Page 2 of The Lyon Whisperer (The Lyon’s Den Connected World #79)

L ord Benedict Duval, the eighth Earl of Fallsgate, leaned back in his chair and watched as the dealer—a pretty young thing, resplendent in a gown the likes of which one might see on a lady of the haute ton —swiped the deck of cards from the green baize table and began to shuffle.

He sipped at his glass of port, a fine vintage, as his companion Lord Culver—Lord Harry Culver, Viscount of Everston—grumbled and signed a voucher purchasing more chips.

Lady luck had been with Fallsgate tonight. He’d bested Culver three out of the five hands of Commerce they played thus far.

As Culver was the more practiced player of the two, and considering his own lamentable frame of mind, not to mention the copious amount of wine he’d ingested this evening, that was saying something.

Mayhap the old cur had simply let him win. It wouldn’t surprise him. Though not a close friend, Culver had always been an amiable sort. Likely, noting Fallsgate’s dour mood in the club earlier tonight had precipitated Culver’s spontaneous suggestion the two continue the night’s sport here at his favorite gaming hell, the notorious Lyon’s Den.

Drinking. Gambling. Out all hours. Nothing like himself. His daughter might be the death of him. Where had he gone wrong?

Where hadn’t he?

He shoved thoughts of Amelia from his mind.

“This is your favorite gambling establishment, you say?” he asked.

He had heard of the establishment known for its unconventional games, and more, its mysterious proprietress.

“No place else like it in London. And you can’t find a better meal. A bit late for that tonight.”

That explained the rich scent of roast meat and baked bread that had wafted through the foyer as they passed through the front doors of the pale-blue mansion on Cleveland Row.

As the dealer shuffled, somehow making a minor spectacle of the act, Fallsgate glanced around. The large arena boasted several tables with myriad activities taking place at once—not all of them card related.

Crossing the gaming floor to reach their private table, he’d seen men drinking some truly abhorrent-looking concoction and, he thought, laying wagers on keeping it down. One man had not. He shuddered at the memory.

He’d seen another group wearing blindfolds and stumbling about, searching for God-knew-what. At yet another table, men played some sort of card game while standing. Apparently, to win, the rules required them to remain on their feet, for hours if necessary.

Indeed, the civilized game he and Culver played seemed an anomaly.

Even at this ungodly hour of night, when any decent man ought to be home and abed, the place teemed with patrons and an odd assortment of workers.

There were brawny looking men standing at attention, eyeing the crowd with menace. Bouncers, no doubt.

But the majority of the staff—dealers, servers, and the like—were female. Their clothing ran the gamut from outlandishly jewel-bedecked gowns like that of their dealer, to scantily-dressed women, seemingly outfitted in scarves and lace, to women in full-on men’s suits.

He shook his head. Women running about in trousers. Great Britain was in a sad state. Still. It was good of Culver to try to shake him out of his doldrums. The man’s devil-may-care attitude did have an uplifting effect.

The dealer snapped down five cards each for him and Culver.

Culver eyed his hand. “That’s better, lass.”

Fallsgate laid his palm atop the waxy cards intent on peeling them back. He paused when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a woman dressed in widow’s weeds from her black lace gown to her netted cap, concealing all but her mouth.

She glided between the gaming tables, weaving this way and that, occasionally stopping to observe the goings-on before continuing on her way. She could only be the infamous Mrs. Bessie Dove-Lyon, the so-called Black Widow of Whitehall.

As he followed her progress, her face shifted in his direction and he got the distinct impression she looked directly at him, not that he could see her eyes behind that netting.

“Are you going to ante up, man, or do you plan to gawk at Bessie all night?”

He humphed but obliged, tossing in his chips though the hand he’d been dealt was not as good as the last several. “You know the lady?”

“I’ve spoken with her on many occasions. But would I know her if I passed her on the street? Not a chance, and I don’t know anyone of our acquaintance who would.”

“You don’t say? How old do you think she is? To run a place like this, you’d think she’d have to be…” He shrugged. “Of a certain age. On the other hand, she moves like a woman in her prime.”

“Who knows? Rumor has it her late husband, Colonel Lyon, left her this grand house, and a bucket-load of debt to go with it. Most agree he was much older than she when they married. As to what her station was prior to that event, some say she was a courtesan, others say a well-born lady.”

“What about these strange wagers I see taking place around us?”

“What you see ’ain’t the half of it,” Culver said with feeling. “I hear tell she practices a bit of unusual matchmaking.”

“Matchmaking?” Fallsgate erupted.

“Men with titles but no fortune and ladies with the means, but perhaps without the social standing to make a good alliance, if you know what I mean?”

Fallsgate scowled, thinking of his daughter again.

Culver discarded, then swiped up his replacements.

Fallsgate followed suit.

“Call?” Culver asked, fingering his mustache.

Fallsgate affected an air of offense. “You’re so anxious for me to strip you of all your blunt, then?”

Culver guffawed. “A resounding no to that, Fallsgate. If you must know, m’ nephew would skin me alive. He’s had me on a short leash since he returned from the peninsula last year.”

Fallsgate slanted him a glance at the mention of his nephew. The possibility Lord Chase Culver had shared yesterday afternoon’s debacle with his uncle was a possibility he didn’t wish to entertain.

“On a leash, you say? How’s that? You are the viscount, are you not? And he your heir, and not the reverse?”

Culver nodded and, never removing his gaze from his hand, twisted one corner of his bushy silver mustache. “Yes, yes. The thing is, he’s the one’s got the smarts and the discipline in the family to keep us all afloat. Boy was born a man, if you know what I mean?”

“I do not, I’m afraid.”

“Keeps his eyes on the prize, never loses sight of a goal. He has a knack for saving, investing what he’s saved, and managing resources—including people.” He shrugged. “He’s got codes he lives by. Came to us that way, after the death of his father. I say, you remember my brother Jason, do you not?”

Fallsgate nodded slowly. He remembered Culver’s younger brother. A stubborn hot-headed son of a bitch if ever there was one. Some went so far as to call him crazed.

“Call,” Fallsgate said.

They showed their hands.

Culver laughed with glee. “This round goes to me. Another?”

“Why not?”

The dealer shuffled the deck.

“Never have known what that brother of mine and his sorry excuse for a wife did to cause a lad of sixteen to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders as Chase has always done. To this day, he’s straight as an arrow, implacable as steel, with nary a thought for the less serious things of life that makes all the struggle worth it. Still. He’s a good lad. Loyal, too, if a mite too concerned with the proprieties.”

Fallsgate didn’t hear a thing wrong with the man Culver described. In point of fact, he wished his own daughter had more respect for the proprieties. She with all her hare-brained notions, outspokenness, and ill-conceived plots.

He sorted his hand and contemplated Amelia. He’d hoped when she began attending meetings of the Ladies’ Literary Society of London last year she might mature—and come ’round to his way of thinking. Thus far, the bettering works she and her friends must surely be reading had produced no discernible fruit.

Oblivious to Fallsgate’s morose musings, Culver continued. “If you must know, Lady Culver and I, well, we have a love of entertaining and a joie de vivre that”—he broke off, a chagrined expression covering his face—“ may have gotten out of hand while the lad was away in Spain, fighting off that devil Napoleon.”

Fallsgate nodded, mouth twitching at hearing the hard-as-steel Iron Lion referred to as lad . “Where he helped land the victory earning him his moniker.” He slid his discards toward the dealer.

She snapped off two cards from the deck.

“The Iron Lion of Barrosa,” Culver stated with obvious pride. “Precisely. The same victory what led the king to grant him a barony in his own right. Ah, thank you, my dear.” Culver picked up his cards.

The pretty, glittering blonde gave him a wink.

Fallsgate drank more port and re-sorted his cards. “I don’t mind telling you your nephew impressed me immensely yesterday when he came to luncheon—in your stead. I had anticipated you and I discussing the commission’s findings. Instead, I found myself hanging on the baron’s every word as he shared anecdotes about his military career and time on the peninsula. He has a good head on his shoulders. Seems solid. Steady. He’ll do well in the House, with the right contacts behind him, of course.”

Culver nodded and flicked him a glance before returning his focus to his cards. He might have missed the tell-tale glimmer of amusement in his old acquaintance’s eyes had he not been watching for it.

Bloody hell. He squared his shoulders. Best to confront the elephant in the room head on. “I take it the Iron Lion told you of yesterday’s debacle in my home perpetrated by my silly chit of a daughter?”

Culver coughed into his fist, clearly fighting laughter. “He may have mentioned something to do with a litter of pups.”

Fallsgate snorted in disgust.

The viscount sent him a commiserate grin. “Come now. It’s not so bad as all that.”

“Says the man who has a paragon for a nephew.”

Culver called.

They laid out their hands.

“My three of a kind beats your pair. I’ve almost won back all m’ blunt. Mayhap I won’t have to beg for a forward on my quarterly allowance after all. Got my eye on a beauty at Tattersalls.”

Culver scraped his winnings toward him and motioned for the dealer to go again. “Paragons ain’t all they’re cracked up to be. Don’t misunderstand, Lady Culver and I love Chase like he’s our own. It’s because we do we sometimes lament his too-upright nature. What’s so wrong with a little spirit, I ask you?”

Fallsgate opened his mouth to outline exactly what was wrong with it, when a lady’s voice forestalled him. “Good evening, gentlemen. Enjoying yourselves tonight?” The mysterious, veil-clad lady arrived to stand beside their table.

“Why, Mrs. Dove-Lyon. Good of you to pay us a visit,” Culver said. “Brought a new customer in for you tonight. Meet Lord Benedict Duval, Earl of Fallsgate.”

“Madam,” he said in greeting.

Her mouth, all of her face he could see, curved in a slow smile. “Lord Duval of Fallsgate.” She spoke his name and title as if committing it to memory then made to leave. Before she stepped from the alcove, her face pivoted in the direction of their dealer.

The woman looked up, brows raised in silent query.

“Take good care of them,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said. “Let us see if we can earn the earl’s patronage.”

“Of course, madam.”

“Where were we?” Fallsgate asked after she’d gone.

“You were lamenting your daughter’s many transgressions.”

He scowled. “She has no desire to be a proper lady, nor any understanding of what it means to manage a household—properly. She had the best tutors and governesses money could buy. There’s been no shortage of instruction. The problem appears to be a certain unwillingness to comply with the social order of things.”

“All this grousing because the girl likes puppies?”

“And rabbits. And cats. But no, it’s not just the damned animals. She’s meant to manage the household staff. Instead, she’s befriended the lot of them. She’s meant to hold teas and dinners and attend functions. She’s meant to marry, damn it. Do you know she’s nearly three-and-twenty, and not a husband in sight?”

Culver cracked a grin. “As old as all that? You could always request Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s services.”

He fixed Culver with a steely eye.

Culver chuckled, unrepentant. “You worry too much. She’s a pretty little thing, as I recall, much like your wife.”

At the mention of his late wife, Letty, a shaft of pain—and guilt—cut through him. “She is,” he agreed, suddenly weary to his bones.

“Surely she’s attracted a decent candidate or two since her come out.”

“She has. She had suitors aplenty during her seasons on the marriage mart, but only two I deemed worthy to marry into our bloodline.”

“Oh. Worthy of your bloodline? That’s saying something.”

Fallsgate thought he detected a trace of sarcasm. He chose to ignore it in favor of continuing his rant. Now that he’d begun, he couldn’t seem to stem the tide. “Both times, she allowed the courtship, all seemed well, then as the season reached its end, she ran them off.”

Culver slapped his leg and cackled with glee, the new hand of cards on the table before him all but forgotten. “Pray tell, how?”

“My daughter can be overly outspoken, especially as concerns topics not suitable for a lady.”

Culver’s eyes danced with merriment. Clearly he did not grasp the momentousness of the problem. “Give me an example.”

“She asked Lord Taylor, the first man I consented to, if he frequented brothels—and let him know she disapproved.”

Culver’s eyebrows rose. “I see. I s’pose it didn’t help matters that he does.”

Fallsgate hadn’t known that little fact. It wasn’t as if he visited the establishments. “Yes, well, that’s as may be, and, true enough, I wouldn’t want her saddled with any of the consequences as can occur when husbands make a habit of…” He waved a hand in lieu of spelling out the sordid details. “The following year she drew the attention of Lord Hamilton. We were set to announce a betrothal when she informed him—in front of onlookers—she opposed the slave trade and the use of slaves. Worse, she said she would not tolerate having Madagascan sugar in her household.”

“I take it she don’t approve of how they harvest sugar in Madagascar?”

“She does not.”

“I don’t see why her opinion on the matter should be a problem big enough to discourage the man.”

“Probably because Hamilton had recently invested heavily in a Madagascan sugar plantation.”

Culver whistled softly. “How d’you s’pose she got wind of the brothels and plantation and all?”

“I haven’t the vaguest notion. Each time I took her pin money away for an entire week and couldn’t get a scrap of information out of her.”

Culver picked up his cards, rearranging their order. “You did all that, did you?”

Fallsgate grunted in assent and sorted his own hand. A very good hand. Very . He kept his expression carefully neutral, anticipating another hefty win.

“I say, Fallsgate. You can’t fault the girl for her ethics. Unless…do you support the slave trade?”

He eyed the plastered ceiling in exasperation. Culver seemed incapable of grasping his point. “No, and we dealt with it on our shores. But what has that to do with my daughter? She has no business worrying over the matter. It’s political. The House of Lords will deal with the problem should we deem it one. Meanwhile, Lord Hamilton’s blood is nearly as blue as ours, he has a conservative bent which I approve of heartily, and he has the means to provide for my daughter and my grandchildren.” He sighed. “Not that any of that matters now. With two unsuccessful seasons under her belt and two courtships publicly dashed, Amelia’s probably well and truly on the shelf. Leticia will never forgive me for botching this up,” he finished on a mutter, and slogged the rest of his port.

“I say, buck up, Fallsgate. You’re being a mite overdramatic. Your girl’s a looker—the spitting image of Leticia. She has a head on her shoulders, is all, and ain’t afraid to let people know it—again, like Leticia.”

Fallsgate frowned. “Yes.” Best if they changed the subject.

Culver cleared his throat. “You do recall she and my wife were mates? They traveled together to Paris—the summer the two of you married, if I have my facts straight. ’Course, Francine returned after a fortnight.”

His point was plain. Letty had opted not to return to London, at least not with Francis.

He slanted the man a look. He’d forgotten about Lady Culver—then Lady Francine—and Letty’s friendship. He hadn’t forgotten Paris.

As the story went, Leticia had traveled to Paris on a shopping expedition. Enthralled by the cafes, the thriving artist community, and inspired by the spirit of so-called enlightened ideology spreading through the city like wildfire, she’d extended her stay. He’d followed, bringing her home a married woman—Lady Leticia Duval, the Countess of Fallsgate.

“Point is, Lady Amelia is an earl’s daughter.”

“An earl’s daughter who chases off suitors, refuses to mind even the simplest instructions by her father, and, now, collects stray animals like other women collect hats.”

Lost in his thoughts, he did not notice Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s return. When he finally looked up, he noticed Culver’s gaze fixed over his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized the lady herself stood directly behind him.

Even more disconcerting, she was studying his cards with interest. And then, with her arms linked behind her back, she circled the table and peered at Culver’s hand with equal intent. “ Mm ,” she murmured.

“What’s that?” Culver twisted ’round to eye her sharply.

She pursed her lips and shook her head as if to deny she’d made a sound. “Pretend I’m not here.”

Culver twisted his mustache, shrugged, and faced the table.

All this talk of Amelia and his late wife had eroded the good Culver had done bringing him here. Now he was ready to leave. “’Fraid this must be our last hand, Culver. The hour grows late.”

“Last o’ the night? What say we raise the stakes before exchanging our discards? Just for fun—if you’re willing.”

Fallsgate frowned in what he hoped was a convincing manner. “What did you have in mind?”

Culver met his eyes. “Let us wager four thousand pounds.”

He blinked. His conscience pricked him. “Four thousand pounds , you say?”

Culver nodded solemnly.

What the hell. Culver was a grown man. “That’s a might rich for my blood,” he said, then made a show of considering the stakes. “Very well. Four thousand pounds it is.” He turned to the dealer. “I’ll stay.”

Culver looked momentarily nonplused.

“My lord?” The dealer prompted Lord Culver.

“Stay.”

They laid their cards face up.

For a long moment, neither spoke.

“I don’t believe it,” Culver bemoaned. “You have royal flush?” He glared at the dealer.

Fallsgate grinned. “When can I expect my money?”

Culver’s face went ashen.

Fallsgate almost felt sorry for him. But someone had to lose, he reminded himself, and better it not be him. He might not have his house in order, but mayhap tonight’s luck signified his fortune was about to change.

“As to that—” He broke off when Mrs. Dove-Lyon bent and whispered in his ear.

She straightened and, to Fallsgate, it appeared she stared straight at him. Not that he could be sure. The damned netting over her face was unsettling.

“That’s a fine idea, madame. A fine idea.” Culver drew what looked to be a bracing breath. “Fallsgate, I propose a wager—”

“Here now, why should I risk another wager? I’ve already won a fortune off of you. I have it from your own lips you can’t afford to lose any more, and I can’t take any more from you in good conscience. I won’t accept the responsibility of bankrupting you.”

“Hear me out. I propose…” he smoothed his mustache, “…an immediate marriage between my nephew, the Iron Lion of Barrosa, Baron of Sidford, future Viscount of Everston, and your daughter, Lady Amelia Duval of Fallsgate, with the understanding that he’ll make a proper lady of her, to your specifications, within six months’ time—or I forfeit the money.”

Fallsgate stared at the man, allowing his words to ruminate. Amelia marry Culver’s heir, the Iron Lion of Barrosa? Not a bad idea, that. If anyone could whip the girl into shape, he could.

Evidently Culver took his silence as hesitation. Sweat dampened his forehead, and his nostrils flared. “A-and I’ll agree to double your winnings should m’nephew fail.”

Fallsgate couldn’t staunch the slow smile that spread over his face. “Culver, you have yourself a deal.”