Page 2 of Enchanted By the Lyon
“I suppose my name is well known to most everyone,” he said with a deliberately wicked grin.
“And your reputation, my lord,” she teased with a knowing smile as she nodded toward Virtue’s townhouse. “You’ve been well-known to frequent some of these townhouses in the past.”
He couldn’t help but groan in embarrassment. “I hope you’re not one to judge a man for his… taste in women,” he dared to say.
“Hardly, my lord, given that I, too, have made several mistakes in my past that I would like very much to put behindme,” she said as her expression changed to what appeared as sorrowful.
Despite the look of sadness briefly flashing across her face, he was more concerned with her words about her past. “You think I’ve made a…mistake… with Mrs. Darling?” he asked, unsure why this woman’s opinion of him mattered.
She gave a light laugh that sounded somewhat strained. “I am hardly one to cast judgement over another, my lord. Your personal life is none of my business.”
“And yet you still voiced an opinion—”
“About my own past,” she finished.
“I would not wish for you to think ill of me, Mrs. Vaughn,” he declared, wondering again why he was even bothering to justify himself to the lady.
“I cannot think ill of someone that I don’t know, Lord Blackthorn. That certainly wouldn’t be fair, now, would it?” she said with another small smile. She appeared to shake herself and gesture to the waiting carriages. “If you’ll excuse me, I was just about to join a friend for an evening out.”
With a bob of her head, she started to walk toward the carriage waiting for her. It looked oddly familiar. He followed her with the goal of assisting her in as a gentleman should, but when he opened the door, a gasp from inside drew his attention.
“Why, Lord Blackthorn. What a pleasant surprise,” a woman’s voice he knew all too well said from inside the darkness. The lady leaned forward, and Lucius knew any further private conversations with the lovely Mrs. Vaughn were at an end.
“Good evening, Mrs. Yates,” he said with a nod. What were the odds of him running into his ex-mistress? Emily appeared amused as she looked between him and the lady waiting to enter the carriage.
He cleared his throat and finally remembered himself and offered his hand to help her up onto the step. “If you’ll permit me, Mrs. Vaughn.” As she stepped up, he once again admired her. She was a lovely woman in form and face.
Even so, she said, “I appreciate your assistance and thank you, Lord Blackthorn, for keeping me from a very undignified fall.”
He couldn’t imagine a woman of such graceful movement could fall. “I could hardly consider myself a gentleman if I allowed such a happening.”
Once Mrs. Vaughn was seated, he shut the carriage door and watched as she nodded to him through the window, and lifted her gloved hand in a genteel wave. He heard Emily call out to her driver. As the carriage rolled away into the night, Lucius went to his own conveyance to make his way to meet his brother at the Lyon’s Den. He had a sudden feeling he was going to lose every bit of coin he had with him tonight. Considering how the evening had changed with his brief meeting with Mrs. Vaughn and Emily, he should be listening to his inner voice and head home instead of continuing onward to the Lyon’s Den. At least if he did, his purse might be heavier come the end of the evening.
Chapter Two
Mrs. Cassandra Vaughnheld onto her reticule as though such a small object could somehow calm her racing heart. Seated in the darkened carriage, she was thankful Emily was keeping any thoughts she had to herself, leaving Cassandra to wallow away in self-pity.
Lucius… when had her fascination with an apparent rake gotten so out of control? Here she was sitting next to one of the women who used to share his bed of all things, and Cassandra had even gone so far as to form a sort of friendship with her. She was certain it was only because she missed her own dear friends who were now all happily married.
Their destination tonight was the one place that might see Cassandra married, if the Black Widow of Whitehall could perform another one of her matching miracles. After all, Mrs. Dove-Lyon had already delivered on her promises to three of Cassandra’s friends. Was it too much to hope for that she, too, could come away from her past sins married to a man with whom she had fallen in love?
Before tonight, she hadn’t even realized that the man for whom she held an attraction even knew she existed. But she knew that if he did, Lucius Ford, the Earl of Blackthorn, wouldnever admit it. Until tonight, that was the closest she had ever come to the man. But he was best friends with the men who had all married Cassandra’s lady friends, although they were more like sisters of the heart. How ironic, and perhaps there was more to Bessie Dove-Lyon’s plans than any of them had been aware.
Her mind drifted back to the past when Cassandra had taken into her house women who had fallen on hard times. Then there was her friend Patience, who had been with her the longest. Josephine and Moriah followed a short while later. Their reputations had all proceeded them as they became known as belonging to a group dubbed theWicked Widows Clubaccording to that nastyTeatime Tattlergossip rag. But the Widow part was no longer the case, at least where her dearest friends were concerned. They had all remarried and well. Cassandra was the last of them to remain single although her situation was going to be far more difficult to remedy than the other ladies. Or so she reasoned. How would any man—especially an earl—ever acceptheras a potential spouse?
Maybe if her parents were still alive, she could have mended the rift that had come between them before their unexpected death. A disgraced daughter of a baron would have doors quickly shut in her face. With their passing many years ago, Cassandra no longer had any living relatives she could claim who were in the good graces of Society, thus giving her the opening she needed.
Not that she was ever really close to members of theton. She had been too young. And she had never really discussed her first marriage with her lady friends. Marriage to a merchant’s son had only gotten her so far when she had given in to love at such a young age. Her parents had disapproved, since his family wasn’t nobility. Worse, in her parents’ eyes, anyway, Rupert and his brother were orphans; their parents had perished in a boatingaccident when both their sons were still very young, and her husband’s older brother Barlow had really never accepted her.
She and Rupert had only been married a year when a riding accident had been the demise of her husband. But that was only the beginning of her misfortunes. He was barely buried in the ground before his brother had swooped in, claiming ownership of everything in her household. Her brother-in-law had claimed that he paid for all of Rupert’s living expenses, and that he was also now responsible for his accumulated debt. He had shoved a large stack of receipts in her face without giving her the opportunity to review them to prove his point before she was told a bag was being packed for her and that she needed to get out. Alone and left out on the streets didn’t give Cassandra a lot of options in order to survive.
Her first benefactor had been… unpleasant. She certainly had not chosen wisely with him and thankfully she was able to quickly end their association. The next two were hardly any better but they had helped her keep a roof over her head. After that, she’d made a promise to herself to never pick a lover who would beat her again. She’d rather end up on in the gutter than to live under those conditions.
When she’d met Neville Quinn, Earl of Drayton, he had been a welcome relief. Unfortunately, she had done the unthinkable: she had fallen in love with the man. He had all the qualities she had wanted in a husband, and she had hoped that in time, he might choose her for his wife. She should have known he would pick a lady amongst his own kind and not one he had taken as a mistress.
Still, Neville had been so generous with settling their accounts that she had been able to purchase her townhouse and never take another lover unless she wished it. She had also made several investments that had been profitable allowing her to live extremely comfortably. But there wasn’t much differencebetween Neville and the man she had been obsessed about for the past year. Lucius would one day need to wed. Now the only question was… could the Black Widow of Whitehall’s matchmaking skills make such a miracle happen between him and Cassandra?
“You seem far too melancholy, Cassie dearest, when we are about to enter the Lyon’s Den for a bit of fun,” Emily drawled as though bored with the silence between them. “What has Lucius done now to gain your displeasure?”
