Page 2 of Lyon’s Obsession (The Lyon’s Den Connected World #91)

“T ell me again,” Lady Emma remarked as her friend took an ‘on guard’ stance, “why are we becoming all damp and sticky by learning to fence?”

“Because in three weeks, you are to marry my eldest brother, Richard, and you promised him you would not make demands on his service to the English government,” Theodora Duncan declared.

“And?” Lady Emma Donoghue asked again.

“And some of those who mean to overthrow our government are dangerous females, who would choose to seduce Richard, but are equally capable of killing him. Do not tell me you are a ‘woe is me’ kind of girl. I know better.” Theodora fisted her hands on her hips.

“You asked what my father taught me, and now you want to quit before you begin.”

Lady Emma looked at Theodora oddly. “You seriously believe as Lord Marksman’s wife, you will occasionally be called upon to defend yourself?”

Theodora blushed. “There are no guarantees I will marry Alexander, but, even if I do not, I want my family safe. Do you think me unfeminine?”

“Not in the least,” Lady Emma admitted. “Initially, I was quite jealous of your relationship with Lord Orson.”

Theodora smiled. “Our Richard was truly so very besotted with you. I am thankful you have found each other, but I wish your marriage to be a success. Even if you never are required to lift a gun to protect Richard or your children or yourself, you should not be frightened to do so. The same goes for a sword or even a bow and arrow.”

“You do not truly think Lord Marksman would choose another? I have seen the look of longing upon his features when he believes no one is watching,” Lady Emma commented in serious tones.

Theodora attempted to keep her tears away, but they rushed to her eyes, nevertheless.

Immediately, Lady Emma’s arm was about Dora, “Oh, my sweet girl, I never meant to bring you grief.” She caught Theodora’s hand and tugged her to the small bench along the back wall of the garret.

Emma pushed Dora down on the bench. Reclaiming Dora’s hand, her friend said, “Tell me what troubles you.”

“It is nothing,” Theodora said, dashing her tears away with the heels of her hands.

“It is something,” Emma declared. “By nature, you are not a crier.”

Dora shifted and sighed heavily. “Last evening, Alexander and I were enjoying a patch of the night sky.” She shrugged and her shoulders dropped in defeat.

“I was speaking of the beauty of your wedding dress and how happy I was for you and Richard—at your finding each other just when you both required someone special in your lives.”

“Did Lord Marksman think you were hinting at a proposal of your own?”

“He simply became very quiet, saying nothing for some time. Then he said we should return inside.”

“And what do you believe causes Marksman to be so evasive?” Emma inquired as she stroked the back of Theodora’s hand.

Meanwhile, Dora looked off across the small room and wondered how she had come to this moment when she had thought her world would be different from the inherent loneliness that never left her of late.

“The day my father brought Alexander to live with us,” she began as the scene played out in her head, “you should have seen him, Emma. He was covered in filth from the slums where he had been living since he was perhaps two years of age. You see, his parents had married against the previous Lord Marksman’s edicts.

Such sounds romantic, but neither Alexander’s father nor his mother had the wherewithal to survive on the small farm his father had inherited.

The work was too difficult for a man and woman of society, and the money was too little to make ends meet. ”

“What happened?” Lady Emma asked softly.

“They moved again and again, further and further into the depths of the impoverished. Alexander was one of those street rats you pray never to encounter. Even Covent Garden is clean in comparison to some of the areas in which Marksman resided. You have no idea how often Mrs. Chester changed out Alexander’s bath water before she deemed him clean enough to sleep in one of her beds. ”

“And you remember this?” Emma asked.

“Not really,” Theodora admitted. “I was too young, at first, to know what was what, but it is one of Mrs. Chester’s favorite tales to tell when Alexander becomes too sassy.

Yet, I easily recall a boy who would come to the nursery and learn to read with me and who would hold me when I cried about not remembering my mother, and he would tell me that someday, he would find his mother, and he would share her with me.

We would both have a mother to love us.”

Lady Emma asked, “Did not his lordship’s mother die, as did yours?

Though Lord Orson told me Marksman was looking for his mother and sister, I thought perhaps it was their resting places for which he searched.

Many of our countrymen died on the Continent, and their British families wish to know where their loved ones are buried.

I remember my father receiving such letters and bemoaning what he was to tell them. ”

“Nothing so heroic,” Dora admitted. “Lord Robert Dutton was Alexander’s father.

My father dragged him from the slums also, but he was near death and could not long be saved.

My father kept Robert Dutton alive long enough to claim the earldom he was never meant to inherit, for he was the fourth of four sons.

In that manner, Robert placed the earldom in Alexander’s young hands.

Only one of Lord Robert’s brothers had lived long enough to marry and sire children, but both were girls. No heir to the earldom.”

“Then what became of Lord Marksman’s mother?” Emma asked again.

“Did you ever hear of wife selling?” Theodora asked.

“Not that I recall,” Lady Emma admitted.

“Wife selling was a practice of the last century, very much as were the Fleet Street marriages. It was a means of divorce for the poor. A man would take his wife to a marketplace whether it was near the docks or a small town, where he would parade her about with a halter around her neck or waist and then publicly auctioned her off to the highest bidder. Local magistrates often looked the other way or even sometimes forced a man to sell his wife, rather than the workhouse being responsible for the whole family. Even Henry Brydges, 2 nd Duke of Chandos, reportedly bought his second wife from an ostler back in the mid-1700s.”

“I have no words to express my dismay,” Emma said softly.

Therefore, Theodora continued her tale. “Robert Dutton, during a drunken binge, executed such a scheme against his wife Madelyn. He sold Madelyn Dutton to a man setting sail for the British West Indies.”

“Oh, my,” Lady Emma breathed the words.

“Dutton also sent his young daughter Annalise with his wife. Alexander was near seven at the time and stood witness to his father’s duplicity.

He has made it his life’s work to find them.

Once his father passed and the earldom fell into Alexander’s hands, he then had the money and the means to conduct his own search for them, and, as one of my father’s agents, he accepts every assignment dealing with the British trade in the islands south of the American states in hopes of learning something of his family. ”

Emma frowned. “How long has he been searching?”

“More than a decade,” Theodora confessed. “It is as if he cannot permit himself to be happy until he knows their fate.”

“Has he any legitimate hope of discovering his family?” Emma asked.

“Though his lordship follows every bit of information, to date, he has learned nothing of importance. It all has proven fruitless,” Theodora explained.

“That leaves you with no hope of a future with Lord Marksman.” Lady Emma summarized what Dora did not wish to admit, even to herself.

“I hold no desire to marry another, but I do not believe Alexander will ever speak a proposal, at least not until there is no hope of his mother being returned.”

“That may be never,” Lady Emma said in sadness.

“Then what type of husband would he be and what type of life would we have together? He would be disillusioned and heartbroken,” Theodora said with another heavy sigh of resignation. “I must face the fact I may never know what you and our Richard will claim.”

Monday, 11 May 1812

Alexander Dutton, 12th Earl Marksman, attempted not to fidget when Lord Macdonald Duncan presented him with what Alexander and his “brothers” called “the evil eye,” but what Alexander knew was the man’s continued disappointment in him, not with the investigation, but rather with Alexander’s lack of a proposal addressed to Duncan’s daughter Theodora.

“What do we know of what occurred at Parliament today?” Duncan asked, though he was still recovering from being shot in the chest in mid-March. Even so, the man was again in charge of part of the Home Office’s investigation.

“It appears to be some sort of revolutionary act,” Justin Hartley explained.

With the necessity of Duncan’s recovery, Hartley had remained in charge of the Home Office in Duncan’s absence, rather than to leave for India, as he had originally planned.

“One John Bellingham walked into the lobby of the Houses of Parliament and shot Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. The Prime Minister is dead.”

“That is what everyone has heard. What else do we know? Where was Perceval at the time?” Duncan demanded. “How did Bellingham achieve such easy access to the Prime Minister? Benjamin, what do you know?” Duncan asked pointedly.

“I fear, sir. I did not see how it happened. I was at the other end of the hall and responded with the sound of the gunshot,” Thompson reported. “I was concentrating on Perceval’s wound, not the mayhem going on behind me.”

Orson shared instead. “According to Sir Hunter, a committee of the House of Commons was meeting over Orders in Council relating to trade.”

“Is Sir Hunter part of the committee?” Duncan asked.

“Yes, sir,” Orson responded. “Shook him up majorly, to say the least.”