Page 27 of Lyon on the Lam (The Lyon’s Den)

Matthew winced as he grasped the impossibly dainty teacup his mother insisted on using. “I was completely justified. Your father—”

Tavie stopped rubbing her head and glared at him. “Father was there?”

“It was market, Tavie.” Matthew dropped a spoonful of jam on a scone and followed it with a dollop of cream. “Of course he was there.”

“And Albert?”

“He said he had business nearby.” He bit the corner from his scone. The tart sweetness of the raspberry jam locked his jaws for a moment. “But I believe he was at loose ends.”

“So you punched him and came home for tea?”

“He was bullying your father into bringing you back to him.” Matthew dropped his half-eaten scone to his plate. “And he acted as though he knew you were here.”

“Well, he certainly knows now .” Tavie rose and pulled the bell rope. “It’s likely spread through Town like fog from the river.” She smiled as the maid appeared. “Could you please bring Mr. Foster a larger cup for his tea?” The moment the door closed, Tavie’s smile faded.

“Thank you,” he said.

“If you drop that one, Celeste will be upset.”

“I certainly don’t want both of you angry at me at the same time.” He stood and wiped his fingers before joining her near the hearth, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I thought you would be happy.”

“And I thought you had more sense,” Tavie replied as she stepped aside and walked to the window. “What were you thinking ?”

He knew she didn’t want to get her dress dirty, but he also knew that his hands had stopped bleeding in the hansom on the way home from the market. Her avoidance needled him almost as much as her quarrelsomeness. “They gave you to him once already.”

She heaved a great sigh. “I am not a sack of flour.”

“I didn’t say you were. But I’ve bloody well wanted to punch him every day for the last five years, and I finally had the chance.” Though in his imagination, the altercation went on for much longer and Albert was much more damaged when it was over.

“Matthew.” She put her hand to her head again, like it was too heavy to hold up. It called attention to the graceful arc of her neck.

He walked behind her, slid his arm about her waist, and placed a kiss at the bottom of the curve. Her skin was as soft as new wheat and smelled of lavender and rain. Tavie jolted like he’d stabbed her, but she didn’t push him away.

He also didn’t push his luck. The curls at her nape tickled his forehead.

“You aren’t supposed to do that,” she whispered. Despite the protest, she softened.

They fit together until it wasn’t certain who was shaping whom. “Your lips are perfectly safe and your feet are firmly on the floor.”

With every whisper, his breath warmed both of them. Despite the heat, Tavie shivered.

“I met Angeline this morning in the Green Park,” she whispered. “Celeste has made her acquaintance.”

“That must have been awkward.” Had his mother simply stumbled across the girl, or had she gone to every park in London? And what on Earth had she been thinking?

“It was at first. But she’s a sweet young lady, and she loves Albert. Has since she first laid eyes on him.”

“ Albert? ”

He could feel her laughter before he heard it.

“Perhaps he’s different when he’s in France.” She drew a deep breath. “But meeting her has jumbled things in my head.”

That was always a side effect of Mother’s good intentions. Somewhere out there were half a dozen young women who were probably waiting for his proposal. “How so?”

“They will be affected by whatever happens to Albert.” She turned to face him, putting her lips temptingly close.

Not kissing her was driving him mad.

“Can you imagine a three-year-old watching his father hang? Because I can, and it isn’t pleasant. It wasn’t ever, but now it’s worse.”

Matthew’s primary motivation had always been Tavie. He hadn’t considered what happened after she was safe. But now Albert’s downfall was a very real, very unkind, concept. He took her hand and walked to the sofa. “What should we do?”

We. Matthew liked how the word sounded, how it felt on his tongue. Given Tavie’s smile, he thought maybe she liked it as well.

“He needs to stay out of court. Because the judge will simply annul his marriage to Angeline. She and the children will be disgraced.”

He nodded. “Which means we also can’t bring up the poisoning because he would hang.

And Angeline and the children would be alone.

” He brightened for a moment. “I forgot to tell you, Will said he found the pattern in your ledgers. Albert is selling grain to the Comte de Abbeville at a discount, and Abbeville is using it to feed Boney’s army.

” He sighed. “Which is treason.” This morning, that proof had given him enough courage to throw a haymaker and claim his prize.

Now, it was just frustrating. He stretched his legs and put his feet on the table. “Which will get him shot.”

“And possibly Angeline and all her family.”

“And yours.” He leaned back against the couch cushions and squeezed Tavie’s hand as fear drained the color from her face. “Which is why we won’t do that.”

“I never thought about that. When I ran with those figures, I never considered what it would mean to anyone else.” She sank her teeth into her bottom lip. “We definitely can’t do that.”

They nodded in agreement, but one thing still bothered Matthew.

“Do we want to leave Angeline and her children in the hands of a would-be murderer?”

She was quiet for a long time. “I believe he loves them. He could have kept her dangling forever, especially once the children were born. He could have waited to claim the boy in his will. He could have left her and never looked back.” She lifted one thin shoulder in a shrug. “He didn’t, so I think he loves them.”

“Perhaps, but life would have been much easier if he’d kept his trousers buttoned,” Matthew said. He expected Tavie to laugh.

She didn’t.

The pain in her eyes was all the more painful for its brevity—as though someone had flicked a rapier across her neck. She couldn’t be changing her mind, could she?

“Their children are lovely. Willful handfuls, tired of being trapped in a house, but still lovely.” She swept a tear from beneath her eye.

She regrets not having children with Albert? Matthew looked into her eyes, so full of sadness, yes, but also questions he couldn’t guess. “What is—”

It hit him like lightning struck the only tree in a flat field. Children . Angeline had given Albert children where Tavie hadn’t. Possibly couldn’t .

For the first few months of her marriage, Matthew had lain awake staring into the dark until his eyes ached and tried not to imagine Albert touching her. It had only made him imagine it more. It had almost driven him to drink.

But now the experience was invaluable, because he could shove his jealousy aside and gather her to him while she wept over her broken heart.

“Perhaps fate intervened, given your feelings for one another,” he whispered into her hair after a time.

Her laugh was half a sob. “If anatomy worked that way, humans would have gone extinct the day after Eve ate the apple.”

Matthew handed her his handkerchief. She had cried far too much during the past few weeks over things that weren’t under her control. For the rest of his life, he’d do his best to see that she never cried again.

“I’ll go see Albert in the morning—”

She put her hand on his chest and pushed herself to eye level. “No, Matthew. I need to do this myself. I’m tired of being a sack—”

“Of flour. I know.” He took her hand to keep her close. “You forget that I’ve built my fortune on flour. It’s been one of the most important parts of my life.” He used his free hand to cradle her jaw. “Second only to one.”

He met her lips and stayed there, giving her the option to pull away. When her breathing stopped, he began schooling his face so she wouldn’t see his disappointment. Instead, she parted her lips and shaped his mouth to hers.

The first time he’d kissed Tavie Fowler had been a disaster. Neither of them had known what they were doing. They had learned, though, so well that he’d been half terrified of what her father would do if he caught them—but not scared enough to not do it again.

Matthew slid his hand to the silky column of her neck and took control, sweeping his tongue into her mouth and groaning in relief when she returned the favor. She tasted of salty tears and milky tea, and her sigh hardened him all the way to his toes.

He half lifted, half pulled her, pleading with her to understand what he needed, because he wasn’t going to stop kissing her to ask.

Tavie pulled away just long enough to slide into his lap and straddle him in a wonderfully unladylike way. Her eyes widened and her cheeks reddened, but there was a womanly understanding in her smile as she rocked against him.

“God, yes.” Matthew pulled her back for another kiss.

“Touch me,” Tavie whispered. “Please.”

He was happy to comply, running his hands from her shoulders down her back, to her hips, where he curved his fingers around her behind and coaxed her closer.

He explored up her ribcage, where her breath shuddered against his palms. Every gasp of approval traveled from her tongue to his as they drove each other wild with need.

He closed his hands over her breasts, and she pushed them deeper with a groan that wrapped around his cock and pulled him up to find her.

Matthew broke the kiss to catch his breath and was surprised to find that, though his world had tilted on its axis, little else had changed. Coaches still rocked past on the way to the park; the sun still slanted through the sheer curtains covering the windows. His tea was probably still warm.

“I told you I wouldn’t be able to stop with just kissing you,” Tavie murmured in a dreamy voice. Those words, combined with her fingers in his hair, could unravel him.

But he’d dreamed of having her too long, and too often, to make this a stolen moment on a sofa where he ruined his trousers. He pulled her fingers free and kissed her knuckles. “Soon we won’t have to stop.”

She sighed and left his lap, which he promptly covered with a fringed needlepoint pillow.

“You aren’t going back into that house.”

“Did you kiss me just to get your way?” Despite her words, a smile lit her eyes.

Matthew kissed the tip of her nose and kept his hands to himself. “Did you ?”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand that he’s tried to kill you. What I can’t fathom is why that doesn’t matter to you.” It was all he could think about.

“It matters.” She straightened and faced him. “But all my life people have fashioned me and made me what they wanted, or used me to make what they wanted. It’s time I took control of my own life and made something of myself. Especially if I can’t…”

Make anything—or any one —else. “Then we go together,” Matthew said. “You won’t face this alone.”

“Thank you.” She twined her fingers with his. “We need a plan.”