Temptress and the Lyon (The Lyon's Den Connected World)

A woman on the brink of ruin. A man risen from the grave. A marriage neither of them planned, but both may die for.

Twelve years ago, Alyssia Prudence Whitcombe lost the man she was promised to marry since birth and learned how swiftly hearts can be broken. Now, with scandal snapping at her heels and her family’s future at risk, she makes a desperate choice: She will find a stranger to wed at the most dangerous gaming hell in London. A marriage of necessity. A contract. Nothing more.

She never expects that stranger to be Giles Bishop, the boy she once loved, the heir thought dead, the man who vanished without a trace.

Theodore Giles Bishop has spent years in the shadows, waiting for the moment he can reclaim the life that was stolen from him. Hardened by exile and secrecy, he means to bide his time, until he spies Alyssia standing in the Lyon’s Den, wagering her future with breathtaking courage. He makes a reckless choice: He will win her hand or die trying.

But some choices open old wounds.

Can love reclaimed be stronger than love lost? Or will the shadows that once tore them apart claim them both again?

Chapter One

The Lyon’s Den, London

One month after Beauty and the Lyon

THEODORE GILES BISHOP stood at the margins of the gambling tables of the most infamous den in all of Britain, ignoring the nauseating smells of drink and perfume. He was pretty sure both came from the men present. There were only three sorts of people who frequented this haunt. Those who sought out the thrill of vice, those who sought out her services, and those who disposed of problems without asking questions.

He was none of those.

The only reason he set foot in this place now was because his employer, the newly and happily wed Duke of Crane, had charged him to deliver a gift to the widow. A gesture to ensure there would be no unwelcome backlash after their debacle a month ago. He happened to also have some matters to confirm in London, such as his murderous uncle’s foothold, a small task really, so he hadn’t griped about this one too much.

“Mr. Bishop.” A voice, both honeyed and sharp, slid over his shoulder. “Or should I call you Your Grace?”

His lips pulled up in a sneer as he turned to the infamous veiled widow herself, Mrs. Dove-Lyon, who stood before him in a gown of midnight, her face hidden behind equally black lace. “So you know?”

“I know many things, Your Grace, and you are the lost Duke of Winterbourne.”

“I have never been lost.”

She inclined her head. “Just in hiding.”

A chill ran down his spine, but Bishop merely shrugged, refusing to rise to the taunt. However, the word lost still stung. He’d had no choice back then. Besides, there was wisdom in biding one’s time. “I trust the discretion of your suspicion can be counted upon.”

“Of course,” she murmured.

He nodded. “And Crane’s matter?”

“All in the past.”

Good.

The widow gestured toward the tables. “Care to join the fun?”

“I only see trouble.”

She chuckled. “What is life without a touch of that?”

It depended on the trouble. Bishop turned to go, but an invisible force hooked its talons deep into him, and he halted. He felt her before he saw her, his gaze lifting as though possessed.

A woman stepped up to the rail of the gallery above, her back straight, chin tilted, every line of her familiar frame declaring purpose.

His blood turned to ice.

She was older. Sharper. Poised.

But it was her.

Alyssia Whitcombe.

Twelve years had done nothing to prepare him for this moment.

Bloody everlasting hell. When last had he set eyes on her? Not since the winter everything he’d known had gone to ruin and she’d been wrenched beyond his reach. Time should have dulled the vision of her, but it hadn’t. If anything, standing here now, the sight of her cut deeper. Still as beautiful as ever. More beautiful than memory allowed. Even from this distance, he swore he still remembered the scent of her—like home, if home had ever smelled that good.

His betrothed.

No.

Former betrothed. The woman he’d once been meant to marry.

Bishop’s jaw tensed when he recalled where the hell he stood. What the devil was she doing in the Lyon’s Den? What had brought the daughter of a duke to a place such as this?

One of three reasons.

Wealthy women came only for one thing.

A husband.

He cursed and stiffened when her gaze swept the room and passed right over him. Not even a pause. He should have been relieved. In the grand scheme of his current troubles, it was better she didn’t see him. Better she didn’t stir up what had no business coming back to life. So why in damnation did it feel like she’d cleaved straight through him?

A swell of fury surged through him, unexpected and blazing. He couldn’t tell whether it was for the fact that she was here to find a fool for a husband or because she did not recognize him at all.

Then remind her.

Bishop cursed. He couldn’t. Not now. Not here. Not while his true identity remained concealed. Not even his employer, the Duke of Crane, a man he also considered a friend, knew the truth. The truth meant danger. Meant death.

“What is Lady Alyssia doing here?” he still couldn’t resist asking Mrs. Dove-Lyon tightly.

“You have to ask that?” the widow murmured, the inflection of mockery not lost on him.

“I mean what drove her here?”

“Ah, that.” The widow waved a dismissive hand. “Lady Alyssia was caught in a compromising position but refused to marry the gentleman she was caught with.”

A compromising position?

The phrase scraped unpleasantly along his skin. And what position might that be, exactly? What man? He could not imagine any such thing. But if she’d rather marry one the fools here, what did that say about the man she’d been exposed with? Nothing good.

“So she will find a husband here tonight,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon went on.

“Like hell she will,” Bishop bit out, a wave of depthless rage burrowing into his bones and spreading throughout his body. Who the devil had wronged her to force her hand like this? Who would dare?

“It’s already done, Your Grace.”

He refused to believe that. “Undo it,” he demanded. “And damn it, don’t call me that.”

A chuckle. “I’m afraid I cannot do that.”

Such an infuriating woman.

This was damn madness. How could he allow Alyssia to make the biggest mistake of her life? And this was a big mistake—to wed a fool who wins a fool’s wager in this place. How could he allow this to proceed when he’d been her betrothed since the moment she’d inhaled her first breath? He also couldn’t stop what had been put in motion here. Damn it. To reveal himself was to risk everything he’d built, but to watch her marry another like this was unthinkable.

“I’ll compete,” he said roughly.

“Compete?” A smile touched that one word.

“Yes.” Bishop infused all his command in that one word. He refused to be refused.

“Without knowing the game?” Mrs. Dove-Lyon asked.

“I don’t care what the game is.” Not in this bloody moment. The stakes were all that mattered.

Alyssia Whitcombe might not recognize him, but he’d never forgotten her. And now that she’d stepped into, very arguably, his world, into the very place where desperation ruled, he would not let her be claimed by anyone else.

But him.

***

OVERINDULGENCE CLUNG TO every surface of the Den, thick enough to choke on. Lady Alyssia Prudence Whitcombe set her jaw to keep from scrunching up her face. She would need to scrub her whole body to rid her skin of the stench once done here.

She hated the smell of smoke.

It reminded her of that man.

The very reason for her presence here today.

Let’s not think about that unpleasantness.

From her spot above the gambling floor, she braced her hands on the railing of the gallery and forced herself to breathe evenly. She required distance. Detachment. To feel was to falter, and sentiment cost more dearly than coin. Yet the sight below was distasteful. Cursed and dangerous, every table was designed to lure men to their ruin. Ironic, in a place where losses traded hands like coin.

A means to an end, Alyssia.

Yes, well. She could only hope her family forgave her.

Somewhere down there, among the messy games of men eager for thrill, played a stranger who she would soon wed.

God help her.

“Look well, Lady Alyssia, for by the end of this night, one of those men will become your husband.”

Her husband.

Alyssia curled her fingers tighter around the rail until her knuckles ached. She refused to lament her fate. After all, she had a hand in it all. What followed now was merely the price of that hand. Consequences did not lessen simply because one wished them away.

Her gaze drifted to the cluster of men gathered around the largest Hazard table, the one that would yield her husband. She didn’t think too deeply about their identities. That didn’t matter much to her.

Nodcocks, the lot of them.

They hadn’t the faintest notion what they were playing for this evening. She’d rather not be forced to marry a fool with such vices, yet rumor had already begun its vicious spin through the ton. Fortunately, her family was not in London to witness her descent from grace. Her father would have had no choice but to see her wed to that man.

The heavens had been merciful in that regard.

Which made Mrs. Dove-Lyon her only choice. And the widow had promised her the best solution for her current situation: a husband who would be willing, discreet, and, most importantly, indifferent enough to leave her to her life in peace.

Alyssia couldn’t ask for more.

“Don’t look so morose, my dear,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said, stepping up beside her, the woman’s presence as commanding as ever despite the soft fall of the veil over her face.

“I was merely thinking,” Alyssia murmured on a sigh.

“About your future husband.”

“About how he will be a nincompoop.”

Mrs. Dove-Lyon chuckled. “All men are.”

“That’s not encouraging.”

“My dear, not much of the life of a woman is. That is why we require courage to take the life we want if we aren’t fortunate enough to have it handed to us.”

“I suppose that is true.” To the extent that women could take.

“So don’t worry too much about your husband-to-be,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon advised. “Fate might just remind us of its charm tonight. Trust the instinct that brought you to me.”

Lawd. What did that mean?

“My instinct says to run.” Fast and far, and very far away.

A slight laugh escaped Mrs. Dove-Lyon. Some happy turn must have set the woman in such humor. “And yet here you remain. Do not sell yourself short at a scandalous discount.”

That made Alyssia smile.

“I’m here for my family, as you know.” Especially for her younger sister. She could not allow her sister’s reputation to be harmed by her mistakes. She had to protect her at all costs. Any cost.

Happiness be damned.

“As it should be.” Mrs. Dove-Lyon inclined her head toward the tables below. “Now, watch closely. Whoever wins unknowingly gains your hand, except for one. One of them wagers for you. Knows he gains you. Plays for you.”

Alyssia breath caught, her gaze flicking over the men at the table one by one. “One of them knows? How? Did someone catch wind of my plan? Or perhaps see me?”

“I believe this was by chance,” the widow said simply. “Or fate.”

That word again.

What a trap of rubbish. Likely invented by some poet eager to charm a lady into his bed. However, as if mocked by that very word, she’d scarcely finished the thought before her gaze snagged on one man seated slightly apart from the others. Almost as though they repulsed him. She’d spotted him earlier when he’d stood off to the side of the room but hadn’t paid him any attention, denying the inexplicable pull tempting her to glance back and let her eyes linger upon him.

She hadn’t given in to the urge then. Now, she could.

And she did.

The man was leaner than most, his dark coat cut impeccably, shoulders relaxed as if the noise didn’t touch him. Anyone would think him a man at ease in chaos, but Alyssia recognized the thin layer of danger that cloaked him. Gunpowder in a barrel, one ember from roaring into flame.

Something about him . . .

Enthralled her.

Not his countenance, though there was something compelling in the strong lines of his face and the way a stray lock of brown hair fell across his brow. The man was certainly handsome from a distance. But his profound focus, more striking than any feature, set him apart. While everyone else messily caroused, he simply watched, eyes hooded, his expression unreadable.

A predator in a den of predators.

Mrs. Dove-Lyon seemed to have followed Alyssia’s line of sight, for she said, “Ah. That’s the one, my dear.”

The one? The one who played for her? “You know him?”

“Of course.” There was a slight pause before the widow answered, “Giles Bishop.”

The name struck her squarely in her breast.

Giles Bishop.

The missing heir to the Duke of Winterbourne.

The more she looked at him, the more his face merged with that of a young boy. A boy she’d dreamed about night after night once upon a time.

So, he was alive.

She’d heard the whispers that every so often spread through the gossip parlors. Whispers of him being long dead. Whispers of him living in hiding. Whispers of him one day returning.

Hopeless.

Useless.

Whispers.

What on earth were the odds? No wonder Mrs. Dove-Lyon spoke of fate. Everyone had known about the engagement of the Duke of Winterbourne’s heir and the Duke of Ashdown’s daughter. That they both should be here at the same time . . .

Why would he play for her?

The man must have remained hidden for a reason, and if that were case, would he not be exposing himself by doing this? Lord have mercy, she didn’t know how to feel encountering him after twelve years. The betrothal promise had long since dissolved between her and the boy she’d adored more than anything. She’d made peace with the past. And yet, there he held his place, as if the years between then and now had been nothing but a bad dream. That boy she’d held dear had vanished, replaced by this hard-edged stranger who looked carved from steel. And perhaps a bit of sin.

She could never allow herself to be drawn in again.

Alyssia straightened her spine and fixed her gaze on the game, which appeared to involve drinking something vile. Her pulse, on the other hand, the traitorous thing, refused to obey and settle down.

What if he won?

Her position didn’t allow for pickiness.

She cast a quick glance at Mrs. Dove-Lyon, suddenly aghast. “Are you sure he knows he’s playing for my hand?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said. “He joined the moment he pieced together the reason for your presence.”

Had all sense of order finally deserted the world?

One by one, each of the men at the table took turns rolling the dice. The game had begun.

Alyssia’s stomach knotted.

One of those men would be her husband.

It could be him.

Please, let it not be him.

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