Chapter Two #4
The woman was heading in their direction. As she passed, Sibyl curtsied, and the woman turned and looked at her. She inclined her head and swept past.
Sibyl rose from her curtsy and looked after the mysterious woman. She got the distinct sense that the woman missed nothing. No detail was hidden, and the enigmatic air she had about her helped her move throughout society, for no one would ever suspect a widow of anything.
Mrs. Clifton said, “I shall ask the Master of Ceremonies to introduce us. I do so wish to meet her.”
“Mama, do it later. The concert’s about to start.”
“Yes, yes. Oh, very well.”
The concert began, and the music was pleasant, but Sibyl’s mind was too busy thinking of the mysterious matchmaker woman to be distracted by a handsome face.
She wished her friend Isobel might be there, to tease her or comment on the ladies’ styles.
There was always something to be amused by when they were together.
Isobel always made her laugh, even when she shouldn’t have.
Sibyl looked around. There was a young woman present, with another woman, staring at her.
The woman looked familiar somehow and wore a bright-pink dress that offset her coiled, blonde hair.
Ah, that was it. They had met at Mrs. Sprout’s the other night.
Kate something. Hanvey? Harvey? She couldn’t remember.
The woman laughed a lot, her laughter like little titters or an otter clearing its throat.
Sibyl gave the woman a slight smile and nodded to her.
The woman, Kate Harvey, whispered behind her hand to her companion, who laughed. Sibyl turned and joined her mother to take their seats.
But no sooner had the concert ended than did she see her mother go up to a Master of Ceremonies and speak in hurried whispers.
The man nodded, and within minutes, he’d beckoned Sibyl and her mother forward to join him.
He led them to the mysterious woman in black, who stepped away from a conversation with a society matron and gave the man her attention.
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon, I have the honor to introduce you to Mrs. Clifton and her daughter, Miss Sibyl Clifton, who expressed a wish to make your acquaintance.”
“How do you do?” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said.
“How do you do. A pleasure,” Mrs. Clifton said.
“The pleasure is all mine. And did you enjoy the concert?”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Clifton answered. Her eyes wandered as a handsome man walked past. “Smile,” she hissed at Sibyl.
Sibyl tensed and instantly smiled. The lady in black lifted a fan. Sibyl suspected the elegant woman was trying not to laugh.
“I am glad to hear it. Please, do come visit my establishment at some point. I suspect you will enjoy my little parties. Tomorrow evening, perhaps.” She leaned in and whispered something to Mrs. Clifton, whose eyes widened.
“Yes, we will be sure to pay you a visit. Come along, Sibyl.”
Sibyl curtsied to the lady in black and followed her mother. “Mama?”
“Let us go home, Sibyl. You haven’t met any young men here, anyway.”
“Mama, what is all the hurry? The concert has just ended. I don’t see why—”
“I need my rest, and you need your beauty sleep. I must pay a call to my friend Mrs. Robinson and see what she can tell me about this Mrs. Dove-Lyon.”
Sibyl paused and quietly followed her mother out to collect their cloaks and wait for their family carriage to be brought around.
Mrs. Robinson might have called her mother a friend, but she was also one of the biggest gossips in their social circle, and more often than not, the older woman had nothing nice to say.
She hoped that by the end of the evening, she might go curl up by the fire in her father’s study and read a book. That was her way of spending a relaxing evening. Not standing as if on display at a concert. She dearly wished Isobel might be there. But never mind.
The next day, Sibyl didn’t even see her mother leave the townhouse.
She spent time with her young sister, doing needlepoint, reading, and, when the servants weren’t nearby, jousting with the fireplace pokers in the parlor.
But soon their hands became grimy with soot, and so they had to wash and change clothes.
Sibyl had just come down for luncheon and was sitting to a cold meal of sliced breaded ham, cold veal cutlets dribbled with mint sauce, fresh bread rolls from the kitchen, and cheese, washed down with black tea.
It was a delightful, pleasant lunch until the front door opened and closed, and her mother sailed into the dining room.
“Ah, there you are, dears. Just the girls I wanted to see.” Mrs. Clifton smiled with a twinkle in her eye.
“Mama?” Lucy said.
“Sibyl, we’ll have you put on one of your nicest dresses. The pink one, I think. To bring out the rosy hue of your cheeks.”
“Her cheeks aren’t pink, Mama,” Lucy pointed out.
“They will be once we dab some rouge on them,” her mother said.
Sibyl’s mouth opened. “Mama.”
“Trust me, you’ll enjoy it. You might even meet a man or two.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s invitation to visit her establishment tonight. I heard it all from Mrs. Robinson. The woman is a matchmaker, all right. And we have an invitation to attend her little party tonight. Won’t that be grand?”
Sibyl sank a little in her seat. “Yes, Mama.”
“Jolly good. Now sit up, Sibyl. Don’t slouch.” With that, her mother sailed out of the room.
That evening, Neville Heyter took a hackney carriage to the Lyon’s Den.
He didn’t go there so very often, but he liked the place well enough.
The bouncers knew their business, being ex-military, he strongly suspected, and some of the games dealers had the swift movements of performers or dancers.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s establishment was always very clean and hospitable.
As the hackney cab pulled up outside Cleveland Row to a fashionably painted blue building, he thought to himself that he rather wished the place had a good library.
But that didn’t matter, for if there was one thing the men often went there to seek, it was a good time.
Not books. He paid the entry fee, passed on his cloak to an attendant in the cloak room, and made his way out to the gentlemen’s dining room for a spot of dinner—a roast joint of lamb, slow-cooked, falling off the bone, with potatoes and sprigs of rosemary—and a glass of wine.
He was joined at dinner by an old army friend of his, George Percy, whom he had fought alongside in the Navy. George was back on leave and hailed Neville with a very full wine glass. “Good evening, Heyter.”
“Percy,” Neville said, giving him a nod.
“Never thought I’d see you here. What made you step out of your library?” George burped and grinned. He swirled the red wine in his glass. “Or perhaps I should say, not what, but who?”
“No ‘who’ for me, but I know there’s always one for you. What beautiful woman has caught your eye this time?” Neville asked.
That was the thing about George. He was a good chap, but he was years younger than Neville and was often prone to falling in love at the drop of a hat. He loved many, but often forgot them all, and Neville wasn’t sure how many hearts he had broken before going back to his ship.
“There is your friend, Miss Kate Harvey.”
“She’s no great friend of mine. We are only acquaintances.”
“Well, then, you won’t mind if I ask her to dance,” George said.
“Be my guest.”
George laughed as Neville rose from his seat. “You say that now, but one of these days, a young lady is going to walk in and catch your eye, and you’ll be a lost man. You’ll be lost to us bachelors forever.”
Neville snorted. “Speak for yourself, George. Didn’t I see you just the other week walking with two young women on your arms?”
George shrugged. “Just doing my duty. Young ladies are often looking for a man to accompany them to things. I’m a safe choice.”
“I wonder if their mothers know that.”
George cuffed Neville on the shoulder, and they made their way through to the main dining hall.
The room was grand, to say the least. But there was a subtlety to it, so one didn’t notice right away.
Instead, there were touches of glamour and wealth about the room that a person moved in, and only later did they notice that the candles were of fine beeswax, not cheap animal tallow that smelled.
Or that the drapes were of a rich, red velvet, gentle if a drunken person lurched into them, or that the room’s chandeliers and candelabras added a golden hue of light, making the space seem warm and inviting.
“Who is that?” George said. “Look at that woman. Up there.”
“George, we’ve only just entered the room. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for another pretty face already,” Neville teased.
And then he saw her. Looking over the balcony from the ladies’ observation gallery, with her mother standing beside her. She looked quite pretty in pink. Neville’s smile disappeared.
“Who is she?”
Neville stared. He quickly drank some of his wine, but he drank too quickly, and some of it coursed down his throat too fast. He sputtered and then began to cough so loudly that people started to look over and stare.
“Mate, you all right?” George asked.
“I’m fine,” Neville said weakly, still coughing. He took another sip of his wine, anything to stop this infernal coughing. He glanced upward. There, the blasted woman had not only seen him, but she was also watching. She raised her hand in greeting and nodded to him.
“Is she waving to you?” George asked.
“No,” Neville uttered. “You’re wrong.”
“No, I’m not. I think she is. Oh, look. There she goes. I bet she’s coming down here.”
“No, she’s not.”
“What is wrong with you, old chap? Of course she is.” George shot him a look. “Try not to cough on her, all right? She’ll be wondering if you’re unwell.”
And before he knew it, the young woman in question was down the stairs from the observation gallery and walking toward him.