Early the followingmorning, together, Orson, Beaufort, and Benjamin had arrived at Hartley’s office. Beaufort asked Orson in a bit more teasing, “Did you place Lady Emma in your bed last evening or hers?”
“You know the lady has been using my quarters at Duncan Place,” Orson responded in disapproving tones. “Moreover, there is a possibility she has an arranged marriage with Lord Davidson.”
“The woman does not love another,” Benjamin assured his brother. “You should see how she looks upon you when she thinks no one is watching her.”
Hartley suggested, “Another of us could escort her to, say, Beaufort’s hunting lodge. Discreet. Remote. No one can approach the lodge without someone taking notice. If Davidson’s claim is truthful, when he comes looking for her, which he will do sometime before Monday, then you can honestly say you had nothing to do with her absence. You will be seen assisting Sir Hunter during his wedding on Friday, and, afterwards, Davidson will send someone to learn if you have hidden Lady Emma away in Lincolnshire at your country estate, but it will take a rider at least four days, more likely five, to be to your home shire and back. Assuming Lady Emma’s memory is more accurate about the day and year of her birth than she is about who attacked her, that would be the day of Lady Emma’s emancipation. She may choose who she wishes to marry without her father’s input.”
Benjamin recognized the longing in his brother’s features. Orson had favored Lady Emma Donoghue for some time, but, like them all, Richard Orson, while wishing for happiness, feared that it might be snatched away before he could claim it. Benjamin leaned in to say, “Hartley here, while going about his various duties, could discreetly call upon Doctors’ Commons and purchase a license in your name and that of Lady Emma Donoghue. You could use it if the situation proves to settle the way I think it will or never mention it to the lady. A special license expires in five and forty days. No one would be the wiser.”
“Except me,” Orson said in the new silence of the small office.
Benjamin wanted to press his point harder, but Orson was always known for his cautiousness.
“Yes or no?” Benjamin prodded, knowing this decision would make or break Richard Orson’s future happiness.
“I do not wish to be the object of all your barbs for the remainderof my days. Neither would I wish the others to know of my foolhardiness,” Orson admitted reluctantly, but Benjamin knew his brother’s greatest wish was within Richard’s reach, and he would not permit Orson to miss his chance. “Especially if the lady refuses me.”
Benjamin thought to deny his brother’s fears, but he swallowed his denial. Instead, he spoke in his most honest tones. “None of us—Hartley nor Beaufort nor I—have met a woman for whom we would risk everything,” he claimed, while a small voice whispered, “You have erred. You have.”
He continued, “We will not be jesters in this matter. We will be your champions. You must make the attempt, Richard, so the rest of us may understand that finding affection and a family bearing our ancestors’ names is truly possible for the likes of each of us. Though those Macdonald Duncan raised as his ‘sons’ learned all the necessary lessons of the peerage and duty to country and more, none of us learned how to travel through life as a single in a world built for a man and a woman to experience it together. Duncan had that with Lady Elsbeth, and he wants it for each of us.”
Benjamin had followedHartley, Beaufort, and Orson up the stairs of the Lyon’s Den to Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s office. It amazed him that a bit less than a month prior he had spent five days inside the Lyon’s Den, but had not truly seen it, especially the above stairs facilities. Though he already was aware of the light blue Lyon’s Den building having once been the Lyon’s Gate Manor, previously belonging to Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s husband’s family, it had never really occurred to Benjamin that this was a free-standing house in Whitehall, just as was Duncan Place and his brothers’ homes in Mayfair, but not his. He lived in the cornerhouse of a row of connected townhomes in the area known as Cheapside, where many of the City’s warehouses could be found.
Most assuredly, the inside of Lyon’s Gate Manor no longer held the appearance of a person’s “home.” It was an upscale gaming hell, offering patrons high stakes play, and it was a place where men, for a price, could know their pleasure in a woman’s body.
They were eventually shown into Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s office, which Benjamin immediately realized had likely been the woman’s previous quarters as the mistress of Lyon’s Gate Manor. Yet, unlike his mother’s former quarters at the vicarage or the mistress’s quarters in his home in Kent and those maintained at both Duncan Place and Duncan Manor in Derbyshire in memory of Lady Elsbeth Duncan, this room had the appearance of… Well, in truth, Benjamin had never been in such a room, but he had heard of several of his fellow lords in Parliament who had such paintings on the walls of their personal suites.
“Thank you for agreeing to speak to us this morning,” Hartley said with typical politeness. Orson, Beaufort, and Benjamin bowed to the woman no one in society would openly acknowledge outside the walls of the Lyon’s Den, but who likely knew almost every secret circulating among the members of London’shaut ton. The woman definitely had her finger on the pulse of London society, though more than a few were not intelligent enough to realize the power Mrs. Dove-Lyon wielded.
“I assume you have additional questions regarding the coat we found,” she said as she sat behind a very large and impressive desk.
Hartley, as the government’s “official” agent said, “Just a few, though your employee was most kind in responding to Lord Orson’s questions last evening. Yet, we must admit our investigation into the attack on Lord Duncan has met more than a few dead ends.”
Hartley efficiently rearranged his notes. Meanwhile, Benjamin noted how Richard studied Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s art selection andBeaufort played with his pocket watch. Benjamin had purposely kept his eyes averted and his facial expression unresponsive. He had never thought to view such artwork fully displayed for anyone’s view. He wondered if the paintings had been part of Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s collection when she was married, or perhaps those favored by the woman’s late husband. Though from a respectable family, Colonel Sandstrom T. Lyon held his own reputation for a bit of stubbornness and a “no-sass tolerated” attitude.
“Not to everyone’s taste,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon remarked after noting Orson’s expression. Thankfully, she made no comment directed to Benjamin.
“I apologize, ma’am,” Orson said in what sounded of honest tones. “I did not mean to be rude.”
“I have been told the Prince Regent and I share a similar taste,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said with what Benjamin assumed was a smile, though the veil she wore constantly prevented him from knowing with any confidence.
“I cannot say in assurance, ma’am,” Orson said with a nod of appreciation. “I am rarely in His Royal Highness’s company.”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon barked a laugh. “That makes two of us, my lord. I am glad to be in your esteemed company instead.”
Hartley cleared his throat to warn Orson they had serious business to address. “Could you speak to the area in which the coat was found, ma’am?”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon shifted her shoulders into a more professional posture. “The area where the coat was found is where the musicians enter at the back of the house. It has a small foyer, so to speak. There are equally spaced recesses in the wall. At one time, long before Colonel Lyon and I spoke our vows, they were used to display antique vases and small marble statues. As they are placed in a manner to provide support for the pillars on either side and ultimately the ceiling, we sometimes use the spaces to set aside additional decks of cards,serving glasses, cleaning rags, and the like for those unexpected accidents. Nothing major. Nothing expensive. In fact, the spaces are so designed to be decorative in their own right, rather than ‘useful.’ We made them ‘useful,’ as I can bear nothing frivolous except my taste in art,” she said with another chuckle, “that is not useful. The openings are not so wide, and I would assume whoever placed the coat within had to work its thickness into the space. It would not have gone in easily. According to Titan, it did not come out without a lot of cursing and maneuvering.”
“So, it is not likely it was placed there the night of Lord Duncan’s attack?” Benjamin asked before the others could organize their thoughts.
“As you likely noted last evening,” the woman continued, “there are streaks of mud on one side, and the coat still has a musty smell, so Titan and I have assumed it had been left out in London’s rain for more than a couple of weeks before it was moved into its hiding place.”
Benjamin glanced at Orson and Beaufort, but they purposely kept their expressions blank. The man known as “Titan” had said nothing in this particular vein of information last evening. Was this idea of the culprit removing the coat elsewhere and left to rot in Whitehall before later being placed in its hiding place a new revelation or did Mrs. Dove-Lyon wish to shine the light of suspicion away from her establishment? Obviously having a man of Lord Duncan’s standing in society shot outside of the Lyon’s Den’s main doors was not good for the woman’s business. Perhaps she meant to suggest the attack had begun elsewhere. Or was it based on an old grudge? A political foe? Duncan was a leading force in the British Parliament. As a Scot who had inherited an English title, as well as his Scottish one, Duncan assuredly had more than one enemy in the House of Lords, for many thought his loyalty rested more with Scotland than England. But would any of them go to this extreme? Not that Benjamin or hisbrothers could imagine, but perhaps they should have a second look. Then there was the matter of Duncan’s work for the British government in the area of sedition and other crimes against the Crown. The list of suspects and motives was endless.
“And do you possess some knowledge to indicate whether someone hid the coat elsewhere and recently moved it inside the Lyon’s Den?” Benjamin asked cautiously.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon pulled herself up royally, though she was still small in stature. “I have spoken to each of my employees regarding this matter and have instructed them to inform me of even the most insignificant bit regarding this coat having been hidden away. No one has yet to speak his or her qualms to me, to Titan, or any in the higher positions within these walls. Nor has there been a note slipped under my door or a whisper in my ear.”
