsy little hats that matched, snagged on her gloves—leather, they were—and climbed up into her stepmother’s town coach.”
Dáire slapped one hand to his mahogany desk in a sign to continue.
Morris took a sharp breath. “The coach stopped. ’Ad to. An accident, there was, stalled carriages behind, piled up one after ’nother. That was at Green Park. I saw it. I had run after ’er carriage, figuring she was to meet ’er friend at that ice cream shop. But Green Park is the wrong way to get ice cream.”
“Gunther’s. Yes. Go on.”
“But that’s when the lady began to yell at ’im. I could ’ear her. Everyone could. The groom looked surprised cuz he never pulled it over to the side before she yelled at him she ’ad to get out. And when he handed her to the cobbles, they had words. Loud ones.”
“And then?” Dáire’s patience, usually unlimited, slowly burned away.
“She walked toward St. James’s. Alone. No maid.”
Dáire inhaled. Odd. Blanche usually had her maid with her when she shopped.
“In front of Fortnum & Mason, she dropped a coin into the hands of the urchin who swept the cross street, and hailed a hack on the other side. That one she ’ad take her over a few streets to Cleveland Row. The blue door.”
Dáire sat still as a dead man. This was second time he’d heard this, but his guts churned worse at the description. What in hell was Blanche doing? She’d never gone to a gaming hell before. And the blue door led to a famous one.
“There she climbed down, paid ’er hack, and knocked on that little blue door. Someone came fast. It’s early to call, ain’t it, guv?”
“By hours, yes.”
“Aye, well, and the butler was not pleased. A right owl ’e is, that one! But she was not put off by him. She jabbered at him, an’ I think she told ’im what for, that she had to go in. He didn’t refuse ’er. Taken in, she was, boss. Right into—”
“The Lyon’s Den.”
“Aye, sir.”
“She was still in there when you left?” Dáire rolled his fingers of his left hand. This man of his would see him nervous. Morris knew not how important his quarry was to Dáire, but now, with this, he would sense it.
Dáire had placed his pocket watch on his desk when Morris began his story. Now, he looked at the time again.
“Still inside, she was, guv.” The man consulted his own timepiece. “I stayed on the front door of the Den until I spotted one of our runners on the street. I hailed ’im, gave ’im orders to follow if our lady came out. Then I left for ’ere. At that point, she’d been inside for forty-seven minutes.”
Dáire had runners all over the city. Some had specific duties, jobs they were on. Others without any assignments patrolled London under various guises. Their purpose was to convey urgent news to Dáire of any importance, especially from any of his Shadows.
“Which runner?” A few were new to Dáire’s service. He would not be pleased if a green man happened upon involvement in this case. Dáire had no tolerance for imperfection. Especially not when it came to Blanche Delacourt.
“Tom Dorsey, guv. His duty this morning, ’e said, was running an errand for some clerk of Lord Carlisle.”
“So he is.” I put Dorsey on that duty for Carlisle last week.
“I told him to stay near the hell, watch for ’er, and I gave me word to return as soon as possible.”
Dáire’s mind swam with questions. In the six weeks since he had assigned his men to guard her, Blanche had never gone into a gaming hell. Never gone anywhere without her own transport. Never went shopping or to her modiste without her maid. Even when she journeyed up to Richmond and took the air along the Thames on one her two favorite horses she hired in those stables, she took her maid.
Never had she gone to the gambling establishment known throughout London. Blanche did not gamble. She was prudent with her money, living off her earned income from her registry business.
But the house in Cleveland Row with the blue door had another role in the social lives of Londoners. Many went to pay the proprietress to find them a spouse.
Dáire narrowed his gaze on the ceiling. His mind jumped to his first problem: he had no informants in Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s gambling house. The lady kept strict rules about servants who gossiped. Any hint of it and they were immediately sacked. True, he had once done a favor for the lady, but that courtesy was not so grand that he could ask one in return. He was, to all the world, not that kind of man who asked for help, nor the kind who demanded remuneration for a service he offered for a goodly fee.
There is only one thing to do.
Dáire got to his feet. “You’ve done well, Morris. I’m pleased. You may return to your post.”
“Nothing else?”
“Report to me again after three. Tell that runner, Dorsey, to come see me as soon as he confirms the solicitor he’s assigned to has returned home. Inform Jack Starling when he comes to relieve you of everything you told me. Tell him he must come to me immediately if he sees anything else of note. I also want to know immediately from any one of you when the lady returns to her home.”
“Aye. I’ll spread the word, boss.”
“Oh, and Morris?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Have you ever heard any nasty business occurring in the Lyon’s Den?”
“Only that any bloke who goes in stands the chance of losing not only his coin but his leg.”
Shackled. Married. Hell. Who wanted to marry a stranger? Most of the ton married for money or land. The merchant class sold off their daughters for connection and power. The poor rarely married at all. Tupping each other, they had little to give other than their bodies.
Dáire didn’t need to ask his next question, but he needed to kill his anxiety if he could. “Have you heard about the women who go into the Den? What of them?”
“Aye, sir!” Morris snorted. “They call upon the lady who owns it. Hear she wears a veil, keeps herself to herself. Women who’ve got money in their pockets—and one thing on their minds.”
Buying a husband.
Red flames danced before Dáire’s eyes and obscured his vision. Fisting his left hand repeatedly, he took a minute to reclaim his sanity.
He understood why Blanche Delacourt might wish for a man in her life. Her father was a tyrant to her, controlling her household and her every day. She lived with her stepmother, whose family name was Delacourt. Blanche liked the lady, but he’d inferred from her words that she did not love the woman who had married Jonathan Rivers for money and for a promise to rear Blanche and build a good life for herself.
Blanche, at twenty-four, was fiercely independent. From that first encounter with her on the bridal path along the Thames in Richmond, Dáire had found her quiet, unassuming, witty—and enchanting. He knew much about her even before they’d met. Her father was the most notorious gang leader in Seven Dials. The man ran a host of illegal activities, from prostitution rings to the sale of opium. Dáire had met Rivers often, especially whenever their business conflicted. Although they had never clashed openly, the day could come, Dáire was certain. Rivers ran anything he wished to turn a coin—women, children, opium, smuggled goods, and more. He would not stop for the likes of Dáire O’Neill, who to him was a pansy do-gooder with no muscle and no balls.
But Rivers had often threatened Dáire with extinction. It was his way. He bullied everyone. Even his only child and daughter. Dáire himself had seen it the day after they met, when one of his Shadows had urged him to Piccadilly to witness what was a barely contained argument between Rivers and Blanche. On the street in front of a book shop, the two of them went after each other mercilessly. Whatever Rivers threatened Blanche with, he had taken his time to impress it on her over and over again. Only after she hailed a public carriage in a huff had Rivers watched her leave him, his mouth moving in what Dáire knew were curses. After that display, Dáire knew he was right to have her protected by his men.
He had not loved her then. But he cared about her. The same way he cared about anyone abused—especially a woman. Protecting women had been the basis of his business. He would never stop. For Blanche, he couldn’t.
“Thank you, Morris. You can go. Good job.”
Dáire watched Morris shut the door behind him. He knew that the women who appealed to Mrs. Dove-Lyon asked the lady to trap a good man. But occasionally, a man who needed reforming was caught in Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s web. Most often, the man reformed. But there were those few who never did.
What sort of man did Blanche Rivers want?
A man like me? Dáire’s pride stirred. He’d have her, treasure her, keep her. He’d sequester her away from her father and all his evil dealings. Build a life for her, safe and loving—and constant.
Dáire shook himself. That was far from the truth. Far from fact.
He knew the lady would never want a man like her father. And most thought Dáire like her father. A thief, a cutthroat, a pimp. A scourge. Dáire could not control what people thought, but those who knew him, hired him, understood the nature of his work. For him to try to explain it to anyone, especially Blanche, would take hours, days. Besides, why would she want to learn exactly what he did? They were, at best, friends.
He’d enjoyed her conversation so often as they rode their mounts along the Thames that he knew she was high-minded. Not a fainting flower spending her father’s money, but a lady who wished to effect some change for women, starting with servants of both genders. For herself, too. For a husband, she would request an honest man, an ethical one. She trusted that Mrs. Dove-Lyon would try to fulfill her wishes, or she never would have gone to the lady.
But a woman had no guarantee that Mrs. Dove-Lyon would do her bidding. Dáire knew firsthand that people could be bought. Persuaded. Corrupted.
How canny was Mrs. Dove-Lyon? Did she truly know everything about those who strolled into her gambling hell and dropped their fortunes in her lap? Did she take enough time to become acquainted with her clientele? Could she give Blanche what she truly wanted?
If she did not, Blanche would be lost to herself. Her ambitions to develop her own little business would be killed. Her desire to effect social change would be gone.
She has to have a man she can admire. Could Mrs. Dove-Lyon ensure that? No!
But I can. I can!
Dáire shot to his feet.
But he wouldn’t meddle. Couldn’t interfere and give her a man she could admire. Blanche would learn. Somehow. And hate him. Loathe him.
Which meant…he’d have to monitor what Mrs. Dove-Lyon did. Whom she produced.
Dáire would control his impulse to interfere. Instead, he’d continue to guard Blanche. It was the least he could do for the only woman who had ever mattered to him.
After all, what is power worth if you cannot help the one you love?