Page 17 of Lyon on the Lam (The Lyon’s Den)

“I agree that he’s committing a crime, but I believe it to be a different one.” His lungs tightened. It was one thing to worry over Tavie’s health, but quite another to speak his fears into being. “He is poisoning her.”

Eloise’s eyes widened. “I have read stories about such things. Poison in her tea?”

Matthew nodded. “The longer she is away from his house, the more she improves.” Tavie’s improved color and energy, the shine to her hair, couldn’t be explained away simply by a trip to the country. She had begun to recover even in a run-down Lambeth boardinghouse. “The more she returns to herself.”

The bend in the road meant they were near the farmstead. Matthew was glad of it. His ankle was throbbing in time to the hoofbeats. Laughter reached them before the buildings came into view—a harmony of a girlish giggle and a deeper chuckle, one that had haunted Matthew for years.

He still remembered the first time he’d heard it.

He was in the crowd at the first country dance he’d attended since returning from Oxford, struggling to recall names and place them with faces that were older, sometimes thinner, most times rounder.

All the girls had been staring at him, preening or whispering behind fans with their mothers.

Tavie’s red-gold hair had been a welcoming, familiar beacon. And as he’d approached, she laughed at something someone else had said. Unaffected, deep, and honest. It had curled around something in his gut and tugged him to her.

Just like it did now.

She and Meg turned, shading their eyes, as the cart rolled to a stop near the mill’s door. They left the chickens strutting in search of seed. As they drew closer, Tavie’s smile faded.

“You’ve returned quickly,” she said as she looked between them.

“Matthew injured his ankle,” Eloise said. “We thought it best to return.”

Tavie lengthened her stride. “How badly?”

Matthew’s conscience prodded him to step down on his own, to ease her worry. After all, he was her chief protector on their odd holiday. “It’s not—”

Eloise put her hand on her arm and pulled him back to the seat. “Let the woman help you,” she whispered.

Matthew blinked. “What?”

“Ignore your pride and lean on her for a moment or two.” She craned closer. “Apologize for ignoring her very good, very wise suggestion.”

He might have argued, but Tavie and Margaret were already waiting to help him down. It was difficult to step while pretending to be more injured than he felt, but the pain was real when he put weight on his injured foot to walk on his own.

Tavie was there in a breath, her arm about his waist. It gave him no option but to drape his arm across her shoulders. “Thank you.”

He wasn’t certain if he was speaking to Eloise or to Tavie—perhaps it was both of them. Given how sweet Tavie smelled and how her warm body pressed against his, he likely owed Eloise a larger debt.

“Should Meg come to your other side?” Tavie asked. “It would be easier to keep your foot raised.”

Her eyes were red and swollen, hinting at a late-night cry and the reason she’d stayed in her room until he’d left this morning. The color contrasted with her panic-stricken, pale face. Guilt piled on top of guilt, weighing down Matthew’s steps. “It’s not—”

“Meg and I must talk for a moment,” Eloise interjected. “We’ll knock as soon as we’re finished.”

That left no alternative but to continue into the mill alone. After a moment, Tavie began to laugh. It was quiet, but enough to brush her breast against his shirt. Matthew’s body responded in a primitive, and embarrassing, way.

No wonder men wear so many layers on the dance floor.

“This reminds me of our three-legged race,” she said as they climbed the steps, halting on each riser to regain their balance. “Do you remember that?”

Did he remember? She had persuaded him to be her partner based on the length of their legs because she was taller than all the village girls. They had won, of course. “It was hot, and your skirts threatened to trip me.”

Which they were doing again. Matthew sucked in a breath as he put his weight on his injured foot to keep from toppling over.

“You are supposed to lean on me,” she snapped.

He wasn’t supposed to do that during their race, nor when he’d danced with her, and he wasn’t supposed to do it now. She might be near his height, but her shoulders were narrow, her skin was soft, and she was still recovering from being slowly poisoned.

By her husband.

She was another man’s wife.

Matthew released her as soon as they entered his room. “Thank you for your help.”

Tavie strode to the worktable on the opposite wall. “There should be shears somewhere. They’d need them for the twine.”

“Scissors?” He gritted his teeth, bracing himself against the pain that shot from his foot to his knee with each step.

“We should get free of that boot before your foot swells, and it would cause you less distress if—”

“You aren’t cutting my boot off.” Matthew forced himself to stand on both feet. “It’s not broken.”

“You don’t know that,” she muttered as she searched drawers and scanned tool racks. She finally turned, a triumphant smile on her face and shears in her grasp.

Matthew used his good leg to shield his injured one. “I’m the one standing on it, Tavie. And I don’t want you to cut off my boot.” The scissors reached from her palm almost to her elbow. They might cut through his shin if she didn’t pay attention.

“This is no time to be—”

“These are my only boots,” Matthew shouted. “And I’m not escorting you through Suffolk in my socks.”

“So this is my fault too, then.”

The shears thudded back into the drawer before she shoved it closed. The sharp slap of wood against wood reverberated through the quiet room.

Last night her voice had been full of heat and conviction. Now it was resignation and something that resembled defeat.

She never conceded, ever, and Matthew didn’t want her to do so now. He limped to the millstone and leaned against its highly polished wooden vat. Once he was balanced, he held out his hand in invitation.

“You should be removing that boot.” Tavie didn’t budge.

“I am in no danger of losing my foot.” Matthew beckoned her again. “Come here, please.”

She didn’t fly into his arms. Instead she considered each step before she made it.

They started small and hesitant, but after a few they grew longer and more confident.

She stood quietly in front of him and met his gaze.

It would be easy to miss the lingering doubt in her eyes if he didn’t know her well.

He lifted his hands to her shoulders—as much of an embrace as he could allow himself. He hoped it appeared more brotherly than it felt. Holding her in the sunshine while he apologized was quite different than comforting her in the dark when she was afraid.

“Unless you dug the hole in the field and pushed me into it, this is not your fault.”

She stubbornly refused to smile. “You wouldn’t be here if not—”

“I was coming to survey the farm for purchase. Have you forgotten?” He rubbed his thumbs against her dress, the fabric teasing his skin even as he found the hollow where her collarbones met her shoulders. He felt her sigh before he saw it.

“I did,” she said. “But you weren’t planning to drag me along, and if you hadn’t—”

“If I hadn’t, I would have missed an opportunity to begin what promises to be a lucrative partnership with two highly skilled and determined women.”

That news brought light to her eyes. A smile curved her lips. “Really?”

“You were right,” he confessed, smiling back. “Eloise is quite impressed with your wisdom, as am I. And I’m grateful that you pushed me to look past the business and see the people beyond.”

She threw her arms about his waist. “I don’t believe you’ll regret it, Matthew.”

He slid his hands from her shoulders to her back. “I don’t think so either.” His success in this admission made the next one easier. “I apologize for what I said, Tavie. Given our suspicions about Albert’s actions…”

Saying her husband’s name was a reminder he hated, but needed all the same. And Matthew hoped leaving his statement vague wouldn’t raise questions about whether and why his suspicions might differ from hers.

She shook her head. “I’ve given a great deal of thought to that and to what I left with Mrs. Dove-Lyon. In hindsight, my evidence seems thin.”

To hear her echo his thoughts stole his breath.

“And what does that say about me?” She looked at his shoulder as she spoke. “That I would hope to see my…husband hang rather than continue in a marriage I wasn’t brave enough to refuse in the first place?”

Matthew’s heart squeezed until the pain distracted him from his throbbing ankle.

“That I would rather risk my reputation, and now yours, for something that will most likely come to nothing?” She dropped her head to his shoulder, bridging the distance between them. “I’m sorry, Matthew.”

Her breath heated his skin through his shirt, making him wish for the armor offered by the layers of coats he wore in London. It also loosened his muscles until his arms fell to her waist. “I could take you to James.”

He had always liked Tavie’s brother, a scholar who had become a vicar and looked after a country parish in Norfolk. James had spent most of his life with his nose in a book or blinking at the world through his spectacles.

“He has his hands full with Matilda and the girls, not to mention his parish,” Tavie said. “He’d do anything for me, but Matilda might very well contact my family simply to gain their—or Albert’s—favor.”

How could most of her family ignore what was happening to her simply for money and status? For business? Matthew cradled her against him and let her tickle his forehead. “He hurts you.”

The quiet settled around them, but between them the world was a quiet blend of breaths and soft heartbeats. The air smelled of old wheat and the summer breeze, of sweat and fresh water.

Even as children, she had smelled like sunshine and he had itched from working in the fields. He needed to wash and remove his boots, but he couldn’t move.

“It isn’t what you think,” she said.

“You can’t possibly excuse bruises.” Matthew wasn’t na?ve. He’d seen more than one ton wife or mistress explain away rough treatment. He never thought he’d count Tavie amongst them. “You can’t possibly lo—” He couldn’t say the word. “Care that deeply for him.”

“Feelings like those cannot be commanded—from either party,” she whispered. “But duty can.”

Duty. An heir. He didn’t want to hear the rest of this tale. “Tavie, don’t—”

“After a while, desperation and frustration remain, and they are unkind bedfellows.”

“Stop,” he groaned. He didn’t deserve the torture, and she didn’t need the indignity of retelling it.

A husband with no heirs had few options. Divorce was expensive, and a mistress raised issues of legitimacy, but the death of his wife would leave him free of concern.

That was Burridge’s motive for poisoning his wife. They’d foiled that plot by leaving London, but now they’d given him a reason to divorce her and leave her penniless.

They’d also given him a way to kill her without dirtying his hands. Highwaymen, accidents, a fall… No one would think twice. She’d become an example in a Society morality tale.

“We have to go back to London,” she said. “I have to fix the mess I’ve made of my life.”

Her shuddering breaths shook him to his elbows and warmed his cheek and jaw. Matthew’s fingers ached from where he’d gathered the back of her dress into his fist. The first time he’d let her go, it almost killed him. The next time it might drive him mad.

They’d have to pry her from him.

“We’ll leave in the morning.”