Relieved?
The expression on his father’s face was, in fact, reminiscent of Violet’s a few moments ago.
Miles now felt officially disconcerted. Deprived of his anger, of his righteousness, he was suddenly at a loss.
Isaiah Redmond strolled over to the table near the window. He used a finger to slowly trace the complex whorls of the polished wood. Perhaps he was using its polished surface to scry his future, the future of his son and heir. Or tracing it like the road he would have preferred Miles to travel.
Miles waited. He’d said all he meant to say.
Isaiah turned around to face him again. “There are three things I’d like you to know, Miles. Are you listening?”
“Yes, sir.”
“First: I simply cannot and do not condone a match between a Redmond, any Redmond, and Miss Cynthia Brightly. This means you will not receive another shilling from me while I’m alive should you choose to marry Miss Brightly. You will, however, be welcomed in our home by your mother and me; the rest of the family will be free to receive you as well. But you and your…may not live in Redmond House. You are not welcome at the Mercury Club. You will not become a member. I will not fund any of your endeavors. I shall not revoke this. Are we understood?”
The punishment was severe; Miles was certain Isaiah meant every word, and would be inflexible in enforcing it.
But it was not as severe as Isaiah was capable of meting. It was, he supposed, just.
He would have time to absorb what it meant to him later, or if it would mean anything at all to him. Nothing mattered at the moment but Cynthia.
Miles inhaled, nodded.
“The second thing?” he urged his father curtly.
“The second thing is this…”
Miles watched in fresh amazement as his father’s lips drifted upward into a smile that bordered on the rueful. It was, in fact, very nearly affectionate. It was decidedly amused.
“It’s not absurd, is it, son?”
It took a moment, and then Miles remembered.
Miles was difficult to stun. He was stunned now.
What did his father know about love? Was his mother the love of his life? Had he correctly interpreted that look his father had sent Isolde Eversea so many years ago?
And…no. Love might be humbling, miraculous, hilarious, and necessary, transcending. It required everything of him. In fact it was…everything.
Everything, that is, except absurd.
“No, sir,” he conceded firmly. “It is not.”
And then his own mouth rebelled: it twitched up into a crooked smile. The other side of his mouth wouldn’t commit to the smile.
But he supposed that was a place to begin knowing his father: this tentative exchange of smiles after a cold battle of words.
And all of this was Cynthia’s fault. Miles contemplated all the many ways in which Cynthia Brightly had managed to upend his life, split him open, show him vistas he’d never dreamed existed—he who had wended his way through jungles, sweated through fevers, peered through microscopes, and tasted exotic pleasures of the flesh.
The real frontier, apparently, was inside him…and in front of him. In the form of his family. In the form of his father.
In the form of his future with Cynthia.
He was now free to spend the rest of his life in discovery. This was interesting. And of course, he loved “interesting” more than anything in the world.
His father gave a crisp nod of satisfaction.
A silence bordering on awkward ensued. The only other awkward moment involving his father that Miles could recall was when Isaiah Redmond had shouted out “Son of a bitch!” when Colin Eversea hadn’t been hung as scheduled.
To this day Miles wondered why Isaiah had been at all surprised. Colin was an Eversea, after all.
“The third thing, Father?” he asked gently. He struggled to keep impatience from his voice.
Miles wondered if the long pause that followed indicated his father’s indecision about what he might say. But in the end, Isaiah finally said it:
“I admire you, Miles.”
The mild surprise and reluctance with which he delivered the words were hardly flattering. But the words stopped Miles’s breath. Not: I’m proud of you, Miles. But the infinitely better, I admire you.
Isaiah had carefully chosen the words to acknowledge that he deserved no credit for who Miles had become, and to ensure that Miles knew another formidable man—a man Miles admired—found him worthy of admiration.
What specifically do you admire? he suddenly wanted to know. My achievements? Or my choices? My ability to make them irrevocably? To risk everything I know for the one thing I need?
For now he simply gave a short nod.
His father smiled to himself.
Isaiah Redmond was deliberately offhand. “If any weddings do take place, I should be happy to see them held at the church here in Pennyroyal Green. I believe the Everseas are one nuptial ahead of us in terms of recent weddings. And we simply can’t have that.”
Miles was in absolute concurrence with this. “Yes, sir.”
His father’s brow made a steep upward arch by way of dismissal, and his body slowly rotated back toward the window.
As if one day Lyon would come home over the green.
Miles bowed, wanting to make the gesture of respect whether or not his father would see it.
And he turned and strode from the room, shoulders straight, dignity intact.
He paused in the hall outside of his father’s study as the peculiar enormity of the conversation broke over him. He allowed himself just one moment of stillness, of wonderment; he placed one hand on the shining curve of the banister for balance, to reorient himself, to connect with all that was Redmond.
Then he used the banister to launch himself down the stairs.
He all but flew down those marble steps, hand burning from the speed with which it traveled the banister, boot heels slamming down hard on the marble, taking three steps at a time. These were stairs he had traveled countless times before in his life; they would never be part of his home again.
He would have his own home.
For now, the only thing that mattered was locating an ill-tempered old woman in a bath chair.
In truth, this posed no challenge.
In his experience, a single clue often was the portal to an entire universe. One only need know how to look.
Chapter 23
“Miss Brightly. The demmed wicked cat is in my yarn again! It ought to be drowned for a rat!”
Mrs. Mundi-Dickson’s voice could have chiseled facets from cold stone: screeching, operatic, and impressively healthy of volume for one who claimed to be unhealthy. There was nothing wrong with Mrs. Mundi-Dickson unless it was age—and age, to Cynthia’s way of thinking, was not in and of itself an infirmity. Mrs. Mundi-Dickson had simply decided years ago to be bored and unhappy, had enthroned herself in her bath chair and had proceeded to make a reputation from her unhappiness. At least she kept legions of girls employed as they passed in and out of her service. In this way she provided a service, Cynthia told herself with dark amusement.
It was a rather remote area of Northumberland. Escape would be challenging. Cynthia spent every conscious moment thinking of it, and she’d been there for four days only.
“I’ll fetch him, Mrs. Mundi-Dickson.”
“I never said you could bring a demmed cat,” her employer sopranoed from the sitting room.
“You never said I couldn’t,” Cynthia sang in return. She went in to fetch Spider, extricated him from the yarn, in which he was genuinely, complexly entwined, took some time removing him from proximity to Mrs. Mundi-Dickson’s knitting needles, and returned to the foyer because she thought she’d heard the door open.
As it turned out, she had. Apparently Miles Redmond had let himself in.
“Oh.” The breath left Cynthia in a gasp. She almost dropped the cat.
She managed to slowly put Spider down at he
r feet.
Miles watched her every movement carefully, following it with his head. As if everything she did was unutterably important.
The kitten flung itself bodily at Miles’s boot in a splayed attack. It then flew off in the opposite direction down the hall, tail a puff.
They stood and faced each other in utter silence.
She breathed. “But how did you—”
“I knocked. But then I decided to let myself in, as no one else seemed inclined to.” He sounded calm.
They stared another moment.
She felt herself began to smile.
“You left.” He sounded irritable. She knew this meant he was feeling awkward. And as her departure was rather self-evident, and she was finding it difficult to precisely gauge his mood, she said nothing.
She just gazed at him. She seemed to feel him everywhere, on her skin, in the swelling of her heart in her chest. It very much wanted to leap out to be with him.
“Well, I thought it best to—” she began softly.
“Before dawn.” He accused her of this almost triumphantly, his voice gaining tension. As though she’d begun to argue the point.
“Well. Yes, I did,” she humored tenderly.
He could rail at her all he wanted. He could shout epithets, shake his fist, fling his arms up in the air, pace, do whatever he wanted to relieve himself of the fear of losing her, of the fear for her safety, of the fear of his loving her.
She would wait it out, and stand there and love him. And open her arms when he was done.
“Miss Brightly!” The yodel came from the next room. “I want my demmed tea! Now!”
They both ignored Mrs. Mundi-Dickson.
Miles pulled in a long breath. He was holding his hat in one hand and he’d begun to tap it against the other, almost as if attempting to shake something out of it.
Good heavens. Miles Redmond was fidgeting.
“How…how did you find me?” She was tremendously impressed at the speed with which he had found her.
“Violet,” he said shortly. His voice was still very soft. “She knew something about an old woman in a bath chair in Northumberland. It was a simple enough thing to ask questions. Seems Mrs. Mundi-Dickson is rather well known in these parts.”
“Miss Brightly!” bellowed the old woman in the bath chair from the next room. “I want my tea. T-E-A. Tea. And if you don’t bring it straight away I’ll take a cane to—”
Miles whirled abruptly. “If…you…please,” he snarled.
Shocked silence rippled out of the other room.
Cynthia had never known such delight.
Miles turned to look at Cynthia looking just as composed as if he’d never said a word.
“I’ve come to ask something of you, Cynthia,” he continued softly. “And before you answer, I should tell you that I have spoken with my father and he doesn’t approve of…what I’m about to ask of you. In the event you are amenable to…what I am about to ask of you, you should know that we will live on my income only. Which means we will live modestly in comparison to how my family currently lives. And Lord Argosy could at this very moment be in pursuit of you, as Violet told him where to find you as well. And as you know, Argosy is a man of not inconsiderable means. But we will be allowed to see my family. You will have a family.”
Her heart stopped mid-leap. What of…all of his dreams, the things that made him who he was…He was to give them up? For her? For this?
“Miles. I cannot…I cannot allow…what of all your dreams? Lacao! I cannot allow—”
“You are my dream, Cynthia,” he clarified simply. He didn’t add you fool, though it was nearly implied in his tone.
She stopped abruptly. Ah, she’d been silly. She knew that Miles Redmond never did anything he hadn’t carefully considered. He knew precisely what he was doing.
He’d chosen love. He’d chosen her.
Her heart launched itself skyward like coins flung in the wake of a wedding.
He read her face correctly. And one of those slow smiles—the ones that heated her inside and out and seemed to stop time—began to spread over his face.
He took a step forward. She took a step forward. Still, a gulf of foyer remained between them.
“Cynthia, here…here is the thing.” He frowned darkly at his hat and placed it gingerly on the entry table, as if it was the hat’s fault he’d been tempted to fidget with it. “I’ve loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you. From the very moment I saw your blue dress out of the corner of my eye. My heart knew and my soul knew, but my mind is an arrogant thing and thought it had a say in the matter, and my pride is apparently…shall we say, formidable. As you well know. And it happened all out of order—the loving you. It made no sense to me. I tried to make sense of it in the only way I knew, and…well, no science is a match for love. Our bodies knew first.” And he produced a smile that made her unbearably randy. “And then…” He stopped.
“And then?” she encouraged. She could never, never hear enough of Miles Redmond telling her how much he loved her, and she was enjoying this speech.
“Well, wanting you is how I was able to see that I love you. But the funny thing is…I did know right away that you are meant to be part of me, and do you know why? I stopped breathing when I first saw you. But the irony is you, when I’m with you, I feel like every breath is my first one, and…I was never really alive until I touched you. So clearly, in order to continue living, to keep breathing, I need to be with you.”
It was the most extraordinary speech she had ever heard, or would forever in her life hear again. Count on Miles Redmond to find a way to entwine love with science and to add a dash of irony.
“It’s a matter of biology, is it?” she said softly.
“Well, that, and I would happily die for you.”
She didn’t doubt it for a moment.
“I’ll try to arrange it so that will never become necessary.”
This made him smile.
“I love you, Miles.” She sounded so surprised that he gave a short laugh.
“It is strange, isn’t it?” said the man who had never before been daunted by anything strange.
It was as though they’d both assumed “love” was a mythical place akin to El Dorado, but they’d gone and stumbled across it and were now abashed. Both for attempting to evade it—for who were they to attempt to subjugate something so extraordinary to their petty human objectives?—and by the very fact of its existence.
Love was really more like Lacao. Beautiful and terrifying and strange. They could be forever discovering all it could offer them.
“Miles. I love you. You. I love you. I am sorry if Argosy is hurt, but I cannot feel too sorry with you standing here. But I will go anywhere with you.”
“Oh,” he said softly. “Very good, then.”
He took another step forward.
She took another step forward.
“We’ll find a way to go back to Lacao,” she promised him fervently.
“Of course we will.” He still sounded distracted. Spider the cat skittered back into the room and sat on his boot for an instant before darting off again.
“Which brings me to my question. Cynthia…” He took a sustaining breath. “…will you do me the honor of being my wife?” The words came out in a rush.
Oh.
Everything had gone blurry and moist. Like the tropics, perhaps. She brushed a hand back across her eyes, as she needed to see his face when she answered him.
“I should be honored to be your wife, Mr. Redmond.” She’d said it with a dignity that would do honor to any Redmond. Or, rather, she tried to say it with dignity. Her voice did break a little.
Miles cast a glance skyward—in gratitude, perhaps—and then his eyes were on hers, and his face was brilliant.
Cynthia wondered how anyone could withstand this sort of happiness.
But no doubt no one had ever before been as happy as she was at this moment, so there couldn’t possibly be any precedent. Sh
e would have to show them all how to do it by surviving it and marrying Miles Redmond and living to a ripe old age.
Suddenly bashful, suddenly equal, they regarded each other across the stretch of Mrs. Mundi-Dickson’s foyer.
Mrs. Mundi-Dickson, shockingly, had said nothing more. They heard stirrings and thumps in the other room. She sounded as though she were pouring her own tea. Imagine that. The moment was simply filled with miracles.
Then Miles was before her in a final long, startling stride, his big hands cradling her face, and his mouth touched hers almost tentatively. As though he could hardly believe she was real.
So she assured him that she was: she looped her arms around his neck and held him fast, so he would know she wasn’t going anywhere ever again. She reached up and kissed his beautiful mouth fiercely. Kissed his jaw. Turned her cheek to feel the scrape of his whiskers. Murmured to him nonsense, which is the language of love, inhaled the heat of his skin, the sweat from his mad galloping rush to find her.
And as his arms went around her back, folding her close to him, where she belonged, she leaned back in his arms and gently plucked his spectacles from his face because they’d misted over a bit. She rubbed them against her bodice, and replaced them on his face, because it was her job to take care of him from now on.
He was amused. “The better to see you with, my dear,” he murmured.
And then his lips touched her, and he proceeded to make a thorough job of tasting her.
Acknowledgments
My gratitude to May Chen for her cheerful support, sharp, insightful editing, and the extremely heart-gladdening smiley faces in the margins; to the amazing, hardworking Avon staff, including Tom Egner for the beautiful cover; to all the friends who keep me sane and grounded—Karen, Kevin, Melisa, Josh, Toni; and as always, to my marvelous, preternaturally patient agent, Steve Axelrod.
About the Author
San Francisco Bay Area native JULIE ANNE LONG originally set out to be a rock star when she grew up (and she has the guitars and fringed clothing stuffed in the back of her closet to prove it), but writing was always her first love. She began her academic career as a Journalism major, until she realized Creative Writing was a better fit for her freewheeling imagination and overdeveloped sense of whimsy. And when playing guitar in dank, sticky clubs finally lost its “charm,” Julie realized she could incorporate all the best things about being in a band—namely drama, passion, and men with unruly hair—into novels, while also indulging her love of history and research. Since then, her books have been nominated for awards, including the RITA®, Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice, the Holt Medallion, Bookseller’s Best, and The Quills, and reviewers have been known to use words such as “dazzling,” “brilliant,” and “impossible to put down” when describing them. Visit Julie at www.julieannelong.com, www.julieannelong.typepad.com, or www.myspace/julieannelong.
Like No Other Lover Page 32