Page 5 of The Dandy Lyon

Shocked to her core, Joanna clapped her hand over her mouth, horrified.

At last Mother spoke. “You must tell us the whole of it, Geoffrey. We cannot wait any longer to know the worst of this.”

“Dandridge sent me a message, asking me to allow him to marry Joanna and, in case I refused, he informed me he had bought up the mortgages on most of the earldom’s properties and would call in the debt in that instant, a sum of twenty thousand pounds.” Geoffrey shrugged. “At that point, I went looking for an heiress.” Her brother’s face flushed. “At The Lyon’s Den.”

“Good Lord.” Their mother twisted the string of pearls around her neck with fidgety fingers. “I know that place’s reputation.”

“Isn’t that where Thomas met Honoria?” Joanna couldn’t take her eyes off Geoffrey’s face. Could this night get any more bizarre?

“Yes. That is what gave me the idea to go there. Mrs. Dove-Lyon put me in contact with Diana, and although we both initially refused to entertain the idea of a marriage, at last we both realized it was the only way we could both solve our very different problems. So we struck a bargain. We had an understanding that as soon as possible, we would find a way to divorce, however that part of the scheme was rendered moot when we fell in love with one another.” With a huge sigh, Geoffrey slumped against the seat. “I didn’t wish to frighten either of you, so I didn’t tell you of Dandridge’s plan. Perhaps I should have, but I’d been lulled into thinking he’d given up his mad scheme when I heard nothing else from him. Now I know he has not.” Geoffrey peered suddenly at Joanna. “He didn’t do or say anything untoward to you, did he?”

Dully, she shook her head, a ringing noise in her ears. “No, he was a perfect gentleman. We talked about dancing and he said…”

“What did he say?” Her brother sprang up in the seat, as if suddenly on alert again.

She’d been about to tell him about Mr. Dandridge’s request for a second dance, but that would likely only make Geoffrey angrier. “He said he enjoyed our quadrille very much.” He had said that too, so she wasn’t actually lying to her brother. “I did too.”

“Scoundrels are inevitably charming, my dear. You must learn to guard against them, learn to tell real gentlemen from the riff-raff.” Geoffrey sat back in his seat once more. “I don’t doubt we’ve seen the last of Mr. Dandridge, however we will not step foot outside the house without an armed guard from this moment until the end of the Season. Hopefully, once Dandridge discovers that he will not be able to come near you, he will give up this foolish notion and find another woman to obsess about.” Her brother’s sigh sounded as though it came from the depths of his soul. “I can only pray he will.”

Joanna sat back as the carriage wound on through the night toward St. James, remembering the look of hunger in Mr. Dandridge’s eyes, and thought her brother’s prayers would almost certainly not be answered.

Chapter Three

Sitting in a comfortable chair in The Lyon’s Den, made uncomfortable by his brooding thoughts, Marcus sipped Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s excellent port while staring at the painting of a happy couple frolicking in a bucolic wood and contemplated throwing himself into the Thames. He’d made matters worse, as he was wont to do with anything save business. And now he didn’t know what to do.

At least he’d gotten to meet Lady Joanna, dance with her, talk with her, which was more than he’d ever had a right to hope for, considering his upbringing. And it had been glorious. Like holding a dream in his arms. He could remember every moment of that dance, and even though they had only held hands, Marcus could feel the warmth of her even now. If he closed his eyes he could just persuade himself he was right beside her, that if he opened his eyes she would be right here.

Marcus sighed, the groan coming up from his very soul. Because now there was the real possibility he would never see her again. Lord Longford might be so furious, he could very well take his sister back to his estate in Middlesex and forbid her to leave until she married. Not the fate he’d wish for Lady Joanna, unless she married him, of course. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening, though.

“I’ve seen gargoyles with pleasanter expressions, Marcus.” Mrs. Dove-Lyon bustled into her office, where she’d sent him half an hour ago while she attended to some pressing business. “Perhaps another glass of port will—”

“I could drink an ocean of spirits tonight, Mrs. D-L and it wouldn’t matter a tinker’s damn. I’ve hoisted myself with my own petard, so to speak. And there’s no undoing it.” Marcus drained his second glass and reached for the decanter again.

“If you truly believed that, Marcus, you wouldn’t be here.” The black-veiled figure shook her head and took her accustomed seat behind her desk. “You’d be off somewhere doing yourself a mischief, or brawling with some poor, unsuspecting bloke who crossed your path at the wrong time.” Mrs. Dove-Lyon sat at attention, peering at him most likely, although the veil completely obscured her face. Over the years, however, Marcus had become rather astute at judging the expressions behind the black lace. “So tell me how I may be of service to you.”

“By making a match between me and Lady Joanna Longford.” Even the sound of the words as he spoke them was ludicrous.

“Ah, Lord Longford’s sister.” Mrs. D-L tapped her finger on the polished desk. “You might have stood a better chance before he married a woman as rich as Prinny. He was desperately in need of funds last October.”

“Trust me, I know.” Marcus squeezed the cut glass tumbler of port until the hobnail pattern dug into his palm. “I was the reason.”

“Indeed.” The lady’s head tilted slightly to the side, as if studying him anew. “I wondered at his lordship’s vigorous renewed interest in Miss Edgerton. He’d seemed so adamantly set against her when I first brought them together.”

“The threat of financial ruin will motivate many a man to desperate measures.” That had been his first folly. Trying to extort Lord Longford into allowing him to marry Lady Joanna had been a grave miscalculation on his part. Of course, he’d had no idea of Miss Edgerton’s involvement with Longford at the time. Her massive inheritance had thwarted Marcus’s all-but-sure victory. And as no man liked being threatened with expulsion from his ancestral home if he would not allow his sister to marry a scoundrel, Longford had made it absolutely clear that Marcus was to cease his pursuit of Lady Joanna because they’d be serving Gunter’s ices in hell before his lordship would allow the marriage.

“Lord Longford is a stickler for decorum, Marcus. He’s of the old school that holds that breeding is a far more valuable asset than gold or intelligence.” Mrs. Dove-Lyon sat back in her chair, her slumped shoulders as good as a glance of pity. “Unfortunate that you possess ample quantities of the latter two resources and none of the first.”

“It would seem that way.” Marcus leaned his head on his hand, contemplating a third glass of the port. What did it matter now if he drank himself into oblivion? “Longford himself said as much in October, when I pleaded with him to let me court her. I begged him, offered to sell of my gaming hells and The Dandy, buy an estate and move Lady Joanna to the country to live a quiet, respectable life. That’s when he called me a mongrel and asked if I’d breed a thoroughbred horse to a crossbreed.”

The comment had rankled Marcus for days. A man couldn’t help his antecedents. What should count the most was what a man was able to do with himself in the here and now. Ancestry aside, Marcus would pit himself against Longford—and most of the other gentlemen of the ton as well—for strength, wit, and shrewdness any day of the week. How else could he have risen from his wretched poverty to the incredible wealth he now possessed?

“I believe such breedings strengthen the bloodlines in many respects, don’t they?” The dark figure opposite him leaned toward him.

“Another argument I put forward that Longford shot down just as quickly.” Marcus slumped in the chair, his hand knocking the tumbler dangerously close to the edge of the desk. “He is adamant that I have no chance with her whatsoever.”

“And what does Lady Joanna have to say about the matter?”

Marcus sighed deeply. “I have no idea. Lord Longford has not, to my knowledge, allowed her a say in the proceedings.”