Page 14 of Lie Down With a Lyon (The Lyon’s Den)

B lanche let go Dáire’s hand as her father’s man pulled open the door to his office. They’d left their carriage a few streets away and walked. The air, she said, would clear her head. She’d also declared that she alone would speak here. Dáire had agreed that this was her hour. He would speak only if addressed.

She’d last seen her father months ago. He had bullied her then. Now she would declare her independence again.

She was ready for his arrogance, his bluster. The narrowing of his silver eyes, the evil he showed the world—and her when he was thwarted.

But she was not ready for how much he had aged. The silver streaks that defined his wealth of hair. The set of his wiry jaw. Whatever the malady that had sent him to his bed earlier had robbed him of his ruddy complexion and given him a bit of palsy when he spoke.

He was a tall man. Not as tall as Dáire, but she noticed now that in the intervening months since last they’d met, he’d shrunk a few inches. He hunched. He made no mention of his condition. He was too proud to issue any statement of weakness. His lack of words told her, more than anything ever had, that he was human—and perhaps he had not long for this world.

His light eyes pierced hers, then went about assessing every inch of her.

“Come. Both of you. Sit.” He extended a hand to the two chairs before his gnarly old desk.

“Thank you, no. We will stand,” she told him.

When she expected him to sneer or rail at her, he sniffed. Crossed his arms. Then took a long look at her husband.

“You can go,” he told Dáire.

She felt more than saw Dáire shake his head.

“I will not spirit her away, O’Neill. What’s in it for me? Eh?” Her father gave them both another once-over. “Aye. So if you won’t sit, I will.” And he did sink into his overstuffed leather chair.

“I came to warn you,” she began, “that you must not try to interfere in my life again.”

“Well! Coming right to the point, aren’t ye?” he said with a flourish of his hand, but at once appeared sober. “I failed at the most important event in yer life, so why would I try again?”

She tipped her head, incredulous at his concession.

“Oh, I see. There is now another reason… So you are with child!” He glanced from her to Dáire—and his look was a mix of outrage and pride. “So, no. I won’t interfere. You both do as ye wish. I’ll not engage.”

With his all-too-ready agreement, Blanche winced. She didn’t believe her father would comply, but she would not stay to debate any little bit of his concession. She turned to leave.

“But, my girl, I’ve a price for that.”

She whipped around. “No! You’ve not the power!”

“Don’t I?”

For the first time, Dáire spoke. “Tell us your price, and we shall consider it.”

“Once a year, ye both come to Cheltenham. Four days. I have a house. Ye bring my grandchildren.”

“No,” Blanche happily responded. Once more she stepped away.

“Would you both live under the threat that I could surprise you one night in a rainstorm or one sunny afternoon when you seemed alone in the park? Would ye be at peace each day, knowing I’d destroy ye? That I could deprive ye of yer precious husband, Blanche? Or one child?”

She sucked in air. “You would not dare.” Would he? Would he kill one of his own blood? He had saved her, but was that a fluke or a precedent?

“Are ye sure?” He stared at her, then at Dáire. “Will ye risk it?”

Dáire glared at him. “I would destroy you, Rivers—and everyone who works for you.”

Her father smiled, sardonic and full of wrath. “But I am like some ancient beast. I have”—he wiggled his fingers—“tentacles.”

“You are no longer that powerful, Rivers. I know that the Earl of Langley cripples your dangerous web.”

“So it’s my threat against the chances you take?”

Appalled she had to make this deal to keep Dáire and her baby safe from her own father, she seethed. “Very well. Done! Once a year. Four days. When?” She would not live under his roof while she was enceinte.

“June. Every June. The first four days of the month.”

“Not this June,” she shot back. “I deliver this baby in spring. I will be recuperating. I will not travel with a young baby either.”

“Then, O’Neill, you will send me word of her delivery.”

Dáire nodded.

“Done, all of it. Goodbye.” She turned to go, and Dáire took her arm.

“I loved your mother,” her father said.

Blanche froze mid-step.

“She loved me. Although I knew ye would never bloom living in my house, I loved ye greatly. I am proud of yer ambition, yer courage. I saved ye from a life of despair. That is worth four days in June.”

Dáire and Blanche walked a few streets away from the shambles of filth, begging children, and women who solicited Dáire but drifted off as soon as they recognized him.

The two of them did not speak until they were once more in the cocoon of their home.

Blanche pulled the salon bell for tea. After it arrived and they partook in silent sympathy, she went into her husband’s arms. There she stayed until day turned to night.

“Tomorrow will be easier, my darling,” Dáire told her as they climbed the stairs to their bedroom to change for dinner.

Today, she had faced the man who had saved her. Tomorrow she would face her uncle, the heir to the man who had torn her away from her mother and, in his cruelty, had killed her mother. Dáire declared the Earl of Langley was a kind and decent man.

But Blanche did not trust sight unseen. She did not forgive without proof. What could he give her for that anyway? Apologies. Useless as they were, such words could never fill the hole of catastrophe into which her mother’s family had plunged them both.

Dáire and her town coach idled in front of the pristine white mansion of her uncle, the sixth Earl of Langley.

“Do you meet him here when you have business to discuss?” she asked of Dáire as she clutched the collar of her new pelisse. That day her mother had last come here, the weather was a torrent of rain. Today, the sun blazed down even though it was very cold for mid-November.

In many ways, she had greater trepidation coming here to Mayfair than to Seven Dials.

But what could this Earl of Langley want of her?

“Let’s not agree to tea or anything else.” Blanche was adamant. “Just talk. A visit.”

“Whatever you want. I’m with you,” Dáire said.

She squeezed his hand in thanks and walked with him to the front door.

“Good afternoon, Mr. O’Neill,” the aged butler greeted them upon opening the door. Tall and bushy haired, he had a twinkle in his eye.

“Good afternoon, Haywood. My dear,” Dáire said, smiling at Blanche, “for years this gentleman has taken care of me whenever I come to this door.”

“Ma’am, allow me to say that I am thrilled to see you here,” Haywood said. “I knew your mother. So did many of us here remaining, and we have missed her smiling face. I see now that you inherited her beauty and her demeanor.”

“You are very kind,” she said as she handed over her gloves and pelisse. From what she knew of her father’s description of the former Earl of Langley’s household, congenial servants had not been as plentiful as silent, obedient ones.

Up the stairs they went past portraits of family long deceased. On the first floor, Haywood opened double doors to the main salon. Like the rest of the house, this was done in shades of cream and blue. The sapphire of the painted walls was a perfect backdrop for the handsomeness of the tall, lean, blond-haired man who strode forward, both hands out to welcome her.

“Dear Blanche,” he said when she stood frozen to the Aubusson at his approach. “You are the very image of your mother. Adelaide was our joyous one, never daunted by the vicissitudes of life.”

“Your memory of her is so good to know.”

The earl’s expression sobered. “Your husband has told me of your travails. Allow me to express my condolences, Blanche—as long overdue as they are. But I assure you they are heartfelt. Every one of my four brothers regretted your mother’s disappearance and her terrible demise. When we heard no more of her fate that rainy day, we knew our parents did nothing to find her.”

“Your mother approved of your father’s actions to send my mother and me away?” The very thought that one woman would do that to another, one who was her one daughter, set her blood afire.

“I am ashamed to say it, but yes. Our mother was as much a tyrant as our father. She would have no hint of scandal at her door. Association with a man like Jonathan Rivers was anathema.”

“I’ve never been very proud of it myself. Though I will say that he did retrieve me from the hell of an orphanage in Billingsgate and gave me a different name and education.”

“Whereas the great and illustrious house of Langley gave you nothing.” The sarcasm of his words meant much to her.

“Exactly.”

“May I suggest we sit down? I would like to explain to you what you do not know.”

She stood her ground. “Forgive me if I sound unforgiving, but I will take no excuses.”

“I will give you none.”

“Then there is nothing to be gained.”

“I hope there is, Blanche. My brothers and I are dedicated to one thing in our lives. That is the resurrection of the integrity of the family of Langley.”

“Ah, well, sir.” She still had not moved. “I am not capable of helping you do that. After all, I am the illegi—”

“Never say it!” A spark of anger hardened the earl’s countenance. “Please come and allow us to talk to each other. I wish you to know how we brothers loved our only sister. How we thought her the best at archery, the canniest at cards, the ablest trainer of any dog, and the finest horsewoman. Addy was also the most soothing when one of us had been beaten for a misdemeanor by our father.”

With each revelation, Blanche found herself strolling nearer to the settees. At the last, she sat with a sigh and her heart full of anguish. “Did he do that often?”

“He did.”

“That’s despicable.”

“Our mother was no better.” The earl pulled up the cuff of his very fine cambric shirt. There on the inside of his wrist was an old but distinctive outline of a burn from the end of fire poker.

Blanche sucked in air. “How could you live with that? All of you?”

“Like many children, you know not what the rest of the world is like until you have the experience and the wits to compare one to the other.”

Compassion flooded her. “I am so sorry. How… When were you able to…cope?”

“Our mother died soon after our father told us he had seen the last of Addy. That she had run away, escaped, really, from the carriage to take her to obscurity.”

“Nineteen years ago.”

“Four years later, our father died. Unloved, unmourned, he was put to the family vault in Langley in Sussex.”

“You became earl,” she said.

“I did. I threw out every leather strap and fire poker in this house and in Langley. No one has abused anyone since. We brothers took to healing ourselves of any hatred, and I am happy to say, we each live happily. I sit in Parliament and work on special projects with your husband. A good man, he is.”

“Indeed.” She reached over to grasp Dáire’s hand. He’d come to sit beside her at some time in the last few minutes. “And your brothers? Are they married? Do they have children? Do you?” She bit her lip. “I am sorry. I am too forward.”

“Not at all. You are our niece. And in a family where our loving wives give us all males, you will be our pride and joy.”

She chuckled, astonished she had asked such personal questions, but more surprised she was laughing. Here. In the house where her mother had been spurned. Where she had been condemned. Blanche sobered.

“I am pleased to tell you that all of my brothers await us in the grand salon. They have brought their wives with them, and all their sons. I warn you—they are a noisy gaggle.”

“And you?” she asked, hoping to meet his wife and his sons.

“My eight-year-old son waits to meet you with the others. My wife passed away two years ago. I am, as you see, a widower with a large and growing family.”

The reception of her by her boisterous family was a heart-pounding joy. They partook of tea while her uncles told stories about her mother.

Climbing into their carriage two hours later, Blanche sat replete, happy, full of all the joys of family she had never known and now so dearly savored.

“That…” she said to Dáire, and he curled his arm around her and kissed her temple. “That was…”

“What was it?” Dáire grinned, ear to ear.

“It’s what my father wants.”

Dáire gazed down at her. “And?”

“It’s what he shall have. For four days each June.”