Lyon’s Den Connected World

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A little mouse of a heroine in WIP Wednesday

Thrown to the Lyon is beginning to gel in my mind.

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Dorcas Kent hoisted the heavy bag of linens and embroidery thread a little higher on her shoulder. Short as she was, it was hard to keep the bag from brushing the ground, which would be bad enough on any day, but worse when three days of heavy rain had turned the streets into a swamp of mud, dirty water, and other far more noxious substances.

She had walked to the drapery warehouse as soon as the sun had peeped through the clouds. Even if she had had the coins to spare, she was unwilling to risk the table linens she had embroidered in the filthy interior of a hackney. Mr. McMillan would dock the price of damaged linens from her wages and would, moreover, refuse to pay for any work she had done on them. Mr. McMillan was the man who employed her to apply family crests, monograms, or whatever motif buyers desired onto the household linens he supplied.

That was also why she was walking home, keeping one wary eye on the gathering clouds.

She carried two weeks or more of work and therefore a month’s rent, and food on the table for at least part of that month. The loss of even a set of table napkins could leave her destitute. Scraping the bag in the mud would be a disaster. Rain before she reached her room would be a disaster.

So, she readjusted the handle for the umpteenth time and trudged on.

Disaster came looking for her just as she rested for a moment against a stone water trough set a little back from the footpath. She had her back against the trough and the precious bag clasped to her belly as she looked idly at the passersby and wished that she did not have so far to walk.

People must have rushed out to enjoy the brief sunshine, for both road and footpath were crowded. One lady caught her eye. She was clad in deep black, and a veil fell from her bonnet to cover her veil. Dorcas found herself wondering about the widow. Did the heavy mourning represent the truth or a social lie?

Dorcas had worn black for Michael, and then again for Noah. Not, however, quite like the lady she observed. She smiled at the very idea. It was like comparing a sparrow and a peacock—her in her hastily dyed everyday gowns and the clearly wealthy lady who was picking her way cautiously around a puddle in her expensive and fashionable sails and velvets.

The lady was just walking past Dorcas when someone dashed out from the shadows and pushed her, so that she stumbled into the street, right into the path of an approaching carriage.

Dorcas was barely aware of the assailant running away and was not conscious at all of casting her bag down and hurling herself after the lady. She didn’t think, but grabbed a double handful of the lady’s redincote and swung her around, just before the horses, snorting and stamping, reached their position.

For one horrid moment, she lost her own balance as the carriage raced towards her. Then hard hands grabbed her, pulling her to safety. And the lady in black, too, she noticed as a tall strong man with hard eyes set her on her feet, and another did the same for the widow. The carriage had driven on by, the driver hurling imprecations over his shoulder.

“How can I ever repay you?” The widow held her hands out to Dorcas. “You saved me from serious injury, at the very least. Titan, did you see who pushed me?”

“No, Mrs. Dove Lyon,” said the man who had caught the lady. “I’ve sent a man after him, but he was fast on his feet.”

“And you, Miss?” Mrs. Dove Lyon asked Dorcas.

“Mrs.,” Dorcas commented. “And no, all I saw was his back as he gave you a shove.”

“Mrs…?” Mrs. Dove Lyon asked.

It was at that moment that Dorcas remembered her bag. “Kent,” she replied absentminded as she looked for the bag. Her heart quailed when she saw it lying on the edge of a puddle. “My linens!” she moaned.

Sure enough, when she picked up the bag, she could see that one corner was completely saturated in muddy water.

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Spotlight on Hook, Lyon and Sinker

Hook, Lyon and Sinker

When Lady Laureline Barker asks Mrs. Dove Lyons to find her a husband, she does not expect one of her choices to be the man she admired years ago, when she was still a schoolgirl—the man who rescued her from drowning. He is also a war hero, famed for trading his own freedom and health for the safety of others.

Laurel is committed to a contest, with the winner taking her and her dowry. Can she back out? And will he still want her if she does?

Angelico Warrington doesn’t expect Laurel to remember him. Even if she does, why should she favor him over other suitors? She is the respected sister to an earl, the only flaw on her reputation that she refused to marry a jerk who has been putting off the wedding date for five years.

Angel is a musician in a gambling den, unable to walk without crutches, and with no place in the Society to which Laurel belongs.

This apparently ill-assorted couple are a perfect match, but history must repeat itself and secrets be revealed before they can win their happy ending.

Preorder price only 99c. Published this coming Wednesday. https://www.amazon.com/Hook-Lyon-Sinker-Lyons-Den-ebook/dp/B0CSF79RMD

Excerpt:

One of Titan’s men came to tell Carter and Angel that the first contest was about to start. While they had been talking, some of the servants had rolled out a large square piece of furniture. Angel couldn’t imagine its purpose until he approached closely enough to see that it was an open-topped box about ten feet across. It was lined with something that must be impervious to liquid, for the box was full of water almost to the top. A score or more toy ships sailed on the surface.

“Gentlemen,” said Titan, “if you will take your places, please.” He directed Angel to one side of the box, and Carter to the opposite side. Angel picked up the sling he found waiting for him. The bowl full of smooth blue stones told him what the game comprised before Titan explained.

Carter’s stones were red, Angel noticed. Half a dozen gentlemen took their places along the remaining sides of the tank, and two of Mrs. Dove Lyons men stood flanking each of the players.

Other gentlemen crowded in behind the spotters, though several of Titan’s wolves kept them back from behind Carter and Angel.

Then Titan said, “Go,” and Angel picked up his sling, fitted a stone, and hurled it at a ship. It was harder than it appeared. For one thing, it took considerable force to sink a ship. For another, any lesser hit sent the target careening across the water, rocking the other ships and setting them sailing in unexpected directions. All that movement started waves, which complicated matters still further.

The watchers roared when a lucky shot from Angel sank an already-damaged ship, and again a few moments later, presumably for Carter, though Angel was not about to take his eye from his current target.

As he continued to launch stones, someone came to fill the bowl. Was he getting better? He had the impression he was sinking ships more rapidly, but perhaps it was just that time had slowed as he slung stone after stone, not pausing to see the effect, but moving on the next.

Every now and again, though, another stone hit a ship he was aiming for just before or after his own. If the ship sank, the spotters yelled out the name of the man who was responsible. Twice, there was a dispute, but Angel didn’t allow that to distract him, either.

Then Titan shouted, “Time! Put down your slings, gentlemen.”

Angel replaced his sling on the side of the box and looked across the water to Carter, who nodded and smiled. Angel had no idea whether he or Carter had won. He returned the nod and the smile. Carter was a decent man.

Angel’s eyes drifted up to the ladies’ gallery, where Laurel stood, watching the first of the contests that would decide her fate. Carter was a decent man, but he wanted a mother for his daughters.

Laurel deserved more. She deserved a man who adored her.

 

 

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The Talons of a Lyon is free from 11th to 15th March

I’m at the readers’ club on Facebook from March 11th to March 15th, posting several times a day, and talking about my A Twist Upon a Regency Tale series, fairy and folk tales, and other topics that may come up. Come and ask your questions or have your say. I’d love to see you. Book of the week is The Talons of a Lyon, and it will be free for the week. If I can figure out the technology, there’ll be a live chat about the book towards the end of the week.

It’s a public group, and has a Dragonblade author every week. Do join us.

Collect the free book here: https://books2read.com/TToaL

Find the group here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/274839866984258

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A bold move in WIP Wednesday

I do like a bold lady–one who decides what she wants and goes for it. That’s Laurel, my heroine in Hook, Lyon and Sinker, which I’m currently writing for publication next year. Not that she has always stood up for herself. She had allowed first her betrothed, then her father, then her mother to talk her into maintaining her betrothal, despite the number of times the man who promised to marry her changes his mind about the date. No more! She has given him the shove and is about to arrange her own marriage.

Mrs Dove Lyon was not as Laurel had imagined her. Laurel had expected someone garishly painted and indiscreetly clad in gaudy colours. After all, she ran a gambling establishment which also offered other sorts of entertainment of the most scandalous kind.

The person who joined Laurel was clothed all in black and veiled. Her garb would not have looked out of place on the most dignified of Society’s fashionable matrons, and was far less revealing than many gowns worn by such august ladies. Her language and carriage too, as she invited Laurel to sit and asked her preference for beverage, were those of a lady.

The knowledge comforted Laurel. Perhaps this desperate scheme might work after all.

Once Laurel had her tea, Mrs Dove Lyon came directly to the point, without any polite roundabation. “Why have you asked to see me, my lady? Do you wish for me to find you a husband?”

Blunt and to the point. Also surprising, for Laurel had agreed to Benjamin’s request that the broken betrothal should not be made public just yet. Laurel thought he wanted to give Tiber time to talk Laurel into reversing her decision, as she had last time, but it suited her to keep the gossips at bay for a week or so.

Her hostess must have guessed at her thoughts, because she said, “Lord Tiberius was here last night, and he is indiscreet when in his cups. Most of the gentlemen present will now be spreading the news that you have jilted him. Mind you, this is to your advantage, for he was bemoaning his own stupidity in putting off the wedding once again. And making it clear that his chiefest regret was losing your dowry.”

She deepened her voice and spoke again in a tone so reminiscent of Tiber’s that Laurel would have guessed she was quoting the dastard even if she hadn’t heard words very like them the previous afternoon.

“It’s not that I’m not fond of the lady. She is pretty enough and good company. I just never wanted to be married. If her dowry wasn’t so attractive, I’d never have proposed, and I’ve never needed her money enough to actually go through with the wedding. If only she was a placid biddable little thing. I could have planted my babe in her belly and then ignored her. But Laurel is too strong-minded for my tastes. Chaste, too. Never would let me steal more than a kiss, dammit. If she had, I could force her to have me. Still. I am going to miss her dowry.”

“Tiber has done me a favour, then,” Laurel realised. “He is wrong that I would marry him under any circumstances whatsoever, but at least he has made it clear that I am not…”

The other lady nodded. “Not used goods? Exactly. So your errand to me may be unnecessary, Lady Laureline. You can take your time and choose a husband in the usual way, since Lord Tiberius had taken all the blame to himself and by the end of the week all of Society will know that the pair of you did not avail yourself of the license usually extended to a betrothed couple.”

Not much license. Not when Tiber had been away from London on military duties for much of their betrothal and spent as little time with Laurel as he could when he was in London. Not when her father had insisted on her being as closely chaperoned after the betrothal agreement as she was before. Not, furthermore, when she had had doubts about the relationship for the past three years.

“You are free to go,” Mrs Dove Lyons insisted, “if that is what you wish.”

Laurel shook her head. “No,” she said. “It is not.”

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Tea with two quiet little girls

The hostesses of today’s afternoon tea were very serious about the proceedings. Miss Frogmore had charge of the teapot. Miss Helena Frogmore was charged with carrying each cup carefully to its intended recipient. She did it very well, though holding the tip of one’s tongue in one’s teeth as an aid to concentration was not a common sight in most drawing rooms. However, this was the nursery and Helena was only five years old, two years younger than the sister who was pouring the lemonade.

The guests were very grand: two duchesses and a baron. Mind you, the baron was not yet a year old, and one of the duchesses had him on her knee, ready to feed him his drink–which was lemonade–from a tea spoon.

Her Grace the Duchess of Winshire thought they made a pretty picture, her daughter-in-law and the infant. She prayed that the Duchess of Haverford, her son’s beloved Cherry, would be blessed one day with a child of her own, but no one looking at her clucking over the little boy would know how much she longed to fill her own cradles.

When Eleanor Winshire received the invitation to visit, she had not expected to be whisked up to the nursery floor, and entertained with lemonade and shortbread in the schoolroom. Cherry had explained. Baron Frogmore and his two sisters needed a safe place to stay, and Cherry had agreed to provide sanctuary. Tomorrow, the children’s mother was appearing in court to argue that their current guardian had no right to the place, and was abusing the trust put in him by the courts. Eleanor hoped she would win, for the wicked man had taken the children from their widowed mother, who was a delightful young woman.

If necessary, her son was going to petition the courts to be made guardian in place of the usurper, but he and Cherry hoped for a different outcome. Either way, the dear little children would have their mother back, for the Haverfords would bring Seraphina Frogmore to live with them, if need be. But Anthony and Cherry hoped Lady Frogmore would marry again, to a gentleman respected throughout the ton. Eleanor would not have believed it if she had not seen it with her own eyes. She had thought Lord Lancelot Versey to be a confirmed bachelor. However, it was clear to anyone who saw them together, that he was head over heels for the widowed baroness.

Eleanor accepted a second cup from Helena. How lovely to assist, not only in reuniting a family, but in promoting a romance.

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In The Talons of a Lyon, Lance Versey kidnaps the three Frogmore children from the wicked couple who are attempting to abduct them from London, and takes them to the Duchess of Haverford. Here’s an excerpt from the story.

The house was so large, it took several minutes to reach the duchess’s private sitting room. Haverford poked his head around the door, and said, “I have some visitors for you, my love.” He opened the door wider, and ushered Seraphina’s two little girls in. Lance followed.

Haverford stopped the servants at the door. “Please take a chair while you wait,” he told them, and closed the door in their faces.

Lance bowed to the duke’s wife. “Your Grace, I apologize for calling unannounced.”

The duke said, “Lance has, I deduce, come for our help to hide his crimes. He has stolen Lady Frogmore’s children back from their wicked uncle.”

Helena tugged on Lance’s coat. “Have you? Are you going to give us back to Mama?” She had removed her bonnet, and the blonde plaits that confined her hair had tumbled down.

As if of their own volition, his arms tightened on little Harry, and the boy wriggled. Lance made himself relax. He did not need to protect the children against all comers. Not here in the duchess’s private sitting room.

The duchess will have them, will she not? He raised his eyebrows in question, and Her Grace exchanged glances with her husband and then nodded.

“Will we have to wait for very long?” Hannah asked, her voice girlish but her question suprisingly mature.  “Harry needs her. We tell him about her every night after the governess goes to bed, but I think he has forgotten her.”

“You shall see her soon,” Haverford declared. “You do not appear to be worried about Lord Lancelot kidnapping you, young ladies.”

Helena shrugged. “We recognized him. He is the man who comes every morning to the park with Mama.  She used to hide behind the bushes, so sad.” She drooped her shoulders and poked out a trembling lower lip to illustrate. “We would slow down as much as we dared, but Miss Brant, the governess, would hit us with her switch if we did not keep walking. I do not think Miss Brant ever saw her.”

Hannah nodded, and commented, “Then Lord Lance started bringing her, and soon she was not so sad.”

Helena continued. “Miss Brant said we would never see Mama again, but we saw her every day. Miss Brant said she had forgotten us, but we knew she had not. We knew she was afraid of Miss Brant and Uncle Marcus, so we did not tell them she came to watch us. When you helped us into the coach today—” she smiled up at Lance— “we knew Mama sent you. I am so glad. I like you, Lord Lance.”

Lance had a lump in his throat which needed to be swallowed before he could reply. A welcome interruption allowed him time to recover. Little Lord Harry struggled to be put down, and then set off at great speed across the floor, not so much crawling as wriggling like a caterpillar. His destination was a kitten, who had just stepped out from behind the duchess’s couch. The kitten, alarmed perhaps by the intent look in Lord Harry’s eyes, shot up one of the curtains, and Harry stopped, hoisted himself into a sitting position, and looked balefully around the room as if the kitten’s escape must be someone else’s fault.

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Spotlight on The Talons of a Lyon

Published this Wednesday

The death of Lady Frogmore’s neglectful and disloyal husband should have been a relief. But then her nasty brother-in-law seizes her three children and turns her out, telling the whole of Society that she is a crude, vulgar, loose woman. Without allies or friends, Serafina, Lady Frogmore, turns to Mrs. Dove Lyon, also known as the Black Widow of Whitehall for help, paying her with a promise to grant whatever favor Mrs Dove Lyon asks.

Lord Lancelot Versey has always tried to be a perfect gentleman, and a gentleman honors his debts, even when an unwise wager obliges him to escort a notorious widow into Society. But Lady Frogmore is not what he expects, and helping her becomes a quest worthy of the knight for whom he was named.

Except Mrs. Dove Lyon calls in Seraphina’s promise. The favor she asks might destroy all they have found together.

https://amzn.to/3YVLvPt

Excerpt

Lance was early. He hoped it would give him an advantage of some kind to be here when the notorious baroness arrived. It was only when the solemn little schoolroom party had passed him that he noticed the dark shadow in the bushes.

For a moment, his mind had teamed with thoughts of kidnappers and thieves, but then a woman in widow’s weeds had stepped from the bushes to stare longingly after the retreating children and their servants.

Surely it was no coincidence that the two little girls were also in black? Then he saw the splash of white on the woman’s chest. He knew who she must be. She did not look coarse or vulgar, although all he could really see was her face, a sweet oval of a face with large brown eyes and a delicately molded nose, mouth, and chin.

He had not expected to have any sympathy for her after the rumors he had heard, but the longing on her face as she watched the girls march meekly away spoke to something within him. Perhaps Frogmore was correct to refuse to allow the woman to raise her children, but this scene went beyond that.

Surely, nothing she had done was bad enough to justify forcing her to hide in a bush so she could watch the two daughters she loved walk by? Having seen her face, he could not doubt that she loved them, and the unseen baby in the baby carriage. A little boy, or so he understood. The current Lord Frogmore, born a month after the death of his father.

If for no other reason than the comfort of the children, the mother should be allowed at least supervised meetings.

He walked toward her. His first impression of her delicacy was confirmed when he towered over her by nearly a foot. “Allow me to introduce myself,” he said, with a shallow bow. “I am Lancelot Versey.”

She blinked away the tears that were standing in her eyes, composing her expression into a blank, and curtseyed in return. “Lord Versey, I am Seraphina Frogmore.”

“Lord Lancelot,” he corrected. Had she never heard of him? “I am the second son of the Duke of Dellborough.”

“I beg your pardon,” she responded, without any of the admiring looks he was accustomed to receiving. “I did not realize. Lord Lancelot, then. Thank you for coming to meet me.”

He bowed again, considering that it might be ungracious to say he had not been given a choice.

He supposed he should ask what she wanted of him. “Were those your daughters?” he blurted.

She glanced along the path where the girls had recently walked. “My two little darlings,” she confirmed, a smile transforming her face. “Hannah and Helena. Hannah is the eldest, and very responsible.” The smile faded and her eyes clouded with worry. “Helena is a good girl, but full of life. I fear for her, Lord Lancelot. For them both, and for their little brother, who is in the baby carriage. That governess…” She shuddered.

Lance raised his brows. “Is she so awful? Governesses must sometimes be stern to teach the children in their charge.”

“Perhaps.” Her one word dripped with doubt. “But it is not her stern countenance that concerns me. It is the fact that she allows no play time, insists on lady-like behavior every minute of the day, hits the children’s hands with a ruler if they disobey or fidget or fail in any particular, and is doing her best to crush any joy out of them.” She was marching back and forth by the time she had finished this diatribe, her hands clenched into fists.

Lance was feeling an unwelcome surge of sympathy for the little girls, and for their mother. Who was, he had to remind himself, a disgraced woman and a merchant’s daughter.

“I do not see how this concerns me,” he said.

Lady Frogmore examined his face, searching for something she clearly did not find. “Thank you for coming, Lord Lancelot. I shall let Mrs. Dove Lyon know you are unsuitable.” She turned to walk away.

“What?” No one had ever called Lance unsuitable in his life. “But…” The woman was walking away. “Wait!”

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First Kiss on WIP Wednesday

The Talons of a Lyon, my first Lyon’s Den book, has just gone back to Dragonblade after I’ve made the changes suggested by Cynthia, the wonderful editor. I thought I’d share a first kiss with you.

His eyes focused on her lips, turned up towards him, and his mouth lowered almost without his volition. “I am going to kiss you, my love,” he warned her.

Seraphina said nothing, but lifted her mouth to meet his.

The first touch of their lips inflamed him, and he struggled to keep from hauling her against him. Her awkwardness helped him to retain his senses. She kissed like a complete novice, closed mouth, uncertain what to do.

He set out to teach her, showing her by example all the ways that two pair of lips could stroke and caress one another. “Open your mouth,” he invited, and swept his tongue inside. Aaah. The taste of her. Now he placed her hands on his chest, releasing his own to embrace her.

Not too fast, Lance. Not too much. Don’t frighten her.

Her tongue tentatively followed his, and his desire surged, almost overwhelming his control. “My love,” he gasped, pulling back to rest his forehead against hers.

The knock on the door gave them a split second’s warning, and then Elaine was in the room, followed by Barker and Mrs. Worthington.

Lance stood and assisted Seraphina to her feet. If her knees were as weak as his, she should probably sit down, but first, “Lady Frogmore has agreed to be my wife,” he announced.

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Introducing a character on WIP Wednesday

The reader’s first sight of a character is crucial. Here’s Seraphina Frogmore on her first appearance. She is my Frog Princess, turned into an outcast who lives on Pond Street on the edge of the slums. She is the heroine of The Talon’s of a Lyon, my Lyon’s Den connected world story, which is coming out in April.

Seraphina, Baroness Frogmore, hid behind some bushes in St. James’s Park so she could spy on two little girls while they walked—marched, almost—along the gravel path beside the pond, their eyes fixed longingly on a group of less regimented children who were feeding the ducks. She could not see the baby; only the baby carriage in which he was, presumably, asleep.

Helena, the younger of the two, took a step out of line towards the forbidden activity near the pond, and the stick the stern governess was carrying crashed down in front of her erring feet. She scurried back into line.

While the governess was still nodding her smug satisfaction, Hannah, the elder, touched her sister’s hand then whipped it back to her side just in time to miss another swipe with the stick.

Seraphina, trembling in her hiding place with the effort not to leap from the shrubs and wreak vengeance on the monstrous women, was comforted to know her brother-in-law and his minions had not yet broken the girls’ spirits or their love for one another.

Tears in her eyes, she watched them out of sight.

This was the fourth day she had seen them since she’d learned that they walked in St. James’s Park each morning. Each day was the same. A solemn little procession, with two nursemaids in the front, then another pushing the baby carriage, then Seraphina’s two black-clad daughters followed by the governess, with two footmen bringing up the rear.

Did her brother-in-law think that she would abscond with them if they were not well guarded? He was probably right, though the solicitor she had consulted had advised her to resist any such temptation.

“Until you can disprove the calumnies against your name, Lady Frogmore, any attempt to take the children will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and you will lose any chance of getting them back.”

Which left the other option. She needed to find a way to change Society’s opinion about her. As her solicitor had advised, “Your uncle has convinced people you are little better than a tavern wench, if you will excuse my bluntness, my lady. He says you are stupid, coarse, illiterate, and ill-mannered; a shopkeeper’s daughter unfit to have the care of your husband’s children. Anyone who meets you will see immediately that the charges are not true. Unfortunately, you have not been much in Society.”

Not, in fact, at all. Her husband Henry, Baron Frogmore, had said there was no need; that she would not enjoy it anyway, that he expected her to stay at home and keep his household. Meanwhile, he went to London for the Season and Leicester for the races and Brighton to wait upon Prinnie, all the while telling the stories his brother had exaggerated to steal her children.

Henry had liked to present himself as the handsome prince who had married the beggar maid. He’d never had much acquaintance with truth, justice, kindness or even a critical look in a mirror.

Her children were gone, and Seraphina needed to return to her lodgings to finish the chores she had been assigned in lieu of rental on her room. She had saved every penny to spend retaining the solicitor, only to find that following his advice was impossible.