“She won’t budge.”
They’d been through medical school together. While Duncan stayed put and eventually provided his services as a consulting physician in Edinburgh, Watson moved south shortly after being licensed. An English cousin had died and left him everything. Duncan knew all there was to know about him, from his interest in his own sex to his abject fear of cats. He knew Watson was always called Watson, even by those closest to him, because he hated his given name. It was actually “Roland” for a deceased relation.
Therefore, he also knew Watson would not lie or tease about something so serious. If Watson said he was now an eligible bachelor within the Lyon’s Den, then he was to be married.
To a woman chosen by Mrs. Dove-Lyon.
“I cannot go through with something so preposterous.”
“Look, take the woman and get married up north, then let her come back to England. They don’t recognize anything we do.”
It wasn’t strictly true, but there was merit to the suggestion. “That’s not what I mean. I shouldn’t be with a woman. Ever. As in, ever again.”
“I do sympathize.”
“That’s also not what I mean. And there’s Constance to think of.”
Watson relented. “It may not be so awful. What if you like the woman? Mrs. Dove-Lyon seems to like you. She may pick someone you can at least stand and marriages have been arranged with far less than that.”
His head was spinning. “When Annie died, I couldn’t do a thing about it. I’m surprised I still practice at all.”
“You’re the cleverest consult anyone can pay money for.”
“I wasn’t clever enough to save her, was I?”
Watson sighed. “You were less experienced, and besides, sometimes these things just happen.” He knew Annie had passed in childbirth.
Duncan had been present for many births that ended with the need for a casket rather than a cradle. He did not treat them as clinically as he should and thought about them often. It still felt uncommonly cruel when it happened to him, leaving him with a motherless daughter who was now almost eleven. Constance would have had a brother, had her mother and the child survived.
It was an old wound. He’d healed it. But to his mind, part of the healing meant ignoring and forgoing certain aspects of life.
And he saw nothing wrong with onanism despite warnings, spiritual or medical, against it.
“Watson…”
He didn’t know what would have possessed him to enter a wager whose stakes were presumably enormous sums of money on one end, and marriage on the other. Watson himself never entered those sorts of contests, and in fact had, as he’d said, warned Duncan of their presence.
You went into it knowing what sort of place it was, you numpty.
“Were you perhaps lonely?” Watson asked.
He’d no idea if he had been. Like most of his outings with Watson, he could not recall all of what they’d done. “Why did you not stop me?”
“I was playing hazard.”
“You could have done something.”
“I’m not your governess. I wasn’t aware that you needed one.”
“Aye, well, you should have tried harder. You could have shot me before I committed. In the foot, perhaps. That’s not generally life-threatening.”
“I told you what the stakes are like, I told you what to look out for, and somehow you still managed to embroil yourself. I have little sympathy. You’re no thoughtless lad, either, so that cannot be an excuse.” Watson adjusted his lapels with a silent, sanctimonious gesture.
“To be fair, I am taken aback at my own audacity.”
Maybe Watson was right, although he did not want to admit that he might be lonely for companionship.
“This is the most audacious thing you have ever done.”
Still, what a way to amend the circumstances of loneliness. He stroked his own lips in thought. It was a bad idle habit for a man who believed in keeping his hands clean for his work.
“I shall simply have to speak with her.”
As they were each contemplating what that conversation might be like—well, he was; he could only guess Watson’s thoughts—the housekeeper brought a missive. “It is for Dr. Neilson, Dr. Watson.”
Watson took it, eyed it. “You’ve been summoned. It might be too late to speak with her in the way that you wish.” He held the sealed letter out to him. Reluctantly, Duncan took it.
After a quick assessment of its contents, Duncan sighed. “I’ve been invited to an appointment with her.”
He was determined to see himself out of this, his word be damned. Dr. Neilson was just not the man with impeccable conduct that Mrs. Dove-Lyon professed him to be. No impeccable man entered a wager when the price of losing was marriage to a stranger.
Worse, he still could not say if he’d wished to win or lose.
Worse still, he would not know how he would explain to Constance that she had a new mother.
—
Malcolm didn’t tell Viola specifically where they were going. He kept the information to a minimum. All she knew was Whitehall.
But as they came closer to Bessie’s establishment, she began to look suspiciously aware of where they were. When they stopped in front of the house, she eyed him as though she were wary of what her papa knew of this place.
He kept back the nagging sensation of shame that he had not been truthful with her about how he managed to keep her in such comfort. If he’d been merely a solicitor, they would have survived and been decently well-off, but the income was much better with both of his pursuits.
He was more ashamed that he knew there were those who’d take pleasure in his suffering, and they might be able to get hold of Viola or ruin her prospects. Yet he still had not been truthful.
His shame made him rather belligerent.
“No,” she said. “This won’t do.”
“I have said nothing. I beg your pardon?”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“I know why women are brought here, and since I have no mama, I assume you spoke to the Black Widow on my behalf. Papa, could you not have spoken to me before you took the matter up yourself? I have no desire to marry a stranger and no—”
Keeping a tight grip on his emotions, Malcolm shook his head. Anger jostled with fear. He also knew he should explain himself, or at least why he was so adamant to have Viola married. But he was far too cowardly to admit he had kept much from her.
“I worry for what could happen because of those… ruffians.”
She opened her mouth in shock. He could have stuffed a glove into it.
“They had no idea who I was, not really, and…” Viola huffed. “People are assaulted all of the time in London.”
“That does not help your case.”
“This is really quite extreme!”
“I don’t think so.”
Then she latched on to the other implication of what he’d said earlier. “You mean to tell me Mrs. Dove-Lyon is a friend of yours?”
Malcolm wished he had not mentioned they were seeing a friend. “I—” he narrowed his eyes, for he had not given Bessie’s name to Viola. “Do you know her name through experience or the papers? Have you been here?”
Viola set her jaw just as a footman opened the door to the carriage.
“Viola.” Malcolm tried something else. “Have some of your, ah, theater brethren mentioned her?”
“Yes.”
Her voice was too airy. He mistrusted it, but let his mistrust go for the sake of stepping out of the carriage and escorting her to the house. Evening gently settled over Cleveland Row. If he thought the pending darkness might calm Viola, he was wrong.
As soon as her feet touched ground, she started to run in the opposite direction of the Lyon’s Den.
Malcolm was too quick for her, springing around the carriage and charging past the stunned footman who was devoutly trying not to look stunned.
“We can do this without a scene, or I can throw
you over my shoulder.” He took her arm through her thick cloak before she could bolt. She was compact and scarcely an inch over five feet.
He’d never carried his grown offspring before but had no doubt that he could. He hoped that Viola’s innate sense of dignity would win, however. She despised looking the fool.
“Please,” he said. “Where would you go, anyway?”
He did not want the answer to that. She probably had a little rabbit’s warren of bolt holes.
“I don’t have to marry the person she produces, do I? It will be the end of everything, Papa. No husband would want me writing. I cannot think of a man who would want it.” Her eyes were wide and full of frustrated tears.
Knowing he should probably stick to his own line of marriage or else, Malcolm still relented. He was not a heartless man. Viola was his weakness, even if he dearly wished she would be forever out of trouble. He just had no idea how to elaborate that this was his way of getting her out of it.
Rather, it was his way of ensuring she did not get into it.
“You don’t, but please promise me you’ll at least meet the lad.”
He would not say that he’d come to think she should be married for her own sake. And he did not argue against the idea that most men would prefer she did not write or go to the theater unless it was to view a play. The problem was, if she married the way he thought she should, to someone who could support her so that she did not have to work herself to the bone, she was likely not wrong.
She chewed lightly at her bottom lip. It was remarkably endearing, a habit she’d possessed since childhood. He looked her over while she thought. Her dress matched the blue of her eyes. It wasn’t the same color as ice or sky—it was more of a pale green, thought Malcolm, of the sort that many might argue was a blue. Paired with her dark hair, the combination was stunning.
Not for the first time, he was pleased she’d taken predominately after Iris. Her stubbornness was his, though.
Iris had been gentle, sweet, and generally prone to changing course if necessary. He would not assign those qualities to Viola, except possibly the adaptability.
“I will meet him. I won’t hold out hope that he is someone I would want to marry, but since you want me to promise… I suppose just meeting him isn’t so hard.” Viola would not look at him. Her eyes kept drifting to the blue house that hid so many secrets, many even Malcolm did not know. In the winter’s gloaming, the blue was gray and deadened. “If he’s here, I’m sure he’s a drunkard or an adulterer, but at least he shall have an income.”
—
They entered the house differently than Viola had the night with Dr. Neilson.
This seemed to be the decorous way, the discreet entrance for ladies whose families trusted Mrs. Dove-Lyon with their futures. But she noted the prodigious expense of the furnishings. It was tempered only by taste. This was not the kind of household, they seemed to say, where one was allowed to be a glutton or in any way gauche.
That was a direct contrast to the Lyon’s Den’s reputation, she thought.
And that was probably by design.
There was something very theatrical about Mrs. Dove-Lyon, she decided. Everything about her and her business was a projection upon a projection, a trick of smoke and mirrors that might, if one was not careful, trick and seduce one entirely.
She and Papa, whom she still could not look at directly due to her fury, were shown into a pretty, airy parlor that the ladies of Almack’s would have loved. It was decorated for the season with holly, and a bunch of mistletoe hung over the doorway. She arranged her skirts and sat primly on a chair well away from him. It was near the fire, too, and her nerves and anger had chilled her.
The older woman who’d escorted them said, “Mrs. Dove-Lyon will be with you shortly. Tea has been arranged.”
Viola almost laughed as the woman left the parlor. She possessed all the gravitas of the most severe majordomo. She could have been the sternest woman in all of London and perhaps the entire country. Had this been a normal social call, she would have caught Papa’s eye and they would have laughed.
Not tonight.
When Mrs. Dove-Lyon came a short time later, Viola resolved to act as though she had never met her.
However, she was denied the choice.
“How lovely to see you again, Miss Black.”
“Again?” Papa questioned. She had no idea how he could manage to pack so much indignant incredulity into one small word.
Viola kept her eyes on Mrs. Dove-Lyon. “I cannot say it is very lovely given the circumstances, but that is less your own fault than it is my father’s.” She smiled and imagined it was not a kind expression. “And I am given to believe you two are old friends. How marvelous.”
Other women would have been indignant at Viola’s brazenness. They’d call it rude.
Not Mrs. Dove-Lyon, thought Viola.
She laughed. It was not even an almost-polite chuckle. It was a delighted, full noise. “Mal, I should love to see the two of you behind closed doors, at home and comfortable.” She sat on the chaise between Viola’s and Papa’s chairs.
“Mal?” The one-worded question slipped out before Viola could clamp her lips together. No one, to her knowledge, had ever called her father anything other than Mr. Black, or Malcolm if they were close. Uncle Jax called him “Wean”, but that referenced Jax’s considerable advantage in height.
“Indeed so,” said Mrs. Dove-Lyon.
“I’m sorry,” said Papa in a way that suggested no apology whatsoever. “I… again. You have met?”
Viola finally looked at him, pleased he was as out of sorts as she had been since their arrival. “Yes, indeed, we have.”
Papa’s thick eyebrows knit together. He was always expressive, and it was a demonstration of high puzzlement.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon seemed to take joy in watching him contemplate the idea.
Then he rounded on her. “You had already met Viola when I saw you.”
“Yes. But you did not ask whether we had met. And the circumstances of our meeting were not premeditated. It was luck.”
Although he appeared to want to say something, Papa simply closed his mouth and glowered. Then, he said, “Vixen.”
Viola took a slight amount of pity upon him. “It was the evening I was set upon, Papa.” Mostly, she felt more vindication than pity. It was so rare that Mr. Malcolm Black was at a loss for words.
He recovered quickly, though. “How on earth did you know to come here?”
She still did not wish to talk to him about Dr. Neilson but was spared the ordeal of doing so.
“She was found by a patron of mine,” said Mrs. Dove-Lyon. “He brought her here.”
“And he knew you were a dab hand with flesh wounds?” Papa crossed his arms, still sitting.
“Yes,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said serenely.
Most likely, observed Viola, Papa itched to pace with agitation. He did that when he was riled.
“Because that’s information you just bandy about,” he said.
“Mal,” said Mrs. Dove-Lyon, and Viola did not want to examine too closely what had allowed for the pet name to have developed in the first place. “He is a physician. A real one. I am sure that the friend who introduced him to me must have mentioned it to him. I do like to allow some of the men to get to know a little of the real me.”
“It’s good for business, that sort of false intimacy.”
“We can’t all rely on our raw charm.”
“No, I just rely on the accent, remember?”
Fascinated, for she had not seen her father react this way to anyone, Viola kept quiet. They were… flirting.
“Now, my dear,” said Mrs. Dove-Lyon, abruptly switching her focus from one Black to the other, “I do suppose you know why you are here.”
With a grudging nod, Viola said, “My father seems to believe I’d be best served by a marriage.” He made a noise of disgruntlement. He could not have been happy that she was in this predicament, such as it was. “And
the sooner the better, evidently. He worries that I shall be set upon by every lout in the city.”
The older woman with the majordomo’s bearing had returned. She said from the doorway, “Dr. Neilson, Ma’am.”
“Oh, splendid.” Mrs. Dove-Lyon sounded delighted behind her veil. “I wasn’t certain if he’d make it to the place without any spirits in his system.”
Viola could barely hear her.
At the mention of the doctor’s name, she struggled both to breathe and process what the name being mentioned now meant.
He couldn’t have got himself tangled in one of the schemes downstairs, she felt. He seemed too clever and levelheaded, for all that she’d met him while he was intoxicated.
Yet there he was. She could not be happy at the circumstances. But, she thought prosaically, it could be worse.
When she met his eyes as the majordomo retreated, they were wide.
“You see, Miss Black, I am not a cruel woman,” said Mrs. Dove-Lyon. Her harmonious voice flitted into Viola and Dr. Neilson’s shocked quiet. “I saw you and the doctor together that night. So, when he lost, I knew he’d be the perfect choice for you. Helena, your chaperone, if you recall, also remarked upon your rapport—what good fortune it was that he’d lost, considering we needed to find a husband for you. It does not usually happen so elegantly, you know.”
Chapter Three
He was ready to object in the politest terms possible, to use every bit of tact he had at his disposal to argue his case. His ability to talk about anything smoothly was one reason why he was such a good consulting physician. It went beyond a bedside manner and carried into an ease of speech with just about every subject.
Then he saw Miss Black in the parlor. She wore women’s attire this evening, a dress in a shade that echoed her eyes. He was happy to see the cut above her eyebrow was healing. Minimal bruises lingered on her lovely face.
“Together that night?”
It had to be Mr. Black asking the question. There was some family resemblance, more in mannerisms than looks. Duncan felt one would need to be stalwart indeed to have him for a father-in-law.
Mr. Black was not solid, although he was probably tall when he stood. No, he was commanding because he had a presence. Duncan imagined their situation was a little like that of a snake and a mongoose.
The Lyon's Den in Winter: The Lyon's Den Page 3