Chapter Four
After James exited Dahlia’s boudoir, he paused and held his breath. Might she remove her mask? What if he burst into the room after a moment to see if she had removed it, to catch a glimpse? He ached to see her face.
Surrendering to the ache, he placed his hand on the polished brass handle.
Sharp intakes of breath came from inside, as if the room’s occupant struggled for air.
Then he heard a soft sob. Not the exaggerated sniveling of a woman trying to secure the attention and sympathy of another—he’d already been exposed to enough of those, particularly at Lady Miles’s ball last night, where the debutantes seemed to think eliciting sympathy was the best way to get a man’s name on their dance cards.
No, the sobs he could hear spoke of suppressed heartbreak, the cries of a woman who struggled to silence her despair lest she succumb to it.
Did she cry for him?
Then he chided himself. Her heartbreak wasn’t a trophy for him to relish as evidence of his prowess at lovemaking. It was something to elicit shame in the knowledge that he had given pain to the one woman capable of owning his heart.
It was almost enough to break his resolve and visit her once more. But reason told him that with each subsequent visit, the urge to remain in her arms would strengthen, his ability to walk away would lessen…
…and his soul would wither a little more until it died altogether.
Dahlia was like laudanum. Wrenching himself from her would give rise to temporary pain, but it would, ultimately, be the best course of action. That pain would lessen over time, like hardened skin forming a scar over a burn, until he could no longer feel it.
It remained to be seen whether, once the pain had gone, he would be capable of feeling anything at all.
Footsteps approached and he withdrew his hand from the door and turned to see a veiled figure standing before him.
The Black Widow of Whitehall herself.
“Forgive me, ma’am,” he said, moving to pass, but she blocked his path.
“I would have a word with you, Lord Bedford,” she said, her voice crisp and clear through her veil.
He tilted his head and stared at her, but in the dim light of the hallway, he could not make out her features other than two pinpricks of light where her eyes reflected the flames of the candles mounted on the walls.
“Me?”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon was not noted for her sociability.
In all the weeks James had visited Dahlia, he hadn’t spoken to her employer.
Until tonight he’d only ever seen her on the gallery overlooking the main gaming room—a shadowy figure reminiscent of a giant spider, watching over her prey.
Then, as now, an uncomfortable sensation crawled up his spine, as if she could look into the depths of his soul and read his innermost desires.
She inclined her head, like a monarch acknowledging the honor she bestowed upon a humble subject by gifting him with her attention.
Heaven help him—was she about to invite him into her lair to drain him of his lifeblood?
“Are you expected anywhere tonight?” she said.
James glanced at the door to the room he’d just left. Could Dahlia hear their conversation?
“No,” he said, a little too loudly. “There’s nowhere else that I wish to go tonight.”
The veiled figure inclined her head, her eyes gleaming behind the black lace. Then James caught a flash of something—teeth, perhaps? Either she smiled at him, or she was baring her fangs, ready to sink them into his neck.
He took a step back.
“No, Lord Bedford, I insist that you remain.”
Shit.
James braced himself. “Wh-what for?”
“To spend the rest of your evening in the gaming hall.”
“I-I have no money left,” he stammered, “and I’m neither gamester nor card player.”
“A sensible philosophy, Lord Bedford,” she replied.
“No…I wish to invite you as a guest of the Lyon’s Den.
You have a credit on your ledger for two drinks, and I welcome you to stay and watch the evening’s entertainment.
Though tonight’s event is almost finished, you might find it—or, at least, the notion of it—to your liking. ”
What was the woman talking about?
As if she read his mind, the black-clad figure tilted her head to one side and the veil rippled as he heard a sharp sigh.
“You’re something of a greenhorn, Lord Bedford, so I take it you’re unaware of the true nature of this establishment.”
She paused as if awaiting a response, and he felt his cheeks warm as he replied.
“I-it’s a bawdy house and gaming hell.”
She let out a soft laugh. At least, it might have been a laugh—it sounded more like a growl.
“You may believe that my establishment only sells fine liquor and the company of pretty girls. However, the true commodity for sale is men such as yourself.”
“Commodity?”
“You shall see for yourself, Lord Bedford. Then, perhaps, you might consider paying us another visit.”
“Is Dahlia—”
“I’m afraid another visit to Dahlia is out of the question. She is to leave my establishment very soon.”
James’s heart tightened with loss.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon nodded, as if confirming something to herself. Then she extended her hand.
“Come, sir. I promise that you’ll be well attended to tonight.”
“I don’t want—”
“Lord Bedford, at the Lyon’s Den, we give our patrons what they need, rather than what they want.”
Madwoman she might be, but James couldn’t fail to admit that Mrs. Dove-Lyon intrigued him. And a night in a gaming hell with liquor that he was not required to pay for was preferable to a lonely evening in his lodgings—and most certainly preferable to a Society party.
At the threshold of the main gaming hall, James’s hostess handed him into the care of a tall, thin youth dressed in a white toga, a circlet of golden laurel leaves atop his head.
The youth slipped a glass of ruby-red liquid into James’s hand, then led him into the hall.
In the center was a platform on which stood five men in varying states of inebriation.
One stood stiff and erect, his face the color of puce.
Two others seemed to be swaying from side to side, and the fourth leaned forward, his mouth opening and closing, a greenish hue to his skin.
The fifth man shook so violently, James could swear his teeth rattled.
Beside the table stood another youth in a toga, holding up a scroll on the back of which was the legend: Master of Ceremonies.
“Place your bets for round six!” the youth cried, and a roar erupted among the crowd, followed by the clinking of coins. James tapped on the shoulder of his neighbor, a man of about thirty with a thick mop of dark-red hair.
“What’s happening?”
“Newcomer to the Den, are you?” the man said. “I say, everybody! Fresh meat! We’ve a slab of fresh meat, right here!”
Another cheer rose up and a few faces turned toward James.
“No more bets!” the master of ceremonies declared, and the heads turned toward the men on the platform.
Five youths strode across the room, each carrying a silver salver that bore a wineglass filled with a dark-green liquid that resembled the sludge Heslop regularly raked out of the duck pond at Bedford Hall.
James wrinkled his nose. “Surely they’re not going to drink that?”
“Of course they are!” his neighbor said. “What did you expect—they’d have it inserted up their arses?”
Another man let out a chuckle and turned to face James.
“That was last month,” he said, grinning.
“The absinthe arse challenge. I pity the poor fellow who had to clean up the mess after that—and a fine mess it was. But Mrs. Dove-Lyon pays her employees well.” He held out his hand. “Sir Matthew Tainton, at your service.”
James took the proffered hand.
“And this reprobate”—Sir Matthew gestured to the redhead—“is Mr. Vernon. A mere mister, but he’s permitted to partake in the Den’s activities by virtue of his mother’s being the daughter of a duke.”
“Who would want to insert absinthe up his—” James broke off, his cheeks flaming.
“Anyone desperate enough for a dowry,” Sir Matthew said. “The winner of that particular challenge netted a woman in her thirties with a property in Surrey and ten thousand in cash.”
“A woman?” James said. “Are women for sale here?”
“No, Mr. Fresh Meat,” Mr. Vernon said. “We’re for sale.” He gestured to the platform. “See those fellows up there? A baronet, an earl, two viscounts, and a marquess. Rather an impressive crop, each in the same predicament.”
“Which is?”
“A need for ready cash. And what’s the easiest route to getting one’s hands on ready cash?”
James shrugged.
“You really are fresh meat, aren’t you?” Sir Matthew chuckled. “Like a newly shot deer, needing to be well hung for a few days before he’s ready.”
Mr. Vernon took a mouthful of his drink, then lowered his gaze to James’s breeches. “How well hung are you, Mr. Fresh Meat?”
Sir Matthew nudged his companion. “Don’t be an arse, Vernon. We all know your cock’s the size of a stallion’s. Though it’s not size that matters, but what you do with it, eh? If you can’t make a woman moan your name, then it matters not how well endowed you are.”
Oh, James…
James suppressed the surge of need at the memory of Dahlia’s cry as her body rippled around him. Would he ever hear a woman cry his name in pleasure again?
The cheering resumed and James turned his attention to the platform where the competitors were each holding their glasses.
“One part coffee, two parts brandy, and half a cup of milk in each of those—or so Coriolanus tells me,” Sir Matthew said.
“Coriolanus?”
“That glorious boy over there.” Sir Matthew gestured to one of the youths.
“Then why is it green?” James said.
“That’ll be the absinthe, left over from last month,” Vernon said. “I pray to the devil that it’s fresh from the bottle rather than the remnants that Coriolanus mopped up from the floor.”
James drew in a sharp breath to stem the pulse of nausea, and he averted his eyes from the cloudy liquid in the glasses.
“Are you ready?” the master of ceremonies cried.
The crowd muttered among themselves.
“I said—are you ready!”
“Yes!” the crowd roared, then a chant rose up. “Drink, drink, drink, drink…”
The competitors tilted their glasses up and James wrinkled his nose. What man could be so desperate for a rich wife to endure such humiliation?
One competitor had only swallowed half of his glass before his legs crumpled and he collapsed to the floor.
Two toga-clad youths rushed forward and carried him out of the room to applause and laughter.
Then, one by one, the others fell—two swaying to the side before crumpling, and another, pausing before he leaned forward, opened his mouth and expelled his drink over the onlookers on the front row.
“It always pays to take a back-row position when watching Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s games,” Sir Matthew said. “The first time I witnessed a game, I learned a bitter lesson. Or rather, my jacket did. My valet refused to speak to me for a week.”
“We have a victor!” the master of ceremonies cried, gesturing to the last competitor standing, a thin man with youthful features, who blushed scarlet and glanced about the room in disbelief.
“Well, I’ll be damned, it’s not Blackwell!” Mr. Vernon said. “He’s not known for holding his liquor.”
“Yes, but Mrs. Dove-Lyon is known for nudging the odds toward the most favorable candidate,” Sir Matthew said.
“So—that young man has just won himself a bride?” James said.
Sir Matthew nodded. “Together with a fat dowry. And, according to Coriolanus, the bride’s supposed to be quite pretty.”
James shook his head. “Who’d take a bride sight unseen?”
Mr. Vernon rolled his eyes. “Any man not prepared to primp and preen his way around the ballrooms of London in an attempt to persuade those gorgon-like matriarchs to release their precious daughters for a dance in the hope of securing the opportunity to bore himself rigid courting her.”
“Exactly,” Sir Matthew said. “A sensible man takes the direct approach.”
James stared at the victor, who was now being carried about the hall in a lap of triumph, a golden circlet on his head.
Perhaps Mr. Vernon and Sir Matthew—and Mrs. Dove-Lyon—had a point.
James finished his port, then a youth appeared at his side—the same fellow who’d escorted him in.
“Shall I show you out, Lord Bedford?”
Clearly Mrs. Dove-Lyon considered him dismissed.
The youth led James to the doorway and bowed.
“Compliments of Mrs. Dove-Lyon,” he said. “She regrets that you were unable to take your second glass tonight, but she hopes you’ll return, as her guest, tomorrow night.”
“To partake in a…a drinking game?”
“Oh no, the competitors are chosen in advance of the games themselves. But a new game will be announced at the end of the evening, which may be more suited to your tastes. Unless you’d rather attend Lady Tirton’s ball?”
James stared at the youth. How the devil did he know about the ball at Lord Tirton’s townhouse tomorrow night? Unless Mrs. Dove-Lyon really was a witch—an all-seeing, omnipresent witch.
Lord knew what sort of creature lurked beneath that black veil of hers.
But the youth had piqued James’s curiosity. That, and the prospect of being able to excuse himself from a night of prancing and primping, was enough to tempt him.
“Please thank Mrs. Dove-Lyon and tell her that I shall attend,” James said.
“Very good, Lord Bedford. Please arrive no later than half past eight.”
The youth bowed and James exited the Lyon’s Den.
As he stepped onto the road, he turned and surveyed the building.
With its benign-looking pale-blue facade, it looked no different to any other building.
But who knew what really resided beneath the surface of anything—a building, a schoolfriend, a veiled widow…
…or a masked doxy who, despite her bright exterior and knowledge of the world, sobbed quietly to herself when she believed she was alone.