The Legend of Lyon Redmond (16 page)

One month before the wedding . . .

M
ADEMOISELLE
L
ILETTE HAD BEEN
thrilled to be invited to be Olivia's traveling companion for her trip to Plymouth. Madame Marceau was able to spare her—in another stroke of serendipity, the modiste who had disappeared had reappeared, begging for her job back if only for a few weeks just when Madame Marceau needed her most—and she relented.

And so Olivia and Mademoiselle Lilette set out for Plymouth.

Plymouth was about a day and a half away from London by stage. Mademoiselle turned out to be the perfect traveling companion—resilient, uncomplaining, not a prattler.

The farther away from London they went, the cheerier Olivia got. Interestingly, the farther away from London they went, the quieter and more tense, more watchful and taciturn, the usually loquacious Mademoiselle Lilette became.

“Are you nervous about meeting Mrs. More?”
Olivia asked her. “I'm a bit nervous. I've been such an admirer of hers for so long.”

“
Oui
,” Mademoiselle Lilette said shortly “I am nervous.”

M
RS.
M
ORE WAS
coming by way of Bristol, and they had arranged to meet her at an inn called the Hungry Gull near the harbor in Plymouth, then travel on with her to the home of their hosts via a much better-sprung and sweeter-smelling conveyance than the stage, according to the message they'd received from her.

It was well after midnight by the time they arrived at the inn. Olivia and Mademoiselle Lilette gratefully stretched their legs and inhaled. The air was cold and briny and pungent with tar. A thrilling smell. The smell of adventure, she'd always thought. Olivia inhaled great draughts of it, as if she could save it for later.

The masts of ships rose tall and shadowy against the blue-black sky, their sails furled and quiet for now.

Given that the hour was late, they were surprised to find the innkeeper remarkably alert and waiting for them inside. He was, in fact, all but pacing.

The taproom was empty, but clean and warm, and a lively fire still burned. All other guests of the inn must have gone up to bed.

He was plump and brisk and polite. “You must be Miss Eversea and her companion! Welcome, welcome. Mrs. More has only just arrived as well, and she would have joined you for a bit of a repast here—we do still have a bit of stew in the pot from dinner—but her knees aren't what they once were. She has asked if you would mind terribly going up to her room when you arrived, so that you all can
dine together there. 'Tis the third one on the left once you reach the top of the stairs. We'll bring up your trunks to your room for you.”

“Thank you so much, sir,” Olivia said, and fished about in her reticule for a few pence.

He waved them away. “'Tis me job.”

Olivia untied her bonnet and gratefully rubbed at her bare neck. She smoothed her palms against her skirt. Her heart was hammering with anticipation. She turned to Mademoiselle Lilette, brows raised.

“Well, shall we?”

“
Oui, mais bien sûr
,” Mademoiselle Lilette answered tersely.

Olivia bounded up the stairs, invigorated by the prospect of good intelligent company, Mademoiselle Lilette right on her heels.

The third door on the left was ajar a few inches.

She looked back at Mademoiselle Lilette, who shrugged.

“Mrs. More?” Olivia said tentatively.

There was no reply.

Now she was concerned. Mrs. More was an elderly woman, and she perhaps had nodded off, or worse, expired, or perhaps she'd fallen, and was injured.

“We best look inside,” she whispered to Mademoiselle Lilette, who simply nodded.

Olivia gave the door a little push to open it farther.

The small dim room seemed comprised of a leaping fire and heat and not much else. A rocking chair, empty and still, was positioned in front of the fire. A bureau was in the corner, and a narrow bed was against the wall.

Mrs. More was nowhere in sight.

Mademoiselle Lilette hovered in the doorway, as if reluctant to enter.

Olivia took another step into the room.

And then another.

She gave a start. Then froze, clapped her hand over her heart.

The short hair on the back of her neck began to prickle, uneasily.

For a man was standing in the corner, so motionless she might have mistaken him for furniture. The firelight reflected off the gleaming toes of his boots gave him away.

Those were the toes of a gentleman of significant fortune. She would have wagered everything on it.

She whirled around.

But Mademoiselle Lilette was standing fully in the doorway.

For all the world as if she was blocking it now.

Olivia swiveled around again.

The man remained perfectly still. But something about the shape of him . . . Her scalp tingled. It was a very primal thing, and she felt it at the base of her spine. It did interesting things to her breathing.

She cleared her throat.

“I beg your pardon . . . I'm so sorry to intrude . . . I was told I should wait for Mrs. More in this . . . in this room. Perhaps I've the wrong room . . .”

Her words trailed like vapor when the man slowly straightened to his full height and took a slow step forward.

Into the firelight.

Realization penetrated. Rather like an arrow.

She stopped breathing.

Her lips parted.

And finally a tiny, arid sound emerged. Part raw pain, part shock.

“Liv.”

Quiet. Gruff.

His voice.

Nothing.

Nothing
could have prepared her to hear her name, in his voice, again.

She couldn't move.

Her mouth parted again. But absorbing the impact of him had required all of her capacities. She couldn't say a word.

Instead she began to tremble.

He stepped toward her swiftly. And it was so very him, that instinct to protect and to shelter her, that her knees nearly buckled.

But he stopped himself and remained about four feet away from her.

As if she was flammable, or might be holding a broadsword.

She remained precisely where she was, too.

And neither of them said a word.

But now he was lit only by leaping firelight. His face was all amber and shadows, the hollows, the angles, hard clean line of his jaw, the rise of cheekbones. The same. The beloved, beautiful face was the same. It hurt, it hurt, and it was glorious to see it.

And yet.

And yet there was an air of both implacability and impatience about him, as palpable as the heat from the fire. He'd always been arrogant, but this was different. This was authority. As if the experiences he'd had since he'd left were layered down like rock strata and he was now immovable.

The set of his shoulders—broader now, a distinct horizontal shelf tapering down into his lean torso—called to mind something feral. A wolf, perhaps.

That sizzle along her nerve endings at the mere sight of him reminded her of how little she'd felt anything at all since he'd gone.

The way his clothes fit, their quality . . . it was clear they were staggeringly expensive. He almost looked as though he could have stepped out of White's an hour or so ago.

But something was different.

His hair, black and always prone to waving, was long enough to be pulled back into a short queue. And his face was sun-browned.

It made his eyes so.

Damned.

Blue.

And when he suddenly became brilliant and convex she realized her own eyes were welling with tears.

He produced a handkerchief with magical immediacy and thrust it out.

Their hands did not touch when she took it. Instantly, an old reflex, she ran her thumb over the corner, and there they were: “LAJR.”

Lyon Arthur James Redmond.

“It's shock. That's all. Just surprise.” She sounded remarkably calm in her own ears, but she might have been hearing someone else speaking through glass.

So those were going to be the first words she said to Lyon Redmond after all these years.
It's shock. That's all. Just surprise.

Mundane and not at all true.

“Is that so? Are you certain those aren't tears of joy?”

He'd never spoken to her in that tone before. All dark irony.

He'd never spoken to her with anything other than affection.

“Humans either faint or weep when shocked. If we emitted a lavender scent instead I'm certain I would have done that.”

He laughed at that, sounding startled, because who wouldn't? It was an absolutely ridiculous thing to say.

That laugh.

The sound she'd once loved more than any other sound in the world.

And suddenly all of it . . . her name spoken in that quick, gruff voice, his handkerchief with his initials in the corner that she used to run her thumb over and over, because they were precious because they were his . . . all the things that were the same about him and the things that were different about him . . .

All of it,
all
of it made her blackly furious.

She thrust the handkerchief back at him, because she wanted to kick him.

He took it with a surprised grunt.

Good God, his abdomen was hard as a rock.

He was motionless a moment, staring down at the handkerchief as if she had indeed shoved a sword in.

And then he looked up at her and folded it neatly, deliberately, and placed it back in his pocket.

As if to demonstrate his total composure in the face of her loss of it.

And then he looked up slowly and studied her. Almost dispassionately. Measuring her as he would an opponent.

She wondered if he knew how much he looked like his father when he did that.

Once she could all but read his every emotion. But that was because he'd trusted her. Somehow over the years Lyon had learned cold, hard inscrutability, that air of looking at someone through a magnifying glass.

She supposed she had herself partially to thank for that, too.

She stood and withstood his scrutiny, wondering what he saw.

How had she changed, or had she?

He'd once traced her lips with a single finger, as if he wanted to imprint the memory of her on his soul.

Perhaps since he'd left, a dozen other women had diluted the memory of her.

Her shoulder twitched, as if it sensed her intention to whirl on her heels and flee.

But she couldn't seem to complete the motion any more than a tree could uproot itself and take a stroll across the Sussex downs.

He seemed to sense her impulse to flee.

“Olivia.”

It was her name, all right, but it was another tone she'd never before heard him use. No ardor, no cajoling, no playfulness, no tenderness.

It was quite distinctly a command.

Very nearly a warning.

And this was when sense finally jostled aside the confusing tide of dammed emotion: he might have been torturously vivid in her memories and dreams.

But he was, in fact, a stranger now.

And he didn't like her.

“Yes?” she said. She attempted to mimic his cool tone. She was still shaking. She hid her trembling hands in her skirt.

“I should like to talk with you at some length. I think perhaps we have some unfinished business.”

Well, this was unassailably true.

Still, she wasn't certain how to reply.

“Perhaps you have one or two things you'd like say to me?” A glimmer of mordant humor there. Still, the prevailing tone was detached irony.

“Perhaps,” she managed. Her voice was still a thread.

“Then perhaps you'll agree to a conversation. But not here. I'd like to conduct it on my ship.”

“On your
ship
?”

“Yes,” he said. Almost impatiently.

“Your . . . ship.”

“Yes.”

The arrogant bastard didn't bother to explain why on earth he would have a
ship
.

“So . . . Mrs. More isn't here at all.”

“No.” There was a flicker of something like intolerable amusement in that word.

“So you lied. And tricked me.”

“Yes.”

He was almost brutally monosyllabic and completely unapologetic.

And that's when she fully understood:

Lyon was furious, too.

Blackly, coldly furious.

And somehow, perversely, this heartened her. It was better than that impassivity.

She looked into his face, searching for some clue as to who he was now. There was no evidence of the young man she'd last seen standing as motionless as the dead, his face leached of color, the rain plastering his hair to his face and his shirt to his chest because he'd given his coat to her.

“One must have a code, as you once said to me, Olivia. And while I prefer not to lie, I also prefer to get what I want. And what I wanted was to speak privately to you without anyone else knowing. And I knew just how to do it.”

Every word as coldly delivered as if she was up before a magistrate.

Her own fury ramped and then wavered in the face of his, which was as palpable as a wall.

It wasn't as though he didn't have the right to his.

“On your ship.” She matched his irony.

“On my ship.”

“You couldn't have . . .” Her voice was faint again.

She didn't finish the sentence because she already knew the answer.

“What? Called upon your father, hat in hand? Sent flowers? Shouted objections from the church congregation while they read your banns Sunday after Sunday? No, Olivia. I won't be doing that. But I do want to speak to you. If you are agreeable to this, it will be on my ship. And it will be now, or never.”

Now or never.

Just like that night five years ago, when he'd forced her to decide her future in one minute in the pouring rain, in the dark.

This coldly, unnervingly confident man was the same Lyon.

And yet he was not.