The Lady of a Lyon by Linda Rae Sande

She’s a former courtesan. He was once her favorite client. Will a conniving earl thwart a matchmaker’s efforts to see them reunited?

Newly widowed viscountess and mother to a young boy, Annabelle reluctantly returns to London in the hopes of securing invitations to Society events. Although she’s more than able to run the Burwick viscountcy on behalf of her son, Benton is in need of a titled father to help him along in life. Worried someone will recognize her—she was one of the ladies of The Elegant Courtesan before Burwick made her his viscountess and took her off to his country estate—Annabelle soon realizes she can’t hide her identity when one of her former clients confronts her. Embarrassed and angered by his overtures, Annabelle decides to leave her fate in the hands of matchmaker Bessie Dove-Lyon.
As a lieutenant colonel in the British Army and the second son of an earl, Jeffrey never expected to inherit an earldom and have to marry. Now he’s in a quandary. He’s in desperate need of funds, for the Year of No Summer has left the earldom’s coffers empty. When he spies his favorite flame-haired courtesan in a tailor’s shop with a young boy, Jeffrey doesn’t realize she’s become a respectable lady. His comment about her son is mistaken as an insult, and he fears he may have missed his opportunity with the woman he still finds irresistible.

Learning he can win a wealthy woman in a game of chance at The Lyon’s Den, Jeffrey agrees to the Black Widow of Whitehall’s matchmaking method.
When he discovers Annabelle is the prize, the stakes may be more than he can afford, for if she ends up in the arms of a man he trusts, his heart—and a friendship—will surely be broken.