“Would you like a drink, gentlemen?” the lady asked.
Titan said, “Lord Marksman is reportedly healing properly, ma’am. Is that not good news? He and Lady Theodora Duncan have set a date to marry.”
Benjamin noted Mrs. Dove-Lyon swallowed her remark, for her lips suddenly compressed. Instead, the woman said, “I am happy for Lord Duncan and his family. It was an awful business with all these attempts to cheat the government. What of Lord Beaufort? I heard he was assisting Lord Liverpool.”
Benjamin wondered how the woman learned so much about society and the government, but then he knew thehaut tonwere a gossipy bunch, and many of the aristocracy played high at the Lyon’s Den’s tables.
“We are thankful that Beaufort has returned safely,” Graham said.
The woman gestured to the chairs before her desk. “Have a seat, my lords. How may I be of service to you?”
Graham cleared his throat. “As I am confident you are aware, Lord Thompson has extended his assistance to a young lady who had called upon you in the past regarding her sister.”
“I am,” the lady said without additional comments.
“We have been told that one Miss Cassandra Whitchurch worked for you for a short time, a matter of days if I understood it correctly, but you released her, for the customers complained that she did not ‘perform’ as they wished.”
“If it is the woman I believe of whom you speak, then I would agree, but as I told the other Miss Whitchurch when she initially calledupon me, I know no one by the name of ‘Cassandra Whitchurch,’ though, in truth, many of my girls do not use their real names. Our business is not one even the lowest of society often tolerates.”
“Miss Whitchurch has executed a drawing of her sister,” Benjamin said. “Might you agree to look at the sketch and tell us if the image is one you recognize?”
“Of course,” the woman said.
Graham handed her the image, and Mrs. Dove-Lyon rose from her chair and walked to the corner where she turned her back on them. She said over her shoulder, “I, thankfully, can read through this veil, but to know the end to these questions regarding Miss Whitchurch’s sister, I would rather have a look at the sketch without it.”
Benjamin and Graham watched as the woman lifted the veil, and Benjamin thought for a moment that they might see something of the woman that few could claim to recognize, but Titan moved to block what little view they had of the woman. After an elongated minute, she handed Titan the sketch and lowered her veil again. “Do you recognize the girl, Titan?”
The former soldier also studied the sketch. “Yes, ma’am, I believe I do.”
“As do I.” She turned and returned to her desk.
Titan confirmed, “The woman was here twice. Once when she worked for us for perhaps a week. On the day Mrs. Dove-Lyon released her, there was an older woman here to arrange a marriage. The older woman supposedly said she had a position in one of the great houses in London and offered to find the younger one a position also.”
“That is what Miss Whitchurch was told when she called upon you previously. Such is what Miss Cassandra wrote to her sister—that she was to have a position in a house of some importance.”
“Older woman?” Mrs. Dove-Lyon asked. “How old?”
Titan responded, “You know the one.”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon sat straighter, as if realization had arrived. “The one who wanted a marriage with Lord Duncan?”
“Duncan?” Benjamin and Graham chorused.
Graham finished, “So the woman who wanted to marry Duncan was a member of the staff of one of the wealthy members of society? We all assumed this unknown woman was at least of the gentry, especially if she could pay your fees, ma’am. Pardon, I meant no offense.”
“None taken,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon was quick to say. “I made the same assumption. Though not grandly dressed the woman was still quite presentable. I doubted from the beginning that Lord Duncan would be interested, but I am a business woman, and so…”
“Perhaps the woman was an elderly sister of a member of the aristocracy. A widow or an unmarried aunt. Something along those lines. Not actually employed in the household herself, but holding a position in the household,” Titan suggested. “Such a woman would still be aware of the need for additional servants. And, if she could afford Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s fees, she would likely not be a governess or housekeeper.”
Graham said, “It is all quite interesting how God’s hand works. That the woman that Lord Thompson seeks was somehow connected to the woman whose desire was to marry Duncan is what brought all of us to the Lyon’s Den on that fateful night.”
“A bit convoluted,” Benjamin remarked, “but something else to add to that list we started earlier today at Duncan Place.”
“Yes,” Graham agreed. “We must assuredly tell Duncan of this coincidence.”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon remarked, “People say every member of the aristocracy is somehow related to every other member. Too many bloodlines overlap.”
“I have heard that often,” Benjamin said.
