Page 11 of The Lyon’s Dilemma (The Lyon’s Den Connected World #86)

A daline was furious. With herself, partly.

She should have turned to run, or at least screamed for help, as soon as she saw her sister in her parlor, reading the letter that Adaline had intended to post to Felix that morning.

Instead, she had stopped to talk, and before she knew it, her sister’s henchman had burst into the room, overpowered her, and put a cloth over her mouth and nose.

A sweet pungent smell had filled her nostrils, and that was the last thing she remembered before waking up in this room.

This small bare room with barred windows, a locked door, and nothing she could use to break herself out.

She was fed once a day, at which time her chamber pot and jug of water were swapped for fresh ones.

The door was unlocked and swung back against the wall, and the henchman entered gun first, gesturing for her to back against a wall while the maid, the only other person she had seen since her arrival, put down the tray and collected yesterday’s tray and the chamber pot and water jug.

She had tried to talk to them, bribe them, threaten them with Felix’s power and title. To no avail. They both ignored her as if she was not in the room, except that, if she tried to move, the henchman glared and waved the gun at her.

Emmeline, who had been there when she first awoke, said his instructions were to shoot her in the leg if she did not obey. “I do not want you to die, Adaline darling. Dead people cannot suffer, and I intend for you to suffer.”

“I thought you were settled in Jamaica,” Adaline had said.

Emmeline had shrugged. “Mama married again. Her new husband was jealous of me. He told Mama I was crazy. He wanted to lock me away.” At that, she gave a great cackle. “The house burnt down. He and Mama died. I left Jamaica.”

The bare-bones recitation chilled Adaline. Had Emmeline set fire to the house? Had she killed her mother and stepfather? Adaline was not going to ask, for fear it angered her half-sister. But then, she wondered if she’d set the fire at the Close.

Emmeline had visited only one other time, a day later.

Her purpose was to gloat. “I have been to visit the Black Widow of Whitechapel, Adaline darling. She is very pleased with you. I gave her the dragon scroll, and my wedding—I beg your pardon, your wedding—is set for five days from now. Aren’t you a clever little thing?

Brokering your larcenous propensities to win yourself a duke!

And here I thought you to be law-abiding!

I should have known that a bastard like you could not be honest. Miss Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt-in-her-Mouth Adaline. ”

“Why are you doing this?” Adaline asked. “How have I ever hurt you?”

Emmeline’s eyes were wild. “You hurt me by existing. How dare you pretend not to know. Papa insulted Mama, and me too, by insisting that you grow up in my home! You should never have existed, and if your mother had not tempted Papa to break his marriage vows, you would not exist. I should have Slugger shoot you right now.”

She was screeching by the end of the tirade, but she suddenly spun away from Adaline and stared at the wall, taking deep breaths and muttering to herself, “But no. That is not the plan. I have to stick to the plan.”

She turned back with a bright smile. “Good day, Adaline. I shall not say goodbye, for I shall visit again. When I am the Duchess of Kempbury.”

She breezed out of the room, but Adaline had seen enough to conclude that Emmeline was skirting the edges of sanity, a point that she raised with Slugger, the henchman, next time he came to her room. He ignored her, as he ignored everything else she said.

So here she remained, six days later, on the morning her wedding, a prisoner while her sister stole her identity and ruined her romance with Felix. Again.

And what had become of Melody? Under her anger, her frustration, her despair over Felix, throbbed the constant worry. Emmeline had refused to answer her questions about the child. Surely the woman was not so wicked as to take out her hatred on an innocent child?

The early morning, not long after the sun rose, was not time for the daily visit from Slugger and the anonymous maid, so she was not expecting the door to crash open. Slugger was, as always, the first in the door, but the person who came next was a surprise.

Melody wrenched herself free of Emmeline’s restraining grasp and dodged around Slugger to throw herself into Adaline’s arms. “Mummy, you are alive,” she sobbed, rubbing her hands on Adaline’s face as if she needed the physical evidence that her mother was really there.

“She will remain alive, and so will you,” Emmeline said, breezily. “As long as you do what you are told.”

Adaline wrapped protective arms around her daughter and glared at Emmeline. “Making war on children is despicable, Emmeline.”

Emmeline stuck out her tongue and made a rude noise.

“She shouldn’t exist either.” She giggled.

“You made such a fool of yourself in that letter to Kempbury. Melody this and Melody that . And he was just as bad in his replies. He was buying her a new bed, and a doll with real hair, and a real artist’s painting set… ”

Her mood changed as rapidly as it had on her last visit, and she snarled, “So many more things, and all for a girl that should never have been born. The bastard daughter of a whore’s bastard.”

Melody turned her face into Adaline’s shoulder.

“I plan to keep you so Kempbury will do what he is told,” Emmeline informed them. “But remember, I do not need to keep you both, or to keep you whole. Ah well. I do not have time to stand here chatting with you. I must go to your house to dress for my wedding. Come along, Slugger.”

Adaline didn’t watch them leave. She was too concerned about her daughter, whose shoulders were shaking.

But when Melody lifted her face from the refuge of Adaline’s shoulder, she was not crying. Instead, the eyes that lifted to Adaline’s were filled with anger and determination.

“That lady says she is going to be you,” she said. “The duke will not believe her. She is mean and she looks mean. She is not really my aunt, Mummy, is she?”

“In a sense she is,” Adaline had to admit. “We have the same father but different mothers, so that makes us half-sisters. But she has never acted like a sister to me, and she is certainly not acting like an aunt. I wonder what she has planned for us when she gets back?”

“Do not worry, Mummy,” said Melody. “We shall not be here when she gets back.” She was grinning.

It was a moment before Adaline made sense of what Melody was holding out in her hand. “That is a key.”

“It is the key to this door. Phyllis said to wait until she has fed Slugger his breakfast. She is going to put lorda… lorda-something in his beer.”

Laudanum. The hope was so unexpected that Adaline’s knees gave way and she sagged onto the floor. “We can escape?”

Melody nodded. “Phyllis ‘don’t hold with locking up brats,’ she says. And besides, she says Mrs. Redmond is crazy-mad.” If Emmeline was Mrs. Redmond, then Phyllis was right.

“Is Phyllis the maid?” Adaline asked.

“I guess.” Melody did not sound certain. “I’ve only seen Phyllis and Slugger. Phyllis is Slugger’s sister, but she doesn’t like him much. She says she only came to work here because the pay was good, but the money ain’t worth hangin’ for, and Mrs. Redmond is headin’ for a hangin’ , Phyllis says.”

“Phyllis is right,” Adaline agreed. “I wonder how we shall know it is time to escape?”

“Phyllis is going to wait until Slugger is asleep, then knock on our door,” Melody explained.

“Then she is going to run for it, she says. Because Slugger will be mad as fire when he wakes up. And the crazy lady too, except she will be out, Phyllis says. Slugger isn’t going to get his breakfast ale until he has taken Aunt Crazy Lady to our house. ”

Adaline was very tempted to use the key immediately, but she didn’t want to run into either Slugger or Emmeline. Rather, Aunt Crazy Lady , which was a good name for her half-sister.

So instead, she and Melody sat on the bed and speculated about what Kempbury might have purchased Melody. It passed the time, and Melody enjoyed letting their imaginations run away with them, populating the nursery with a fantasy of creatures both real and fabled.

Still, Adaline’s nerves were stretched thin and raw, so she found it hard to keep up the amusing patter. When the knock eventually came, Adaline jumped out of pure tension, then hurried across the room, fitted the key to the lock, and turned it. The maid was already gone.

Together, she and Melody crept down the stairs. She could hear snoring coming from behind a door at the back of the hall. Slugger had already taken Emmeline to Adaline’s house to dress for the wedding, returned home, drunk his ale, and passed out, but the front door was open and freedom beckoned.

In seconds, she and Melody had tiptoed across the hall, out the door, and down the steps. Adaline did not recognize the street, but she stopped at the corner and asked the street sweeper the way to the Lyon’s Den.

It was only a few streets away, but they would need to be quick.

The plan was that they would call at the Lyon’s Den and ask for Mrs. Dove Lyon. If she was not there or could not help, someone might know what church had been chosen for the wedding.

As they hurried along the footpath, Adaline heard the bells of various churches chiming the hour. It was ten o’clock. Her heart sank and her breath caught in her throat but she didn’t stop walking. Emmeline and Kempbury could be married by now!

They arrived at the Lyon’s Den to be told that Mrs. Dove Lyon had gone to a wedding at St Mary’s Whitechapel.

“Your wedding, Mrs. Beverley,” said the man who answered the door.

“Come on. I’ll take you there. Hey!” The last remark was addressed to a gentleman who had just turned up in a curricle.

The man hurried up to exchange a few words with the gentleman, and within moments, she and Melody had squeezed in beside the gentleman, and Mrs. Dove Lyon’s guard had swung up behind.