Page 14 of Lyon of Least Resistance

“My Dahlia,” he said. “You always know what’s best for me. And you have given me your best. I shall pray to the Almighty, each night, that you’ll find someone to make you as happy as you wish me to be.”

He reached toward her face and she leaned toward him, anticipating one final touch. But instead, he checked himself, clicked his heels together and gave her a formal bow, then exited the boudoir.

Chapter Four

After James exited Dahlia’s boudoir, he paused and held his breath. Might she remove her mask? What if he burst into the room after a moment to see if she had removed it, to catch a glimpse? He ached to see her face.

Surrendering to the ache, he placed his hand on the polished brass handle.

Sharp intakes of breath came from inside, as if the room’s occupant struggled for air. Then he heard a soft sob. Not the exaggerated sniveling of a woman trying to secure the attention and sympathy of another—he’d already been exposed to enough of those, particularly at Lady Miles’s ball last night, where the debutantes seemed to think eliciting sympathy was the best way to get a man’s name on their dance cards. No, the sobs he could hear spoke of suppressed heartbreak, the cries of a woman who struggled to silence her despair lest she succumb to it.

Did she cry for him?

Then he chided himself. Her heartbreak wasn’t a trophy for him to relish as evidence of his prowess at lovemaking. It was something to elicit shame in the knowledge that he had given pain to the one woman capable of owning his heart.

It was almost enough to break his resolve and visit her once more. But reason told him that with each subsequent visit, the urge to remain in her arms would strengthen, his ability to walk away would lessen…

…and his soul would wither a little more until it died altogether.

Dahlia was like laudanum. Wrenching himself from her would give rise to temporary pain, but it would, ultimately, be the best course of action. That pain would lessen over time, like hardened skin forming a scar over a burn, until he could no longer feel it.

It remained to be seen whether, once the pain had gone, he would be capable of feeling anything at all.

Footsteps approached and he withdrew his hand from the door and turned to see a veiled figure standing before him.

The Black Widow of Whitehall herself.

“Forgive me, ma’am,” he said, moving to pass, but she blocked his path.

“I would have a word with you, Lord Bedford,” she said, her voice crisp and clear through her veil. He tilted his head and stared at her, but in the dim light of the hallway, he could not make out her features other than two pinpricks of light where her eyes reflected the flames of the candles mounted on the walls.

“Me?”

Mrs. Dove-Lyon was not noted for her sociability. In all the weeks James had visited Dahlia, he hadn’t spoken to her employer. Until tonight he’d only ever seen her on the gallery overlooking the main gaming room—a shadowy figure reminiscent of a giant spider, watching over her prey. Then, as now, an uncomfortable sensation crawled up his spine, as if she could look into the depths of his soul and read his innermost desires.

She inclined her head, like a monarch acknowledging the honor she bestowed upon a humble subject by gifting him with her attention.

Heaven help him—was she about to invite him into her lair to drain him of his lifeblood?

“Are you expected anywhere tonight?” she said.

James glanced at the door to the room he’d just left. Could Dahlia hear their conversation?

“No,” he said, a little too loudly. “There’s nowhere else that I wish to go tonight.”

The veiled figure inclined her head, her eyes gleaming behind the black lace. Then James caught a flash of something—teeth, perhaps? Either she smiled at him, or she was baring her fangs, ready to sink them into his neck.

He took a step back.

“No, Lord Bedford, I insist that you remain.”

Shit.

James braced himself. “Wh-what for?”

“To spend the rest of your evening in the gaming hall.”

“I-I have no money left,” he stammered, “and I’m neither gamester nor card player.”