Page 6 of Lie Down With a Lyon (The Lyon’s Den)

April 26, 1805

T he sun shone today. A nice day for a wedding.

Blanche would not ask herself once more if she had done the right thing. Not ponder if she should have asked Mr. Dillon to marry her or how long he would have waited to ask her to marry him. Not allowed retreat to overtake her when the only reason that man thought them star-crossed was that he was beholden in some way to her father. For it was God’s truth—an alliance by her husband with her father she would never tolerate.

She ran her fingers down the soft, pale-blue crepe of her elegant, Grecian-style gown. Madame Frasier had done well by her. Blanche fingered the three rows of tiny white beads across her décolleté. She had no full-length cheval mirror here. She’d rented this modest room yesterday in a small, respectable carriage inn near the Tower. Telling her stepmother she was to meet a friend in Richmond, she had set off from home yesterday. She’d sent a note to Susana Edmunds asking her to send over the big box that had arrived addressed to her, and now, she was ready to have the porter carry her trunk down to the inn’s courtyard.

All she needed was her little reticule—and her courage.

Dáire stared at his watch as it ticked over to nine minutes past nine. Blanche’s wedding day. Henry Mercer’s, too. Dáire rapped his knuckles on the desk, irritated with himself.

He had confirmed Mercer was still intending to wed. Yes, Dáire had had Mercer followed ever since he learned it was he whom Mrs. Dove-Lyon had chosen to marry Blanche. But after Farrell spotted someone trailing Blanche, Dáire had added a Shadow to Mercer and put one on Mrs. Dove-Lyon. Dáire had doubled the watch on Rivers’s house in the Dials. He’d learned from his men that Rivers had brought in three men, each for an hour or more, all minor members of the ton and louche to boot. If he interviewed each to become his son-in-law, Dáire’s men could not verify. But Dáire didn’t put anything past Rivers. He had taken caution too, and put double watch on Blanche’s home. But when she’d left it yesterday to take up residence in an inn south of the Thames, Dáire was shocked.

To him, it meant she had told no one of her upcoming marriage. Not her stepmother, which was wise. Not her partner in their registry business, Grace Mansfield. And after he heard that Blanche had accepted from the inn’s porter a large dress box from a Miss Susana Edmunds, Dáire knew she had kept her wedding secret from everyone.

Except me.

He swallowed his remorse over that. Only a few more minutes and Blanche would be of his past. A delight he’d never expected. Just a few more moments to get past Dáire’s last set of Shadows, all three placed at the church in St. Pancras.

One of his men had entered the church yesterday, pretending to be a cousin of the bridegroom. The vicar had readily told him details of the wedding. This so-called cousin would attend the ceremony, sitting discreetly in the back of the church. He’d then report confirmation that Blanche Rivers had taken her vows and slipped away from London with her husband.

To be kissed by him.

Caressed by him.

Honored by him forevermore.

And she would not be thinking of me. Our meetings. Our laughter—and that kiss.

Thirteen past nine now.

“Sir, we are at a pass now. Confused, we are.” One of his Shadows, Liam Curtis, sat on the chair before him chattering away. Dáire set his teeth. Truth was, he had no idea what the man imparted. Curtis had appeared minutes ago, saying he had urgent news. He was reporting his latest on work with Lord Carlisle and Dáire had been…what? Dreaming…

“I hear you, Curtis.” But he hadn’t. He fingered his watch. Funny what a woman could do to a man’s mind. Fill it, and empty it of all else. Blanche had done that to him…and after today, after ten o’clock, when she married another man, he would cut her from his reverie.

He had to try to put order to life—and with his business, he could do that. Carlisle was interested in finding the woman who spied for the French by giving them maps of the coast. “So let me be certain I have all the facts, Curtis. Repeat all them for me.”

He was becoming a dolt. His men must think him feeble. Not listening to your staff was one thing. Forgetting everything and everyone who ever existed was—in Dáire’s business—reason to be put away.

“Sure as can be, sir.” And off Curtis went on a speech worthy of Drury Lane.

“Keep after it.” Dáire was just rising to his feet to thank the man for his work when a knock came at the office door. He strode over to open it.

“Good morning, guv.” Bart Morris stood there, a frown marring his pretty face. “A word, sir?”

Curtis gave one look to both, nodded, and passed around them.

Morris was on duty, seven to three today, heading the others, to trail Blanche to her wedding. If he and his team could track her and her new husband to their honeymoon, all to the good. Morris was to take with him his cohort who had followed Blanche these past weeks. Starling and Latham, so said Morris, were happy to have the extra work.

“Come in.”

Morris locked his green eyes on Dáire. His coppery hair was a wiry mess from his raking it—and his gaze was dark as a primeval forest, wide and agitated. Not an emotion any of Dáire’s men usually exhibited, unless for some reason suddenly they had no control of a situation.

“What is it?” Dáire waved him to the chair as he pushed shut the door.

Morris remained standing and stared at him. “The wedding, sir.”

Dáire sucked in air. No. No, nothing can go wrong. “What about it?”

“Mercer will not go.”

“What do you mean?”

Morris bit his lower lip. “At eight fifteen this morning, Little Willy Jackson called on Mercer at his father’s home.”

Little Willy Jackson was far from small. Built like the brick walls of a brewery, he was one of Jonathan Rivers’s cutthroats.

Dáire feared the results of that encounter. “Why would Mercer’s butler let that man inside?”

“Outnumbered, guv. Our man on Mercer, Reston, saw Willy arrived with two bully boys. Everyone had a pistol. Reston had no way to stop ’im.”

“I understand. What did they do?”

“A maid tells us Willy forced his way upstairs to Mercer’s bedroom, barged in, and forced him out of bed, down the stairs, and into a carriage waiting at the back.”

“Where did it go?”

“We don’t yet know. Reston got one of our runners off the street, told him to get over to our lady’s inn to tell me. Our runner says Reston took his horse and galloped off to try to follow the carriage.”

Dáire cursed roundly, then looked at his watch fob. Forty past nine. “The maid? We have paid her handsomely. Get her to tell you more.”

“She’s sobbing and crying, she’s that upset. I got nothing more from her.”

“The carriage, then?” From what stable did Rivers hire carriages?

“We’ve a man down at the mews Rivers uses now, sir.”

“The wedding is at ten,” Dáire said to himself more than Morris. Twenty minutes from now. “What’s happening at the White Hart Inn in Southwark?”

“All looked normal. Our three men are in place.”

“I’ll send three guards front and back.”

“Sir?”

“Aye, six in all. Armed.” Dáire needed every one of them for this mess. Rivers must have discovered how Mrs. Dove-Lyon had managed Blanche’s wedding. He must have. Why else the attack on Mercer? But then…

Holy God. Mrs. Dove-Lyon was in Rivers’s crosshairs too!

“Go cover Dove-Lyon. Rivers can do anything! Attack even her! And get me flowers, clean and fresh looking from Hanover Square Market. A basket of” —what was Blanche’s favorite flower? —“pink peonies. French.”

His man frowned. “But that’s—”

“They can be had, Morris! Go. Quickly. And send in my butler.” Dáire was crazed, or why was he getting flowers for a wedding that would never occur? Unless…

Unless he had another man in mind to walk down the aisle with her.

But I don’t! Shite!

“Abbott. Lord Kingston Abbott of…of…” Where did the man live? Green Park. And he owned Dáire a favor. Not big enough to marry on minutes’ notice, but Dáire would twist his arm!

To his butler, he requested an unmarked carriage for himself, and a full hamper of food and spirits to provide for Abbott and his new bride. To Abbott, he sent a blunt note of what was due the man who had saved him thousands of pounds in false debts. Dáire would meet him at St. Pancras church at ten, and afterward he would ensure for the happy couple a comfortable traveling coach and directions for a honeymoon cottage. This he would obtain from Lord Carlisle, who had been so kind as to offer him his seaside cottage. A damn fine offer, it was. And timely.

The note Dáire sent Carlisle told him to respond to the runner who had delivered the request. He needed an answer with directions to the cottage before nine forty-eight, please. The runner would then deliver Carlisle’s instructions to Dáire when he stopped briefly with Abbott and Blanche after the wedding at the other large carriage house in Southwark, the George Inn. There, Dáire would leave the newlyweds and return home.

Orders given, Dáire left his abode within five minutes and walked through the tunnel he’d had constructed last year just for this purpose of simple escape. Not underground, but useful. The passageway was funneled through other buildings he owned, ramshackle as they were. At the final door to the street, he emerged into Kendrick Yard near St. Giles Church.

His mind awhirl, he gnashed his teeth over this fiasco and climbed into his waiting carriage. It was lush, and unmarked. He traveled always anonymously, in comfort.

Patting the top of the wicker hamper, he fumed. Rivers may have put one of his own lackeys up to walking down the aisle. A cracksman or a blackleg? Rivers would not do that to his daughter, would he?

Dáire scrubbed a hand over his mouth. A tiny voice from the past whispered that Rivers would do anything to get his way. Years ago, some had gossiped that he’d even had Blanche’s mother killed.

To marry one of Rivers’s men meant she would never be free.

He’d be damned if he’d let Rivers control her! He had men. Resources. All he needed was Abbott to agree!

But then Dáire froze. If Abbott agreed, was Dáire any different than her father?