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They turned into St. James’s, the Den’s brick catching lamplight ahead. Sander’s stride checked—no stumble, a halt. The air sharpened.

“So many carriages?” he said, too low for anyone else.

Rosine followed his gaze. At least five stood in a tidy rank, lanterns banked; men in black coats stepped down in sync, hat brims narrow, boots polished to a warning. Two peeled off toward the alley. Another pair crossed to the front, one tapping a folded paper against his palm like a metronome. The line moved with the gleam and hush of money that expected doors to open.

The Den seemed different—breath caught behind velvet, wolves thinning into shadow. Someone signaled from the side passage; the quick flash of a hand, then nothing.

Her arm tightened around Sander’s. Play for keeps.

“Inspection,” one of the men called, not quite loud, very sure. A knuckle touched brass; the knocker lifted.

Sander’s palm covered the back of her hand, firm and warm. He didn’t pull her forward. He didn’t turn her away.

Run? Walk in like we belong? Choose.

She drew breath that tasted of coal and cinnamon and risk. “Sander,” she whispered, eyes on the black coats closing on the door, “how do we win this together?”

Chapter Thirteen

They left the lit street for the alley. Cold ran like a blade through Sander at the sight of men in dark coats filing through the gentlemen’s door. He knew those faces: a Crown Street clerk with sanded ledgers on his cuffs; a Bow Street runner who watched while others took. This was how it always began—coats first, then paper, then doors. That day in the Pale, they had come the same way before dawn. He had run for the magistrate; the clerk told him to return with a stamped paper in the morning. By morning his parents were gone and the street tasted of wet ash. Ink before fists; lists before doors. Not here. Not with her. He shifted so Rosine fell a half step behind his shoulder without thinking, and the Den’s narrow door opened on the hush behind velvet.

“I have to make the custards and fill the pastry shells,” she whispered.

“Back entrance,” he said, guiding her through the same slim passage she’d once taken to the countess’s garden. This was the moment Mrs. Dove-Lyon counted on them for. If they could save the Lyon’s Den, they could have the future they wanted right here in London. If not… oh please no!

Wolves murmured; the house had drawn breath for a fight. Marta’s voice rose sharp from the kitchen, Bridget’s worry chasing it—“Where’s Rosine?”—and then Rosine squeezed his hand hard enough to leave a print and was gone into heat and light.

Go win. Come back to me when it’s done.

“Puck?” Sander called, already moving.

“There you are.” The wolf slid from the shadows with a grin too tight. “It’s time.”

“I know. I’m ready.”

They took the wallpapered door inside a private room—ivy and urns painted to soothe men who didn’t want to know what lay behind. Hinges whispered; another door gave; and then the chamber opened: twenty boards in two arcs, lamps set low, velvet rigged so only a man’s forearms would show beneath it. Puck checked the sightline, tugged the drape, and blessed the angle with a soldier’s eye. Sander sat. Behind the curtain the world narrowed to linen and wood and breath.

He flattened his hands to the table. Steady. Calm. If he lost, the dawn tide would take him to Boston without Rosine. He had promised her London; he had promised himself her door. Then do not lose.

“Gentlemen,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s voice carried from the gallery—cool silk over iron. “A complete surprise! How dare you.” She was playing affront with precision; he could hear the smile she did not show.

Another voice—oiled, self-satisfied. “We come on lawful business.” Nagy. Alone, he’d have little authority. But he brought firepower from the British House of Lords.

“And you bring the Earl of Pembroke?” Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s tone warmed a fraction, the precise amount she would allow a new patron. He pictured her hand offered, a veil tipping, her eyes never soft. “Viscount Tisdale, as well. What a party.”

Shuffling—boots, skirts, the private hiss of men who realized they had walked into the theater. Sander caught the faintest thread of honey on the air. Rosine was working in the kitchen. Win for her and marry her. Lose and … he couldn’t think it.

A checkmate wasn’t the win though, but he had to win those men over who could tip the scale in Nagy’s favor. In fact, Nagy had to be stripped of their favor entirely for the Lyon’s Den to win. So I can marry Rosine and stay here in London with her.

“We were setting up for chess tonight,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon went on. “You know there are many forbidden amusements under the Act. Chess is not one of them.”

More steps. A harrumph with that nasty wet mustache—Nagy. “Chess?”

“There’s a chess master waiting to be challenged on twenty boards,” she said. “An evening of instruction for those who enjoy lawful order.”

“Simultaneous?” Viscount Tisdale’s drawl. Sander knew that voice; he’d beaten him with a pawn he refused to respect.

A patron bent low to Mrs. Dove-Lyon—whispering, but not low enough. “I tried to call in the last three nights.”