“If you please, my lady,” Lily said, just as the clock on the mantel chimed the hour. “But I think we must get Lady Georgiana to the Lyon’s Den in time for the evening to begin.”
“Of course,” the older woman said. “Go on with you both. I’ll be eager to hear about the spectacle in the morning.”
At precisely seveno’clock, Tom and ten other gentlemen were led into the main gaming hell of the Lyon’s Den. Tables that were normally teeming with gentlemen trying their luck at games of chance were now repositioned to the far corners of the room. The center of the room was clear, except for ten chairs placed in a ring.
“What on earth is this?”
The question, which seemed to Tom equal parts wariness and curiosity, came from Mr. John Osbourne, who looked over the gaming floor with suspicion.
“I assume it is part of the first game,” Tom said, casting a glance around the room. Though the hour was too early for the more raucous activities he’d witnessed at the Lyon’s Den, a sizeable crowd had already gathered to watch. Above, in the private gallery, shielded from general view, were the three ladies who’d hired Mrs. Dove-Lyon to find them a husband.
Miss Mariah Morehouse was one of them. He couldn’t see her, of course, but when they’d met earlier in the garden, she’d made her intentions quite clear. She would make an excellent match, he’d decided almost instantly. She was handsome enough, seemed capable of carrying a conversation, and wanted absolutely nothing from him. Conveniently for him, he felt nothing except the most polite regard in return. She was connected, which would suit his family’s needs well enough. A marriage in name only, with the understanding of the production of heirs, seemed the most perfect solution to his predicament. She hadn’t demanded his heart, which suited him perfectly well, since he had none to give.
Even if the other two ladies sitting with Miss Morehouse were prettier, or somehow excited his body, he could not imagine they would suit any better.
As he walked through the crowd, he found himself searching for Georgiana, even though he knew no gentleladies were allowed in the main gallery. Perhaps it was simply shock at seeing her here earlier today that was playing a trick on him. What in the hell she was doing here he couldn’t begin to guess. He couldn’t imagine for a moment who had dared Georgiana Hawthorne, of all people, to come to a place like this. Where was her husband?
The idea of her husband kicked at Tom’s insides, and his mouth twisted at the thought, which was bloody ridiculous. Of course, she was married by now—she’d been promised to another man since she was in leading strings, according to Gabe.Tom chuckled bitterly to himself. The irony that she’d been bound to a man who would take his wife to a place as scandalous as the Lyon’s Den, given Georgie’s absolute devotion to her father’s rules—
The sound of a small gong dragged Tom’s attention back to the center of the room, where Mrs. Dove-Lyon stood on a small platform, flanked by two rather sturdy-looking fellows wearing the telltale uniforms of the establishment. She looked almost regal, like a dark queen presiding over her court.
“Gentlemen,” she said, her voice rising over the crowd, whose own voices fell to a murmur as she began, “welcome to round one of the marriage match.”
A round of applause and cheers rose from the corners of the gaming hell. She held up a hand, silencing them.
“Welcome to our first eleven participants.” She gestured to Tom and the others, acknowledging them with a nod. “By the end of the game, only six of you will move on to the next round.”
“I’m already nervous,” Osbourne murmured in Tom’s ear. “Though the odds are good enough I suppose.”
“This doesn’t look like charades at least,” another gentleman said, not bothering to disguise his relief. The chairs were facing outward toward the crowd.
“The game is a simple one,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon continued. “Before you are a ring of chairs. Above, there is a quartet. While the music plays, you will parade around the circle at whatever cadence feels natural to you. When the music stops, you must immediately find a seat.”
“But there are not enough chairs for all of us,” one of the gentlemen called out.
“Excellent observation, Mr. Lovett,” she said, and Tom could practically feel her amusement from behind the black lace of her veil. “Any gentleman left standing is out of the game. At the end of each round, another chair will be removed, and the musicwill start again, until there are six chairs—and six gentlemen remaining. The winners will be introduced to the ladies over some refreshments in the private gaming room.”
“Seems simple enough,” Tom said to the gentlemen standing nearby.
“In my experience, simple is often harder than it looks,” Mr. Osbourne replied, casting a rueful glance upward, toward the ladies’ gallery. “Are they going to be controlling the music, I wonder? Perhaps they are already deciding who amongst us should make it to the next round.”
Something about Mr. Osbourne’s question gave Tom pause. Though it was of course impossible to control completely, it was entirely possible that Mrs. Dove-Lyon would give the ladies the means to pause the quartet, allowing them the opportunity to influence who made it into a seat and ultimately, down the aisle. He’d hoped he’d made a good enough impression upon Miss Morehouse to dissuade such an action.
One of the staff, whom Tom recognized as a dealer from one of the card tables, motioned for the gentlemen to form a circle in front of the chairs while Mrs. Dove-Lyon addressed the crowd.
“If you have not laid your bets on this round,” she said, “you have a moment left before this round begins.”
Tom wanted to roll his eyes as he watched slips of paper being thrust into the hands of some of the Lyon’s Den’s dealers who were threading their way through the crowd. Only Mrs. Dove-Lyon would take an opportunity like this to take even more coin from an event which, he was quite sure, would keep the Lyon’s Den well stocked with the best food and drink in all of London for the foreseeable future.
“I am starting to have something of a sympathy for my poor horses,” Mr. Osbourne said, watching the frenetic betting happening around them.
Once the bets had been made, Mrs. Dove-Lyon held up her arm, a bright-red cloth dangling from between her fingers.
“When the music begins, you will move clockwise around the circle and continue until the music stops,” she said, her voice silencing the crowd once more. “When it does, you are to find a seat in the circle. The gentleman who remains standing is out.”
She waved the handkerchief, and as promised, music started playing from the gallery above. It was a lively tune, and after a few awkward steps, the contestants began circling the chairs. The whole thing felt silly, which Tom imagined was part of the spectacle. He’d marched up and down the Spanish countryside more times than he could recall, and while that had been punctuated by moments of terror, the monotony was remarkably similar. After the fourth—or was it the fifth—time circling the chairs, Tom’s mind began to wander.
The music stopped.