Chapter Twenty-Eight
The next morning brought the thin gray light of a London day that could not decide whether it would clear or rain.
Marcus stepped from his carriage at the discreet side entrance of the Lyon’s Den, alone, the thin chill of the morning sharpening his focus.
No Henry at his side, no music to soften the edges.
Theseus opened the door and inclined his head at once, without question. That reaction told Marcus something he had not fully allowed himself to name. He had already become a familiar figure here.
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon expects you, my lord,” the man said. “If you will follow me.”
They did not pass through the public rooms. Theseus led him along a side corridor to a door near the back, opened it, bowed, and withdrew.
Bessie Dove-Lyon waited inside, her cane resting across her lap.
The room suited her. No frills. A sturdy table. Two chairs. A modest fire that breathed steadily rather than burned. Her gaze traveled over him once, assessing, confirming.
“You are earlier than I expected,” she said.
“I did not wish to wait.”
“No.” Her mouth curved. “You have that look.”
“What look is that?”
“The look of a man who has discovered that something matters to him again. It is a dangerous expression. Often useful. Frequently inconvenient.”
He took the chair opposite her.
“I need information,” he said.
“Of course you do.” Her fingers tapped the cane lightly. “About Fenwick.”
“Yes.”
“What did Miss Edgewood tell you?”
“That he made himself intrusive once. That he follows her. That he has stood outside Rosehaven House these past evenings. That he now asks your staff about her movements.”
“Then she told you more than she told me,” Bessie said. “She wishes to protect my business. It is an admirable instinct. Misplaced, in this instance.”
The chair no longer held him. It felt too still for what gathered beneath his ribs, purpose, restless and awake. He rose and moved to the small window, more to steady himself than to look at the empty yard beyond.
“What do you know of him?” he asked.
“Enough to distrust him,” she answered. “He wears his money like armor, and people who walk behind him gather what falls from his table. He pays his debts late. He enjoys his games one step from the rules, never more. He likes to put pressure on things that crack.”
“Women,” Marcus said.
“Among other things.” Her voice cooled. “He favors situations where complaint costs more than silence. It is a particular cruelty of men with money and leisure.”
Marcus’s hands closed slowly at his sides.
“Has he harmed anyone here?”
“Not openly.” She tilted her head. “But I have turned him away when I saw where his interest moved. I do not give him staff. I do not allow him to believe they sit within reach simply because he lost a hand at the tables.”
“Yet he still comes,” Marcus said.
“He is one of my less pleasant regulars, but a regular nonetheless. I could bar him entirely, but he would find ways around it. Men like Fenwick seldom accept refusal. They take it as provocation.”
“Which we have already learned,” Marcus said quietly.
Her gaze sharpened.
“What do you intend, Wolfton?”
He did not answer at once. He had spent half the night awake, turning it over.
“I will not meet him in an alley,” he said. “That would give him too much story to tell.”
Bessie’s mouth twitched.
“I will not call him out as if this were a matter of honor between equals,” Marcus continued. “That would lend weight to the fiction that he is one. I prefer something quieter.”
“Quieter is often sharper,” she said. “What do you require from me?”
“His pattern,” Marcus said. “Where he plays when he is not here. Who he owes? Who carries his notes? Who drinks with him? Who fears him?”
“You intend to tug at the threads around him.”
“Yes.”
She studied him for a long moment.
“You have done this before,” she said.
His jaw tightened. “Something like it.”
Her eyes softened, and the change unsettled him. As if she saw more of his past than he had offered.
“I have heard your name in other rooms,” Bessie said. “Long before you ever came to mine. It is reassuring to know those old stories still have teeth.”
He did not ask which stories she meant.
“You are certain,” she asked, “that you wish to step back into that sort of work?”
He thought of Lila in the narrow hall at Rosehaven, her shoulders pressed against the wall, her fingers caught in the fringe of her shawl.
She stood so carefully still, as if the smallest movement might invite the wrong attention. And yet, when she spoke his name, there had been trust in it. Quiet. Unasked. Real.
“Yes,” he said. “I am certain.”
Bessie nodded once, as if a decision already reached now had confirmation.
“I keep accounts,” she said. “Not only of money. Of behavior. Fenwick’s record with me is untidy. I will have copies made for you. Names. Sums. Places. You will speak to the men he owes. Not all will talk. Enough will.”
“I will need a place to receive them,” Marcus said. “Somewhere he does not see me.”
“That can be arranged. There is a small room above a coffeehouse near Bow Street that owes me a favor. I will have word sent.”
He turned back from the window.
“What of Miss Edgewood?” he asked. “She should not walk alone until this is done.”
“I have already adjusted her schedule,” Bessie answered. “She will leave only with others or with you. I cannot keep her wrapped in cotton. It would insult her. But I can place obstacles between her and a man who circles.”
“Good.”
Bessie regarded him with that faint, unnerving smile again.
“She worries she is a burden to you,” Bessie said.
“She is not.”
“Tell her,” Bessie said.
He looked away.
“It may ease what is knotted in her,” Bessie added. “You are not the only one who has learned to survive by keeping still.”
A knock sounded at the door. The footman entered with a small folded packet.
“As you requested, madam.”
She nodded. “Leave it.”
When he withdrew, she tapped the paper with her cane.
“Fenwick’s current gaming rooms. One in Covent Garden. One further west. Both answer to men who dislike disturbance. Take care.”
“I intend to disturb only what is necessary,” Marcus said.
“I have never met a man,” Bessie said dryly, “who measured necessity correctly once the woman in question had taken root.”
He did not accept that word aloud.
But he took the packet.
“When this is finished,” he said, “I want him nowhere near her. Not here. Not in her street. Not in her conversation.”
“We are agreed,” Bessie said.
He inclined his head and turned toward the door.
“Wolfton.”
He paused.
“You do not require my blessing,” she said. “But you have it.”
He released a breath he had not realized he was holding.
“Thank you,” he said.
He stepped back into the corridor with the thin packet in his hand and a steadiness in his chest that no longer wavered.
Outside, the day remained undecided. Marcus was not.
He would speak to the men behind Fenwick. He would follow the lines of loyalty and debt until they revealed the fault in Fenwick’s armor. He would tug until the structure weakened, until the balance shifted toward truth.
And when it did, Marcus would be there to ensure one thing held firm.
Lila Edgewood would be safe from Fenwick, from the shadows that had tracked her steps, and, if he was brave enough to finish what had begun between them, from the small, careful life she had been forced to build around fear.
He tucked the packet into his coat. Then he went out to begin.