Fall of the Lyon Read online

  Fall of the Lyon

  The Lyon’s Den Connected World

  Chasity Bowlin

  © Copyright 2020 by Chasity Bowlin

  Text by Chasity Bowlin

  Cover by Wicked Smart Designs

  Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.

  P.O. Box 7968

  La Verne CA 91750

  [email protected]

  Produced in the United States of America

  First Edition August 2020

  Kindle Edition

  Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.

  All Rights Reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work. For subsidiary rights, contact Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.

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  Thank you for your support of a small press. At Dragonblade Publishing, we strive to bring you the highest quality Historical Romance from the some of the best authors in the business. Without your support, there is no ‘us’, so we sincerely hope you adore these stories and find some new favorite authors along the way.

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  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Chasity Bowlin

  The Lyon’s Den Connected World

  Fall of the Lyon

  The Hellion Club Series

  A Rogue to Remember

  Barefoot in Hyde Park

  What Happens in Piccadilly

  Sleepless in Southhampton

  When an Earl Loves a Governess

  The Duke’s Magnificent Obsession

  The Governess Diaries

  The Lost Lords Series

  The Lost Lord of Castle Black

  The Vanishing of Lord Vale

  The Missing Marquess of Althorn

  The Resurrection of Lady Ramsleigh

  The Mystery of Miss Mason

  The Awakening of Lord Ambrose

  A Midnight Clear (A Novella)

  Hyacinth

  Other Lyon’s Den Books

  Into the Lyon’s Den by Jade Lee

  The Scandalous Lyon by Maggi Andersen

  Fed to the Lyon by Mary Lancaster

  The Lyon’s Lady Love by Alexa Aston

  The Lyon’s Laird by Hildie McQueen

  The Lyon Sleeps Tonight by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  A Lyon in Her Bed by Amanda Mariel

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Publisher’s Note

  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Chasity Bowlin

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Prologue

  A small estate near Horsham, February, 1814

  The room was dimly lit, only the light from the fire and a single candle offered any relief from the imposing darkness. Nearly hidden in the confines of the large tester bed, his frail body draped with quilts and coverlets to ward off the chill, the man coughed.

  Getting up from her chair near the fire, Miss Margaret Upshaw crossed the small distance to her stepfather’s side. Sir William Ashby had been the only father she had known in her life. He’d married her mother when she was but a girl and had cared for her as if she were his own daughter. In truth, he’d been far better to her than that. And now, as he lay dying, there was little she could do to see to his comfort. But each task that presented itself, she accepted readily as a show of both her gratitude and her love.

  Reaching for the cup of water near his bed, she helped him to sit and lifted it to his lips. He drank deeply and then fell back once more, gasping for air.

  “You must drink… and eat,” she said softly. “You can’t possibly get well otherwise.”

  “My sweet, Meg, I’m not getting well. We both know that,” he said grimly. There was no pity in his voice. It was a simple statement of fact and the truth of it rang in that room like a bell.

  “We don’t need to talk about that now,” she said, smoothing the covers over him. Perhaps it was cowardice on her part, but she couldn’t quite face the idea of being alone in the world. Not alone. Worse than alone.

  “We do, my girl. We must. You cannot stay here, Meg. I’m hanging by the slimmest thread… and the moment I’ve breathed my last, you know what your uncle will do,” he warned her.

  She did know. It had been made abundantly clear what Uncle Roger’s plans for her were. He would see her wed to his own son, Neville, regardless of her consent. And as she was not yet one and twenty, they would ensure that no other suitable candidates for the role of husband would be permitted near her. They would make her a prisoner in her own home and the price of her freedom would be marriage to a horrid wretch of a man and access to her fortune.

  “It will be fine,” she lied.

  “Yes, it will,” her stepfather said. “Sheridan Hall will go to your uncle… I can’t do anything to stop that! You must be beyond his reach before that happens.” He spoke so forcefully at the end that it prompted a violent fit of coughing.

  She knew that. She’d known it and been dreading it for months. He’d invaded that house as insidiously as consumption had invaded her stepfather’s body.

  When at least he could speak again, his voice was raspy and much weaker than before. “I’ve made arrangements with the coachman. There are but a handful of servants who remain that can be trusted. He’s one. You mind him! You will slip from the house at just after midnight. He will see you to London and to the address that I’ve given him. Your maid has been instructed to tell everyone in the house that you are ill and the housekeeper will help with the subterfuge. Between the two of them, they will ferry items to and from your room as needed to give credence to that illusion.”

  Her heart was racing at the thought of it, pounding in her chest as dread blossomed inside her. “I can’t leave you! I won’t,” she said sharply. “Do not ask that of me. Not now.”

  He took her hand, holding it with as much strength as he could muster. That his grip was still painfully light spoke volumes about his remaining time. “I’m not asking, Meg. I’m o
rdering. You’ve been willful all your life and, heaven help me, I’ve let you. I’ve gloried in your headstrong, high-spirited ways and took more pride in both than I should have. But in this instance, you must obey me. If you do not, all will be for naught.”

  “But you would be alone,” she protested. It was something she couldn’t bear. They had so little time left as it was, to give up more of it willingly seemed the worst sort of abandonment for the man who’d raised her.

  “My dear, we all die alone. This room could be filled to the rafters and still I would be alone… but with you far from this place and far from that wicked man’s grasp, at least I can die in peace.” His voice was growing weaker by the moment, every word becoming a struggle for him.

  There was a long moment of silence, one where Meg fought with herself, warred within herself at what he was asking of her. But in the end, she couldn’t deny him even if it made her heart ache. “Where are you sending me?”

  “To The Lyon’s Den. Mrs. Bessie Dove-Lyon has been instructed in what needs to occur… you have only to go to her and she will have everything in readiness for you,” he finished weakly, the last words so low she had to lean forward to hear them.

  “I love you, Papa,” she said, fighting tears.

  “And I love you, my Long-Meg,” he said, calling her the age-old nickname from her childhood. “Remember, Meggie, always look for the treasure inside. Don’t forget that! Promise me!”

  Meg frowned at that. But it wasn’t the first time he’d said things that were odd or nonsensical. The more ill he became, the more frequently those incidents occurred. But it had never simply slipped into the middle of a conversation, lucid one moment and confused the next. Those sorts of slips of his mind were normally reserved for the moments when he was just waking or when he was drifting off to sleep. It scared her but she didn’t want to upset him further. “I won’t forget.”

  “Good. Good. It’s important! Now, go and rest, my dear. Make a production of it. Let the whole household believe that caring for me has left you in a state of exhaustion. It’s the only way.”

  Margaret leaned forward and gently hugged the man who had raised her, who had been her father, and in the ensuing years since her mother’s passing had filled that role as well. He’d taught her to ride, to dance, to paint and play piano. He was a gentle soul and, even now, hovering on the brink of his own death, he was still taking care of her. And the thing he asked of her, that she should desert him now, was nigh to impossible. “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “It’s only for a while, my girl… I’ll always be with you, you know?”

  A loud knock sounded upon the door and Margaret rose as it simply burst open and her uncle, Roger Snead, entered the room. He paid no heed to the door slamming against the wall. He looked at them and, with cruel twist of his lips, said, “If one didn’t know you were too weak for such pursuits, Ashby, this might look quite improper.”

  “I never gave you leave to enter,” William said flatly. But there was a thinness to his voice that belied any real hint of authority. He was too weak to rise from the bed any longer and they all knew it.

  Roger, her stepfather’s half-brother, had moved in, along with his son, Neville, nearly six months earlier, in the beginning stages of Sir William’s illness. In those first months, Roger’s presence had been a godsend. He’d taken over many tasks related to the management of the estate that William was simply too weak to attend to and that, because of her sex, Meg’s authority would have been challenged at every turn. But the weaker William became, the more Roger began to undermine his place as the head of their household, the more he managed to finagle control of the household away from them all together. Loyal servants had been dismissed for reasons that were suspect at best and then replaced with people who would blindly do whatever Roger Snead asked and who would willfully turn a blind eye to any misdeeds committed by him and his son. It had been nothing short of a coup de grâce.

  “Well, get up and toss me out then… oh, you can’t,” Snead finished with a laugh. “No worries. I’m not staying. I simply needed to see if you’d shuffled off the mortal coil yet.”

  “Get out,” Meg said. “You vile, cretinous oaf! Get out!”

  Snead grinned, displaying large and very yellowed teeth. “I’ll go. But I do think I like this room. Mayhap after you have finally breathed your last, I’ll take it for myself… after it’s been cleaned, of course. Never could abide the smell of death.”

  He turned then, walking away once more and slamming the door behind him.

  “Please don’t make me leave you here with him,” Meg whispered.

  “Please do not make me die worrying what will become of you when I’m gone! Do as I’ve asked of you, Meg. Please?”

  She nodded, fighting back tears as she rose. “I’ll do it. But I hate him… I hate him for making it necessary. And I hate England and its stupid laws that make me little better than property to be passed from one male relation to the next!”

  He sighed. “I hate them, too, my girl. More than you know.”

  Chapter One

  “I may have solved your little problem, Amberley.”

  Leander Thurston-Hunter, Viscount Amberley, looked up from the cards before him. They were of no great consequence at any rate. He was losing rapidly. But he wasn’t at The Lyon’s Den to win at cards, luckily for him. He was there looking for bigger winnings with Mrs. Bessie Dove-Lyon’s other business that she ran in conjunction with her gaming hell. He’d let it be known to her several weeks earlier that he was in the market for a wealthy bride and that he couldn’t afford to be picky. That meant his options ran to the rich but ugly, or the equally rich but ruined.

  Leo didn’t necessarily relish the thought of bedding a woman who was too homely to get a husband any other way or of another man’s child inheriting his title, but he was less fond of the idea of watching the vastness of his family’s holdings crumble under the weight of impending bankruptcy while his half-sisters scrimped and suffered in genteel poverty. His father had overextended himself with gambling, with spending lavishly on his stepmother and he had been too engrossed in his passionate love of antiquities to notice. Now, they hovered on the brink of ruin while he had a country house filled with priceless artifacts, that were he to start selling them off willy-nilly, would mark him a beggar. Nothing prompted low bids at Christie’s quite like the stench of desperation.

  “I’m done for, gentleman,” he said, extricating himself from the game. “Play on.”

  “Pity,” one snorted. “I was enjoying taking your money.”

  What little there was of it. With a tight smile, he pushed his chair back, “Mrs. Dove-Lyon, I am eager to hear your proposition.”

  “My office, Amberley. This is a delicate matter,” she said with a cagey smile.

  He grinned as he got up and followed her, his gait slightly hitched. It was a good day for him, and to that end, he carried the silver-handled walking stick rather than leaning heavily upon it. There were days he was all but dependent upon it, but they were thankfully becoming fewer. It had been a pistol ball that had nearly ended his life and had left him with a permanent limp. It had also brought an abrupt end to his plans of a long and storied military career. His recovery had been long and arduous. But his convalescence had introduced him to his other great love in life—antiquities. In fact, he’d brought dozens of artifacts home with him. For the last decade, he’d devoted himself to the study and documentation of provenance of such items. Because he would be nothing but a hindrance in the field, he thought bitterly.

  Still, there was little point dwelling on the past. He was in good company, after all, with the always sparkling Mrs. Dove-Lyon. She was intelligent, understood precisely how the world worked, and possessed an acerbic wit that he found to be utterly delightful. In short, if she’d been a score or so younger in years and inclined to share her considerable wealth with him, he’d have married her in a heartbeat.

  Climbing the stairs, careful not
to tread on Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s gold-embellished skirts, he followed her into her elegantly appointed office. In truth, save for the writing desk littered with papers and a shelf lined neatly with leather-bound ledgers and another bearing the back catalog of infamous betting books, it might have passed for an intimate boudoir. “Is this where you entertain all your guests, Mrs. Dove-Lyon?”

  She smiled at him, a hint of coquettishness in it. “No. But I like you, Amberley. In many ways, you remind me of late husband. He almost left me with nothing, you know? But I managed to salvage it all quite nicely.”

  “In all fairness, Mrs. Dove-Lyon,” he said softly, “I’m hardly a wastrel. There was very little left to squander… and I was hoping my rather desperate gamble would pay off.” His wager related to a missing brooch and, with that wager, Lord Byrn had effectively wiped out all that remained of his actual wealth. The truth was, times were desperate. In another month, he wouldn’t even be able to pay the servants. Considering that most of them had been hired under the auspices of his stepmother, they would hardly remain out of any sense of loyalty or duty to the family. The very notion of it was laughable. “My father made some very grave errors that left the family with what could only be described as tenuous footing, at best.”

  “Well, yes… your father was making very poor decisions at the end of his life. I stopped allowing him to place bets here, you know? It’s one thing to take the money of an inveterate gambler. It’s quite another when the person has—well there is no way to put it delicately, is there?”

  “Gone utterly mad?” Leo offered. It was an apt description. At the end of his father’s life, according to all the accounts that had been shared with him, the man had been unable to recognize a soul. He hadn’t known his own children or his oldest friends. According to those who had been close to him, there had been points when he’d been unable to even tell anyone his own name. Heaven only knew how long it had been going on. For his part, he’d been banished from his father’s house for years and his younger half-sisters had been forbidden contact with him under the firm and unforgiving hand of his stepmother. She’d cut him out as effectively and as ruthlessly as a field surgeon.