Mrs. Dove-Lyon stood at the entrance to the private corridor, cane angled, speaking in low tones to a gentleman whose smile ran too wide to be trusted. Her words did not falter, but her eyes slid past his shoulder and found Marcus.
She dismissed the man with a murmured phrase and a flick of her fingers. He retreated at once. No one lingered once Bessie had finished with them.
She advanced a few steps, her gaze moving deliberately from Marcus’s boots to the clean line of his coat, the midnightwaistcoat beneath, the crisp white of his cravat. It paused at his shoulders, then lifted to his face.
Marcus let the moment stretch.
As her eyes met his, one corner of his mouth curved. Not a smile. A slow, knowing acknowledgment edged with memory and promise. Not wasted wickedness. Not denied.
Her fingers tightened on the head of her cane. Color brushed her cheekbones.
“Good evening, Lord Wolfton,” she said smoothly, though her breath caught faintly beneath it. “I see the rumors are late. They have not yet informed me that you are yourself again.”
“I didn’t send word.”
“So I gather.” She tapped her cane once. “The room will manage. It always does when a storm returns to its proper place.”
She turned. “Walk with me.”
Marcus followed her into the private corridor. The hum of the Den faded behind them, replaced by the familiar scents of beeswax and old wood. Their footfalls sounded precise in the narrow space.
Her salon door stood open. She led him inside.
The room glowed with warm reds and golds. Books crowded the shelves. Unopened letters lay scattered on a low table. The fire breathed steadily in the grate. It felt like the inside of a secret kept for years.
Bessie lowered herself into a chair. Marcus remained standing.
“You knew I would call you to task sooner or later,” she said. “You’ve merely robbed me of the pleasure of doing it publicly.”
He lifted his glass. “My apologies.”
She narrowed her eyes, amused. “You walk differently tonight. Your shoulders remember they are not meant for shrinking.”
“I’ve given up shrinking.”
“Have you now.” Her gaze sharpened. “And what brought that about?”
He did not answer at once.
Lila’s face rose in his mind. The tremor in her voice when she argued for his safety. The fire in her eyes when she refused to pretend she did not care.
“I grew tired of watching a woman I admire face a man like Fenwick without anyone at her back,” he said.
“Miss Edgewood,” Bessie said.
“Who else.”
“And you are here to remind London you have teeth.”
“I’m here to remind London there are lines it will not cross unchallenged,” Marcus said. “Fenwick’s most of all.”
Bessie leaned back. “Ah. There you are. Not the Wolf who chased wagers for sport. The one who stands between the weak and the wolves who deserve the name.”
“I don’t chase for sport anymore.”
“No,” she said quietly. “You chase for something that matters. That is far more dangerous.”
Her gaze drifted toward the doorway. “Titan.”
