The Legend of Lyon Redmond (8 page)

This required the kind of patience he no longer possessed.

He'd shaved with particular care that morning, and he was confident the man who looked back at him from the mirror was polished and regal. He'd tied and retied his cravat three times, before deciding simple was best primarily because his hands were oddly clumsy with nerves. Anyone who knew him well, Jonathan or Miles, would have laughed to see him so at the mercy of a woman, when it was generally understood that it was always the other way around.

Though perhaps it would have been less funny when they learned this particular woman was Olivia Eversea.

At half past three, he sorted through the contents of his coat pockets. Two pence, an old theater ticket, a tiny folding knife, and his gold pocket watch engraved with his initials, a gift from his father on his sixteenth birthday. He cherished that watch. It had made him feel very adult. He'd become someone who needed a watch, for he had places to be and things to attend to.

He flipped the pocket watch open, and then closed. And open, and then closed. Not feeling terribly adult. The click seemed deafening here in the quiet woods, and seemed to emphasize how very foolishly alone he was out here beneath the elm tree.

At four o'clock he walked thirty feet up the rutted dirt road and peered, and saw nothing but a squirrel, who was then joined by another squirrel. Lucky squirrels, whose assignation was a success.

He watched the shadows of everything around him lengthen, even his own.

At four-fifteen, he carved the letter “O” in the elm tree with his knife. Because he thought perhaps if he wrote it somewhere it might ease a bit of the restlessness, the fever. Because it felt as though a knife were at this moment carving it into his very soul.

It did not.

He wasn't certain he'd ever waited two hours for any
human
before, let alone a woman.

He was a determined man. He stood on the road and
willed
her into appearing on the horizon.

She did not.

Finally, desolation sank through him, so black and weighted for a moment he couldn't imagine moving ever again. They would find him centuries from now, planted like the tree. Pining like a fool in the direction of Eversea House.

This mordantly amused him. He had never cared enough to be desolate before, and the feeling was so new it almost did him in.

Almost.

It was the very notion of newness that revived him. Desolation was at least
interesting
.

Today was only one day.

And he was going to get what he wanted.

That Sunday . . .

T
HE ENTIRE
E
VERSEA FAMILY
crowded into their usual pew in the Pennyroyal Green church, which had been polished by centuries of other Eversea bums, to politely pretend to be interested in what the vicar had to say. They each had their own strategy for staying awake during the sermon. Olivia and Genevieve often made a game of guessing who had a new bonnet, or at least new bonnet trim.

“One day we'll have a
fascinating
vicar, mark my words,” their mother told them.

“I shouldn't hold my breath,” Jacob Eversea muttered in reply.

“Look at who's here. I thought he was leaving for the continent.” Her brother Colin whispered this to Ian, nudging him.

Olivia followed the direction of Colin's chin nudge.

And she froze.

The shoulders were unmistakable. And when he turned, just a little, to speak to his mother, that profile made her breathing go jagged.

Her heart shot skyward like a bird released from a cage.

It seemed insanity now that there had been a small part of her that had wished him away, because
that would simply be easier. It was so very clear that
everything
was better when he was near.

Olivia didn't hear a word of the sermon, but anyone watching her would have thought she found the vicar's message transcendent, so unblinkingly rapt and aglow was she. She'd never been happier to be wearing the blue striped muslin and the bonnet with the blue ribbons, because everyone said it was the precise color of her eyes.

And that familiar sound of dozens of people at once, shaking out crushed skirts, waiting for old limbs to thaw or creak into motion, and the crowd moved en masse out of church, slowly, pausing to mill and exchange greetings.

She had just shuffled with the crowd to the edge at the churchyard fence, and she paused to look up, her heart hammering. The trees surrounding the church had leafed almost overnight in a joyous explosion of green.

Suddenly a voice was in her ear.

“Drop your prayer book.”

She instantly did just that.

She and Lyon Redmond both simultaneously then dropped to a crouch. Anyone observing would have thought he'd simply solicitously stopped to pick the book up for her. The Redmonds had exquisite breeding, after all.

“I waited
two hours
,” he said on a whispered rush. It was both faintly accusatory and awestruck. And a little amused.

She bit her lip. He was so handsome she literally
ached
. As if all of her senses were flooded with him.

“I do
not
like to be told what to do. Especially if I'm being told to lie. I never lie.”

“Never?” He was so genuinely astonished that she couldn't help but smile.

“Well, I'm bad at it. And one ought to have a code, after all.”

“I agree. One
ought
to,” he agreed, somberly.

But his eyes were dancing.

She tried and failed not to smile.

“I do apologize, Miss Eversea. I see now that I assumed too much. For instance, I assumed you might wish to speak to me again. Do you?”

Clever, clever wicked man to demand an answer in a way she couldn't dodge. Because she'd just self-righteously announced she never lied.

“Yes.”

“Shall I come to call?” He said this evenly. But impatiently, as they could not crouch here forever.

Their eyes locked.

God only knew how the Everseas were discussed in
his
household.

He'd made his point without saying another word, and furthermore, he knew she understood.

She was aware of the hum of cheerful voices, a child shrieking in what sounded like mad joy, because it had been released from the purgatory of sitting still on a hard pew while a man in a long dress droned on and on.

It was a very peculiar view she had at the moment, a word comprised only of skirt hems and boot toes and Lyon's blue, blue eyes.

“You should know that I don't make a habit of lying, either, Miss Eversea. I apologize if the note caused offense. I merely thought the gentlemanly thing to do would be to arrive at a plan that would allow us to see each other again, and then present it to you. Because I wanted to see you again, and
my
code is to get what I want.”

It was so thrillingly arrogant her heart all but keeled over in a hard swoon.

“It was very efficient of you,” she admitted. “Well done.”

He shook his head slightly, as if she were a delight, lips pressed together, eyes sparkling, and she smiled at him, grateful her bonnet disguised her flushed cheeks from the rest of the world.

What a joy it would be to speak with him endlessly, because somehow she knew that she could. To use a normal conversational voice, not a constrained hush. To laugh out loud. To savor his presence without looking over her shoulder or anywhere else but at him.

Which reminded her she really ought to look over her shoulder.

If anyone in her family had yet noticed she was missing from their milling little throng, they hadn't thought to look down yet. Thankfully her brothers were all very tall, and the ground wouldn't be the first place they looked for their missing sister.

She half wondered if Lyon Redmond had thought of this, too, when he'd told her to drop her prayer book.

She was very clever, a quicksilver, incisive sort of clever. But she had the suspicion that Mr. Redmond was one step ahead of her.

It irritated her, even as she liked it very much.

“Mr. Redmond . . .” she said finally.

“Lyon,” he corrected on an almost irritable, impatient hush, as if he'd done it dozens of times before. As if they hadn't enough time for two words when one could do.

“Lyon,” she repeated gently, as if he'd given her a little treasure.

He smiled at her as if she'd just knighted him.

A fraught few seconds during which they locked eyes, and the milling legs of departing churchgoers
began to thin and they would be exposed crouching face to face on the ground outside the churchyard.

“I will bring a basket of food to the Duffys on Tuesday afternoon,” she whispered in a rush. “About two o'clock. I'll be alone.”

“Wouldn't it be a coincidence if we met on the road going south?”

“It would at that,” she agreed breathlessly, then launched herself to her feet, and whipped about and walked away from him without saying another word.

It was all she could do not to leap up and click her heels as she hurried back to her family.

“I dropped my prayer book,” she explained, though thankfully her family looked mildly puzzled by this announcement, as no one had really noticed she was gone. “It just leaped from my hands. It's my favorite book. I should hate to lose it. By dropping it.”

“I think our Olivia just had a religious epiphany. She's glowing like a lamp.” This came from Chase, who was studying her oddly. Though that could be because she was babbling about her prayer book.

“How could she have an epiphany after
that
service, when I could swear the vicar dozed off for a second or two while he was speaking? And if he can sleep during the service, why can't I?”

Colin presented this logic to his mother, who snorted and looped her arm through his, as if this alone could rein in her irrepressible son and prevent him from climbing the trellises of married countesses.

“We are Church of England, daughter mine, and we do own the living, as you know, so please don't entertain any ideas of becoming a nun,” her father said dryly, and looped his arm in hers.

“Olivia would annoy all the other nuns. She'd have to be the
best
nun,” Ian teased.

She laughed, even though it was absolutely true: she quite loved winning. But she was prepared to find everything funny and beautiful at the moment and she would not look back she would not she would not she would
not
to see if Lyon Redmond was watching her.

Genevieve was walking ahead of them, and glanced at Olivia over her shoulder. “I don't think
those
are the ideas she's entertain—
OW!
”

Olivia stepped on the back of her sister's shoe and pulled it off. “I'm so sorry, Genevieve! Clumsy me.”

Genevieve shot her an aggrieved look and Olivia returned it with a daggerlike one.

“Come here, my love, where you cannot be stepped upon by your sister,” her father commanded, teasing both of them.

Genevieve skipped backward and took his other arm.

A fortnight ago, this was the definition of perfect happiness for Olivia. A beautiful spring day, tiny purple wildflowers already peering through the little fence surrounding the churchyard full of ancient leaning stones covering Eversea and Redmond ancestors and other familiar Sussex names; her family, together, bantering, bickering, teasing, arms linked, walking the familiar path to home. Her father, tall and broad and handsome and only a little soft in the belly like any properly contented man, cigar smoke and wood smoke practically woven now into his favorite Sunday coat. His coat was the smell of love and safety to Olivia. Her mother, whose heart-shaped face and blue eyes were so like her own, sending her a quick and wry and loving look that said,
We know our men need us to keep them civilized
.

Her life was stitched together by countless Sundays just like this one, and other beloved little rituals she'd known since she was a child.

She pulled her father's arm snugly against her ribs as if to keep herself anchored to him and to the ground, even as she couldn't quite feel the ground beneath her feet. Even as she knew something was pulling her away.

She was going to see Lyon Redmond again.

She did not look back.

So she didn't know that Lyon stood for an infinitesimal moment of utter stillness to watch her go, as if marshaling all of his senses to remember it.

And it was this very stillness that caught the eye of his father, because it was the sort of stillness an arrow has after it strikes its target.

He followed the line of Lyon's gaze, and saw a dark-haired girl with a slim back and a light step, linked arm in arm with Jacob Eversea. A girl so achingly familiar he nearly swayed with a vertigo comprised of years.

Jacob Eversea. The man who lived the life that could have been Isaiah's.

And then Isaiah's beautiful wife, Fanchette, linked her arm in his, and he turned a reflexive fond smile on her.

He led his own fine family, Lyon and Miles and Jonathan and Violet, in the opposite direction, toward Redmond House.

O
N
T
UESDAY AFTERNOON,
at fifteen minutes to two o clock, Lyon waited alongside the double elm tree, vaguely embarrassed now that his earlier desperation was permanently commemorated with a carved “O.” Poor tree.

But then he saw a dot of white in the distance and his heart seemed to acquire a thousand extra beats.

And when she saw him, she broke into a run, her face suffused with light, for all the world like a shooting star.

Suddenly the “O” seemed entirely inadequate. He ought to carve an “H” in front of it and “sannah” after it.

He tried to appear nonchalant and manly and arrogant, all the things the world believed he was. But he met her halfway before he even knew he was walking.

They both stopped, mutely delighted.

She smiled and pushed a tendril of loosened hair away from her eyes, and for a moment they said nothing at all.

“Let me take that for you,” he said at last.

He slid the basket from her arm.

“It's heavy,” she warned. “Bread and half a wheel of cheese, and some fruit and other things in jars. It's an awful lot of food.”

He gave it a little heft to demonstrate how strong and manly he was. “There are an awful lot of Duffys.”

“There are, and there are bound to be more, because he won't stay off her.”

She froze and clapped a mortified hand to her mouth, blushed scarlet when she realized what she'd said.

He gave a shout of laughter.

But even
he
almost blushed.

“A pity they're not Church of England,” he said. “They're a trifle less enthusiastic about that sort of thing.”

“Are they?” She sounded genuinely curious and faintly disappointed.

“Well, not all of them.”

As, of course, the two of them were Church of England.

They stopped, both dizzied and nonplussed by the sudden veering of the conversation into the Duffys' bedroom.

“We really oughtn't be talking about this sort of thing,” she said dubiously. Abashed. She'd said it more because she thought she ought to than because she believed it.

She set out down the road. It was lined with elms and ashes and ancient hawthorn hedges, which rustled with birds and other tiny living things. It had seemed so desolate when he waited for her. And now it was paradise.

He wanted to rescue her from embarrassment. “If we avoid all the things we ought not do, Miss Eversea, neither of us would be walking along this road, enjoying a spectacularly beautiful day in the presence of someone charming. And if something worries you, I should like to know about it. We're friends, are we not?”

“Most definitely.”

She said this so fervently he was literally charmed down to the soles of his feet.

Their initial giddy burst of conversation spent, and for a moment no one spoke. They simply walked. The things they felt free to say aloud had not yet caught up to the things they felt about each other, and the silence was filled with happiness and impatience.

“I truly didn't mean to say that,” she said suddenly. “I shouldn't like you to think I'm so careless. It's just that I do worry, you see. The Duffy children are darling in their way but so often ill because there isn't enough to eat and they are not very strong, and
Mr. Duffy works when he can but he also drinks when he can.”