Page 18 of Lyon on the Lam (The Lyon’s Den)

T avie stood at the ship’s rail, letting the wind catch her hair and her skirt while she looked everywhere but at the horizon.

She didn’t need to see London to know it was near.

Smoke and soot created dark clouds above them, which were mirrored in the color of the water.

Every gust carried the sound from the docks, as though they were approaching a flock of wild, hungry birds.

Matthew took her hand and squeezed her fingers for a count of two. After he released her, he stayed close enough for their shoulders to touch. It had been this way since they’d left the Millers’ farm three days earlier.

He had drawn the line at sleeping beside her, but he’d developed the alarming practice of lying on a pallet in front of the door. It was a clear message for how he saw his role until her fate was settled.

“I still believe I should return to Lambeth,” she said. The wind-cooled brass rail chilled her elbows through her cloak.

Matthew shook his head. “And I still believe it’s a bad idea.” His trousers were a dark column around which her light skirts flapped until the wind shifted direction.

“I have few other options,” Tavie said as she stared at his boots. “I won’t return to that house, I refuse to subject the few friends I have to the scandal, and I’ll be damned if I go back to my parents.”

The night they fled London, Matthew’s boots had been so polished they had reflected the moonlight. Now they were scuffed and caked in mud—the boots of a field hand, not a member of the demimonde .

“You’ll stay with me.” He placed his injured foot on the deck, and the hole in the knee of his trousers gaped open with every rocking wave. It reminded her of her mother’s shocked expression.

“Matthew.”

She didn’t need to explain why that was a terrible idea. Even if they could evade discovery, she tingled every time he touched her.

Truthfully, he didn’t need to touch her. She’d felt it from the moment she entered Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s office and saw him standing there. Sharing space had heightened it to the point that she had lain in a cold bed, listening to him breathe as he slept.

“We’ll have a house full of staff.”

She had heard far too much gossip about ladies who had only their maid to attest to their good behavior. “Whom you pay to keep your secrets.”

“Have you forgotten hiding beneath the stairs?”

That last day on the farm, she’d screeched when a hen brushed her skirts, which had made Margaret laugh. Tavie had swallowed hard and joined her, but it stirred memories of mice scurrying over her thin shoes while Albert’s thugs had bellowed threats and broken furniture. “No, but—”

“We have a great deal to plan, and I have a business to run. I cannot do both if you are across the Thames.”

She didn’t want to be in Lambeth any more than he wanted to leave her there, but it wasn’t about their wishes. “You will not have a business if you are caught in this mess.”

He stared at his hands, or perhaps the sea beyond them. Even in profile, she could see his thoughts warring with each other. She loved that face, loved watching him try to reconcile what he wanted to do with what he had to do.

She loved him.

The twist in her heart stole her breath.

Love means many things, Octavia. Your father loves us, so he’s worked hard to give us the opportunity to enter the demimonde , and my love for you pushed me to find you the best match. You’ll be a baroness! I know that your love for us will help you see the chance you have here.

The chance to marry a handsome man with a title, to live in a Mayfair mansion, to bring her family up with her. James could have a larger, more lucrative parish nearer to London. Father would have more business connections. Mother would have an impressive social circle.

“I think I know where you can stay.” Matthew heaved a sigh. “I’ll need to change first.”

“Of course.” If he was asking for a favor, he’d need to look his best. Especially since she resembled a waif with two pence to her name.

Listen to me, you foolish girl. Matthew Foster is handsome and charming, I’ll grant you. But he will never get us—you—past St. James Square.

She was a waif with two pence to her name.

Dry your eyes and stop howling this instant. Do you hear me? Your father will not live forever, and you have to think of your responsibility to your family. God knows James never did.

She had chosen her family. Her engagement had been secured with a nod of a head and the stroke of a pen. She’d given control of her life to a man who cared for her less than she cared for him.

Her heart had become a cash box.

“You’ll be safe with Will and Charlotte. He’s as steady as they come, and she’s a bright, sweet girl. A bit of a chatterbox, but perhaps it will make the days go faster.”

Tavie heard what he wasn’t saying. Their return to London meant her return to the shadows. “It will be a hardship on them, will it not, to have me underfoot all day?”

“It will be a hardship on all of you.” He grinned. “Their house is small, but they’re newly married, so it’s a happy place.”

Newlyweds would not want her as a guest any more than she wished to be tortured by their marital bliss. Tavie looked past Matthew to the great ships looming ahead of them. A flock of Union Jacks snapped in the breeze atop a forest of masts and webs of rigging. “The navy is here.”

“That’s nothing new, Tavie. Don’t change the subj—”

She pointed over his shoulder. “The fleet is docked, Matthew.”

He turned and stared, like most of the men on deck. The only sounds were the cracks of the sails and the crashing of the waves.

“Man your lines, gentlemen,” cried the captain. “Don’t make us look like fools.”

The sailors ran to their posts, their shouts sending the gulls reeling overhead. Ahead, the dock came into focus enough to see the red-and-blue coats in the sunshine and the crowds of workers racing to and fro, carrying loads on their backs like turtles.

A shiver went down Tavie’s spine. “France?”

“Likely,” Matthew said.

Napoleon’s escape had made traders uneasy, but war would push the markets into chaos. Father would be frantic. Matthew should have been in Town. “We’ve missed too much.”

“Boney moves quickly.” He looked to the east, as though expecting to see French ships approaching. “We chose a good time to return. Much later and the sea might not have been safe.”

Much later and he might have been a pauper.

They were directed to a far wharf, away from the bustle and crowds, which was a relief. While there was a chance that Albert might have men watching arrivals, there was also a possibility that someone watching the navy would recognize her and spread tales.

Tavie took Matthew’s arm as they descended the gangplank.

It was muscled and warm, but they were close enough that she could feel his strength and confidence once they touched land and he lengthened his stride.

It gave her the courage to lift her head and square her shoulders and catch a glimpse of what her choices had cost her.

A year from now, you’ll be settled in Mayfair with a house to run and a child to fuss over. You and Albert will grow to love one another, or at least hold an affection, and the Foster boy will be nothing but a memory.

Despite her mother’s assurances, none of that had happened. Tavie had tried to forget, had pretended it didn’t matter. Every morning, she had read the scandal sheets for news of Matthew’s engagement, steeling herself for the inevitable and then rejoicing when there was no news.

But she had read of his father’s death and felt his grief. She’d followed his successes thereafter, and his rising reputation in London, and celebrated when no one was looking.

They moved through the crowd like they had done years before at country dances and then in ballrooms. He’d been the perfect partner, and she had ruined everything.

She held her cloak in place with her free hand, glad that its cover hid her face from the crowd—and her reaction from Matthew.

He guided her to the street and hailed a passing hackney. He glanced in the window, nodded, and opened the door. “Number twelve, St. James Square. Drive to the mews at the back.”

“You should have been here to manage things instead of running into the countryside with me,” Tavie said as she sat.

“Will should have it in hand.” Matthew dropped into the seat beside her. “But it might make him better appreciate my contributions.”

“He works for you?” she asked.

Matthew nodded. “His father is a farmer, but Will read the law with an uncle who was more interested in the markets than scandal. It makes him the perfect man of business to replace Crandall.”

Edgar Crandall worked with many of the grain merchants in London, including her father, and had done so for years.

It made it easier to negotiate, but Tavie had always thought the old man was a horrible gossip.

Father knew more about his competitors’ lives than he would have learned from social calls. “And Charlotte?”

Matthew smiled at her. “She’s wrapped Mother ’round her finger. You’ll like her.”

The larger questions were what stories Charlotte had heard and whether she would take to Tavie. “I’m sure I will.”

The wind had made a mess of his hair. It reminded her of every time she’d seen him in a field, smiling in the sunshine, the sun making it even more golden. Just like then, she had the urge to straighten it. “Your clothes are a mess. Your hair should at least be respectable.”

The strands were soft against her fingers, and they still had the tendency to curl, though their thickness made it more of a wave.

His sharp inhale cut through the quiet, making the silence more noticeable. Green eyes, the color of slick moss on wet stones, searched her face.

The weight of the moment pressed on her until she couldn’t breathe. All she could do was feel the way her tongue anticipated his kiss, how her light shift tormented her stiff nipples. Need lay heavy, low in her body.