“I have faith that you will find them, Father.”
Isaiah Redmond’s eyebrow twitched upward, as if this interested him.
“And you want my . . . blessing, do you?” It was a detached sort of curiosity, as if Lyon had lost his mind utterly and Isaiah needed to find a new way to communicate with him.
“Yes.”
His father was very, very good at whatever this was.
“Have you impregnated the girl?”
An ugly, goading word. It was part of what Lyon knew would now be a relentless strategy to diminish and degrade him, pummel him, break him down, until Lyon confused his own will his father’s; saw his love affair as callow, sordid, silly, ephemeral; and did exactly as his father wanted.
Unfortunately for Isaiah Redmond, the apple really didn’t fall far from the tree.
Lyon’s will was very like his father’s.
Absolutely immovable.
And when Lyon loved, it was forever.
“Of course I have not, as you say, impregnated the girl. She’s very well-bred, as am I.”
Another pause.
“Does her . . . Do her parents know of your intentions?”
An interesting hesitation there.
His father had tried to make the question idle, and had failed.
That catch in his voice was revealing.
And suddenly Lyon knew the suspicions he’d had for years were confirmed.
“No,” Lyon said.
His father nodded once. He seemed almost relieved.
“If she isn’t pregnant, then why in God’s name do you want to marry this girl when you could marry the daughter of a duke?”
“Her name is Olivia,” he explained patiently, enunciating each word painstakingly. “And I want to marry her because I am in love with her.”
His father’s face spasmed in contempt. “In love.” He spat the word with scorching incredulity.
The muscles banding Lyon’s stomach tensed as if someone had thrust a torch into his face. And yet he was proud that he didn’t even blink.
“Yes.”
“In love, as you say, with a woman you respect so thoroughly that you sneaked about with her for months, perhaps rutting with her in the woods now and again. I do wonder what this says about the young woman’s character. And you would throw your brilliant future and your family’s honor away for a girl like this?”
Rutting with her in the woods?
Lyon’s shock must have shown.
“You were seen pawing someone, Lyon. Some weeks ago.”
“I must request that you not in any way impugn Miss Eversea’s character, which is unassailable, and her family is as fine as ours.”
His father gave a short laugh, then sighed. “Oh, son. You should hear yourself.”
“And I should think you’d admire stealth and strategy, Father. After all, I learned it from a man who repurchased a pocket watch and kept it for two weeks, all the while apparently spying on me, waiting for just the perfect moment to produce it.”
He wasn’t helping his cause. His father had more practice, after all, and Lyon’s temper was beginning to burn through the fabric of his control.
And yet he had the satisfaction of seeing Isaiah go still.
How about that, he’d managed to surprise his father.
“Son,” he said with insufferable pity. “You were hardly stealthy. You might as well have hung a sign around your neck.”
And just like that, the gauze was ripped away.
And Lyon could feel the hot color pour into his cheeks.
Of course they weren’t stealthy. Of course he’d walked about in a haze of happiness and torment. Distracted, happier than he ought to be, absent for mysterious hours of time, remaining in Pennyroyal Green where the diversions consisted primarily of the pub and the bookstore, outside of hunting season. Of course his valet had in all likelihood seen his stained shirttails. And of course someone had likely seen him, at least from a distance, before he had the wisdom or the lunacy to take Olivia into that clearing. They had thought they were careful.
How could anyone who was as in love as they were be discreet enough? It in all likelihood radiated from the two of them like beacons.
He loathed himself for not doing a better job of protecting her.
“Then the sign would have read, ‘I am happy for the first time in my life,’” he said valiantly.
Isaiah leaned back in his chair and studied him again.
“You are not the man I thought you were, Lyon.” He said this almost thoughtfully.
“No,” Lyon agreed. “Thankfully, I am not.”
“No,” his father continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “You are a fool.”
The volume of that sentence escalated until “fool” was spat like a dart.
Lyon didn’t flinch.
“If you pursue your . . . Why don’t we call it ‘association’? A better word than it deserves, surely . . . with Miss Olivia Eversea against my wishes under any circumstances, you will immediately be cut off from all Redmond funds. You will no longer be welcome under this roof, and you will be forbidden contact with your brothers and sister. I will ensure you will never be received in proper company again, or welcome in any clubs in all of England.”
Lyon stopped breathing.
He surreptitiously pressed a palm against his thigh, as if to brace himself against the hard landing of a long, long fall.
Just like that. His punishment for simply loving one woman was to be denied everything else he loved. Forever.
Oddly, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. But hearing it conjured desolation that was like looking down into an abyss. No Miles, no Jonathan, no Violet. Sundered, like that.
“If you wish to maintain ties with your family and fortune, you now have two choices. Beginning tomorrow, you will either go to the continent and stay for one year, you will do the business of the Mercury Club, and when you return you will marry appropriately. In this way we can mitigate any damage to your reputation, and you may one day restore yourself to my good graces. Or you can propose to Lady Arabella this week and be married next spring.”
Lyon abandoned strategy and pride.
“Father . . . I hope you know I have always valued your love and respect above all things. I have strived my entire life to make you proud.”
His father remained coldly silent.
“I love Olivia.” He tried to keep his voice even, but there was the slightest hint of a break on her name. “And she loves me. I know you could come to love her, too, if you knew her. It’s . . . I swear to you if . . . Surely you were once in love . . .”
He knew this was tantamount to the lamb leaping for the knife, revealing this vulnerability. But he still had a heart. He would prefer to be honest than to gain the most important thing in the world to him through strategy, which was clearly what ran in his father’s veins instead of blood.
Somewhere behind that cold facade was a man who had taught his sons to fish and hunt and swim and ride. Who had praised their accomplishments, commiserated with their failures. Who had carried him on his shoulders, and been strict but fair, thoughtful and even amusing, always an object of fear, but also of admiration and respect. Who, Lyon was certain, loved them.
If only Lyon had known how conditional all of this paternal love apparently was.
“Father, I swear to you, I didn’t have a choice.”
“For God’s sake, of course you had a bloody choice!”
Isaiah was shouting now. He was all fury.
And Lyon was absolutely motionless.
Just like that.
He was beyond fear. Beyond anger.
He’d made his decision.
And he was grateful now that he possessed precisely the weapon that would bring his father to his knees.
“All of this. All of this because you made the wrong decision,” Lyon said softly.
Isaiah hesitated. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“I am aware that you
watch the back of Mrs. Eversea’s head in church every Sunday, rather than the vicar.”
He’d just given voice to a truth so buried that no one who suspected dared speak it.
Lyon instinctively knew it was a brutal thing to say, and he welcomed it as a weapon.
He had the sublime, visceral satisfaction of watching scarlet slowly flood his father’s cheeks.
So this, at last, was his father’s weakness.
Isolde Eversea. Another man’s wife.
His father had once had a heart. He knew all about love.
And he had burned his own love down to the ground many years ago by marrying the wrong woman.
“Ah,” Lyon said softly. “I believe I understand now. You didn’t have the courage to fight for the woman you loved. You made the wrong choice. And look at you. Look at what you’ve become.”
Lyon’s head went back hard.
It was a moment before he fully realized he’d been struck.
He tasted blood, coppery in his mouth.
And in seconds, the initial numbness gave way to burn in the shape of his father’s handprint.
It was the last mark Isaiah Redmond would ever leave on him.
Lyon stood up slowly.
His father stared at him, eyes almost unseeing, splotches of vivid color high on his face.
And Lyon could have sworn he saw fear there, too.
Good.
And Lyon turned on his heel and was gone.
It was the last his father ever saw of him.
Chapter 13
WHEN THE FIRST PEBBLE hit her window, Olivia thought perhaps it had begun to hail. The little painted porcelain clock next to her bed said it was a quarter past one in the morning.
The cold was fierce and the sky was a solid, sullen shade of slate when she’d pulled her curtains closed for the evening.
The color of dread.
Surely it could also be the color of hope? Surely good things had happened on other rainy days throughout history?
But the cold outside had leached from the room whatever heat had managed to soak into the floors, and not even her low-burning fire could penetrate it. It was merciless and thorough, as if it had a point to make.
The first little click was followed by another.
Followed by a scatter of more.
It wasn’t how hail behaved, and insects didn’t go about dashing themselves to death on windows on freezing Sussex nights.
She slipped out of bed, pushed her feet into slippers, and reached for a pelisse. Fur-lined, an elegant, much-loved birthday gift from her parents. Every time she shoved her arms into its furry embrace she was reminded of how loved and fortunate she was.
She opened her window a crack. And peered down. It was nearly black in the garden, but she could make out the glow of one of the stone benches scattered about the ground.
Her breath caught when she saw the outline of a man, his face tipped up at her window.
Lyon!
“Olivia, come down.”
“What are you doing? It’s freezing!”
“You must come down at once.”
She’d never heard that tone in his voice. Urgency and desperation and command.
She had the presence of mind to light and seize a little lamp before she bolted down the stairs, skidding a little on the way. The house was absolutely silent and dark, but every shadow and corner of it was familiar, and she likely could have done it with her eyes closed.
She darted through the kitchen and bolted out the door. She could feel the cold through her slippers.
She ran to him.
He seized her by her arms. “Liv. Run away with me, Olivia. We can go tonight and be in Scotland inside of two days, and then we can be married.”
Her breath left her in a shocked gust.
“Gretna Green,” he continued in a feverish rush. “We can leave tonight, be there in two days, and then we—”
“Lyon, have you been drinking?”
“No,” he said firmly, as he shook out of his overcoat and draped it over her, then pulled her close to him, so she could benefit from whatever heat remained in his body. But he was vibrating with a suppressed fury that frightened her. “I have never been more clear in my entire life.”
“The lamp,” she rasped.
He took it from and leaned over to place it on the bench.
And as he did it illuminated his face.
She gasped.
“Lyon, you’ve blood . . . There’s blood . . .”
He touched the corner of his mouth. “I’m sorry. I came straight here from . . .”
He stopped abruptly.
She thrust her hands into his coat pocket and came out with the handkerchief she knew would be there.
“Oh, Lyon.” She tenderly, gingerly touched it to the corner of his mouth. His beautiful, beloved mouth. He didn’t even wince. “How did you . . .”
And then realization sank through her with guillotine brutality.
“He hit you.”
She had her answer when he said nothing.
And a red haze of rage, like nothing she’d ever before experienced, moved over her eyes.
How dare, how dare anyone hurt him?
His face was white and tense in the lamplight, but she still saw a flicker of shame. An expression that never, ever should have shadowed Lyon Redmond’s face.
Her heart cracked, and in poured terror that made her shiver, and that’s when the sky broke open and the rain began to fall.
This was the end. Of everything.
She suddenly knew it with absolute certainty.
How on earth could she have prepared for this? For the ghastly pain that she knew was about to follow and swallow her whole.
His voice was steady, but there was an abstracted, stunned quality to it.
“I told him that I wished to marry you. And I asked for his understanding and his blessing and told him he would grow to love you, too, for who wouldn’t?”
“And he hit you.”
“He hit me for another reason altogether, but the two events were related, yes.”
“Tell me why he hit you.”
“I can’t.”
He said this in a way that brooked no argument. She knew quite clearly that he would not tell her.
She couldn’t bear picturing it. Proud, clever, bold Lyon laying his tender heart bare to his cold father. Suddenly their love seemed as fragile as the Duffys’ sickly baby.
How sordid it must have sounded to his father, the man who could not abide weakness, the man who needed always to be in control. A secret love affair, this sudden engagement request. Callow, foolish, careless. How could any words capture the grandeur and torment and sweetness and rightness of it? Let alone the careful, formal ones Lyon would have been forced to use before the merciless green gaze of his father. How little of consequence the two of them must seem to someone who owned not only much of England, like her own father, but essentially owned his son, too, and was accustomed to making everyone do precisely what he wanted.
“And then?” she said hoarsely.
“Oh, he forbade a match.” He sounded almost mordantly cheery. “He said he would cut me off from all funds and every member of my family, and ensure I would never be received in any decent home or club ever again.”
The guillotine, indeed.
And Isaiah Redmond could do it, too.
“And he hit you. Because of . . . me?”
“Not because of you. Because of me. I’ve been hit before, Liv,” He sounded almost reasonable, and there was a hint of black humor in it. “Not by him, of course. But I’m male. It’s difficult to avoid hitting and being hit on the way to manhood. It’s all part of it.”
“But it’s different when you can’t defend yourself.”
He said nothing because he knew she was right: Lyon would never in a million years strike his father.
Then again, he was a different man from his father.
And the fear iced her limbs and a surge of pan
ic that threatened to become anger. Fear that he was not different enough, because he had not been allowed to be.
“P-Perhaps . . . perhaps your father simply needs a little more time . . . perhaps he reacted badly because he was surprised . . . perhaps . . .”
“Oh, my father was not surprised,” Lyon said with bitter irony.
And now her cheeks were ablaze.
Of course. Love’s blindness had clearly extended to the lovers themselves. People had noticed something was different; how could they not have?
Olivia had been walking about in a radiant haze for months now. And her family, delicately, had attempted to point it out. To warn her.
Perhaps even Mrs. Sneath knew.
“Olivia, I’ve been given two choices: he’s going to send me to the continent tomorrow, or I’m to propose to Lady Arabella this week. So you see, don’t you, that you must come with me tonight. We’ll leave Sussex, marry, and make our own life. It will be heaven, Liv.”
She was speechless. The roil of emotions he always caused stormed through her.
And it was this perhaps that brought home to her the reality of their circumstance, which was dire. Lyon had been exquisitely bred, and could ride and shoot and fence and dance and charm. He was brilliant and gifted. He was her very heart.
But she was in love with a man whose father hit him simply because he could.
And could cut off his allowance.
She knew her silence was damning.
“You must come with me. You must trust me to take care of you, Liv. Will you trust me?”
She stiffened in his arms.
“Liv?”
And then he stiffened, too.
“What the devil are you afraid of?” His voice was low and taut. It emerged as an accusation.
With a tinge of fear.
As usual, he’d looked right into the heart of the matter: he knew she was afraid.
He likely knew what he was asking was utterly unreasonable, but there was nothing else he could do.
And Lyon, as he’d told her, was a man who got what he wanted.
She was terrified of losing him. But she’d never anticipated needing to abandon everyone else she loved without warning, especially since she’d only lately had all of her brothers back. And suddenly she hated him as much as she loved him for forcing her to make this decision, now, in the pouring rain, in the dark.
The Legend of Lyon Redmond Page 16