The Legend of Lyon Redmond (24 page)

“Hurry, Lyon,” she begged on a hoarse whisper. “Oh, please.”

Her wish was his command. Soon she was arching in his arms, pulsing with the pleasure of release. And then she clung to him. They breathed together in silence for a time. They were both a little more tired than either wanted to admit, because they didn't want to waste a moment of the time they had together.

He stood and effortlessly carried her to his bed, and lowered her gently. He undressed casually.

And then he lay down alongside her, and pulled her into his arms. She murmured happily and drowsily, something that sounded like his name.

“I will
never
stop wanting you,” he whispered.

But she was already asleep. And all was perfect, because holding Olivia Eversea while she slept felt like what he was born to do.

S
HE WOKE THE
next morning to his sleepy blue eyes and his slowly wandering hands, and she wrapped her limbs around him, pulling him close.

She took him into her body greedily, her fingers gripping his hard shoulders as he drove the two of them to release.

She fell asleep again. He woke her a few hours later with black, black coffee.

And then they walked, hand in hand, back down to the cove. They stripped entirely without modesty and waded into the water, idly through the pool, floating on their backs, meeting now and again to
share a kiss. They were both sore and a bit weary, but the weariness was the peaceful, sated sort that required no conversation.

Before the sun was too high they flung on their clothes again and climbed back up to the beach, hand in hand.

He stopped suddenly. He went absolutely motionless. Then gently dropped her hand, shading his eyes.

She followed the direction of his gaze.

“It's
The Olivia
.”

She was just a suggestion on the horizon, but her masts and sails were stark against the blue of the sky.

“You'd best pack your trunk,” he said finally.

His voice was odd. A bit thick. And unnervingly, carefully neutral.

She turned to study him.

And unease settled in when he didn't meet her eyes.

“Lyon . . . what about you?”

He was silent so long her heart started a sickening hammering.

When he spoke again, he hadn't moved at all. He kept his eyes shaded, watching that ship as surely as if he was at the helm himself.

“I won't be returning to England with you,” he said finally. Again, very evenly.

Her mind blanked in shock. “But . . . why?”

He turned to her then, his eyes so warm.

“I wanted a reckoning, Olivia,” he said evenly. “So did you. I now know what I need to know in order for my life to go on. Do you?”

He was bloody testing her, she could tell.

Panic swept in. Damn him and his
tests
. She was suddenly tempted to kick sand at him.

“Every relative I have is descending upon Pennyroyal Green. I have an immense trousseau. I'm to get married in less than a fortnight. There's a bloody
song
about it,” she said desperately. “My family will be
devastated
if it doesn't happen.”

“Well, if you've a trousseau, you've a legal obligation to be married, don't you? I think unwed women are only legally allowed to own two riding habits. And God only knows one mustn't disappoint the author of flash ballads.”

“I don't like it when you're acerbic.”

“I, on the other hand, love it when you use words like ‘acerbic.'”

She wasn't going to smile, and then she did, and then the smile faded in the face of that inexorably approaching ship, and her inexorably approaching wedding.

They locked eyes as the breeze finished drying their skin. He reached out suddenly, and tucked a whipping lock of black hair behind her ear, and smiled faintly. It didn't stay there.

“
Do
you love him, Olivia?”

An enormous pressure was welling in her chest. She could tell her silence went on longer than he preferred. It wasn't deliberate. She wasn't playing a game, or attempting to punish him.

It was just that she very much wanted to tell the truth.

“I could one day. I might one day.”

“In other words . . . no. You don't love him. But it would be easy, wouldn't it? Life with Landsdowne? And marrying him would make everyone around you happy?”

She stared at him, searching his face for what it was he wanted her to say, but both his tone and expression were ruthlessly neutral and unreadable.

She considered all manner of retorts.

“I don't know what could be easy about being without you,” she said brokenly.

He drew in a long breath at that. And then he pulled her into him and wrapped his arms around her, almost too hard, and tucked his face into the crook of her neck. She held on to him as though she'd been cast into the sea and he was the only rock.

She thought her rib cage might break apart from the pounding of her heart.

She almost thought she could feel
his
heart beating against her chest, but then it could be her own, too.

There really was no difference.

They clung as if they could imprint themselves on each other forever.

“I will never, ever forget a moment of our time here, Olivia,” he murmured. “I'll cherish it for the rest of my life.”

She stiffened suddenly.
That
sounded very like a farewell.

She pushed away from him and stood back, icy with shock. She stared at him numbly.

And again, his expression betrayed nothing. And he said nothing.

And then her icy shock gave way to burning fury.

Lyon knew she was furious. As though he'd anticipated it.

He was as white-faced and tense as if he was enduring some sort of great physical pain. But his legs were planted apart and he appeared implacable and quite resolute.

“Get on the ship and go home,” he said. “And as for what you should do after that . . . You should do whatever you think is right. Because as you've told me more than once, you do not like to be told what to do. You need to decide for yourself.”

Fury swept through her. She was once again that wounded girl who had shoved a beautiful pair of kid gloves back at him and fled, because all she wanted was to be with him forever, and she wanted to know what she should do, and what he would do, and she wanted it to be simple, and she wanted to know
now
.

She quite simply didn't want to disappoint or hurt anyone, ever again.

She hated him for being one step ahead of her, always.

For making her race to catch up to him.

What if loving you is what I do best
?

He'd said that to her the night he'd left.

But he'd loved her then.

And here on Cadiz, he hadn't said he loved her still.

Surely he must.

But as he stood there silently, it was this realization that finally made her turn her back on him and go to pack her trunk.

S
HE DIDN'T SPEAK
to him at all again until they were again on the beach, and his crew was loading her trunk into one of the longboats.

“This is not a game, Lyon. Please . . .
please
just tell me what you're thinking.”

She had never begged for anything in her life until he'd introduced her to the pleasures of her body and his.

“Just remember your code, Olivia.”

He turned and walked fifty feet away from her and stopped. As if releasing a captive bird and encouraging it to rejoin its flock.

Pain roiled through her. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly in an attempt to soothe it.

And then he blurred as hot tears scorched her eyes.

But he didn't move. He stood, legs planted firmly apart, wind filling his shirt and tossing his loose hair, so beautiful and so
him
it was torture to witness.

But if he could let her go again, she could let him go, too.

She spun about so quickly her skirts lashed her legs, like a punishment.

And she didn't look back.

L
YON WATCHED, ABSOLUTELY
motionless as his crew helped Olivia into the boats.

He recognized the rigid line of her spine. That delicate little chin angled like an axe blade. So proud, his Olivia. So furious. So palpably hurt and confused he nearly retched, for her pain was his, and hers, right now, was vicious.

He watched as they rowed her out.

And he watched her grow smaller and smaller.

And he prayed. And he held his breath.

But she did it.

She got on the ship.

She got on the bloody ship.

She never once looked back.

Ah, she certainly knew how to punish him.

He dropped to his knees on the sand and blew out a long breath, wrapping his folded hands across the back of his head.

But this was a calculated gamble. And if it paid off, he promised the Creator it was the last gamble he'd take in his entire life.

Because he did know what he'd wanted to know: he knew now he would be willing to follow her to the ends of the earth.

But he wasn't going to do that.

And he knew that she loved him.

But he wasn't going to lead her to that conclusion.

He wanted her desperately, in every way, forever.

But she needed to fight for him.

And in the end,
she
needed to unequivocally choose him.

For her own sake, and for his.

Oh, he would be damned if he'd chase her again.

He would, however, make it possible for her to catch him.

O
LIVIA RETURNED FROM “
P
LYMOUTH”
to find various relatives as thickly scattered about Eversea House as the birds in the trees outside.

“You do have a remarkable glow, Olivia. Talk of abolitionism must be more thrilling than we all thought. Or the waters in Plymouth were healing. Darling, perhaps we ought to go to Plymouth,” her aunt Pauline called to her uncle Phillips, who grunted. “See how pretty Olivia looks!”

“She's going to be a bride, Pauline. All brides are pretty.” He didn't look up from his newspaper. “I don't think Plymouth is going to help
you
.”

“This is all marriage, eventually, my dear,” Pauline said complacently to Olivia, gesturing to her husband, apparently not at all nonplussed, and not noticing or not caring that Olivia was horrified.

“Not all brides are pretty. You should have seen that Waltham chit who was married in our church. She had a tiny little beard.” She gestured to her chin.

This was said by another aunt, her father's sister Araminta, who swooped in to kiss Olivia as she bustled through the room on the way out to criticize the garden.

“More aunts here than at a picnic.” Ian was at her side, murmuring.

“Ha,” Olivia said bleakly.

“At least they aren't all humming ‘The Legend of Ly—'”

“Don't you dare say it!” She whirled on him.

And then stormed out of the room.

Leaving all of her relatives bewildered and even Ian blinking.

“Brides,” her aunts said in unison. “Have to get them married quick. The longer between the proposal and the ceremony, the tetchier they get.”

“We got married straight away, and it didn't sweeten your temper any,” her uncle said.

“Oh!” her aunt swatted him playfully.

And just like that, Olivia's life closed in over her again. Rather like the Red Sea closed over the pharaoh after Moses and his entourage scooted across.

She could almost believe Cadiz had been a dream. But she still had faint bruises where she'd been gripped as she and Lyon had gone at each other like rutting wild animals.

She closed her eyes as desire roared through her at the very thought.

That
had not been a dream.

That, and the fact that she'd returned with something of a golden glow, since she'd forgotten her bonnet for a day. She remembered what Lyon had said: people see what they want to see. And never in a million years would anyone look at her and conclude she'd been making mad love on a beach with a vanished heir.

You should do what you think is right.

What the bloody hell did that
mean
? If it meant anything at all.

I won't be returning to England with you, Olivia.

Her life was here. Her family was here. Everything she loved and ever wanted was here.

Except him.

Just remember your code.

She lay awake at night in her room, so little changed from the last time she'd seen him. Whenever she did fall asleep she'd inevitably awaken with a start, imagining she heard pebbles thrown against the window.

She leaped up and peered, but it had been nothing but a dream.

The same one she'd had countless times since he'd left.

He hadn't said he loved her. And surely he did. She knew it in her bones. They were born to love each other.

But how could he let her go again so easily if he did?

“D
O YOU THINK
Aunt Pauline and Uncle Phillips are in love?”

She wanted to ask her mother a different question entirely, but she needed to lead her into it without worrying her overmuch.

Her mother stopped poring over the menu for the wedding breakfast and looked up at Olivia in some surprise.

“I don't know that they're
in
love. I'm certain that they love each other.” Her mother quirked the corner of her mouth. “There's all kinds of love, of course.”

She sat down next to her mother.

“Lemon seedcakes, Olivia?” Her mother fretted. “Or perhaps a tart instead? For the breakfast?”

“Lemon seedcakes sound lovely.” She doubted she'd eat anything at all.

“Excellent.” He mother made a note.

“Mama . . . were you in love with Papa when you married him?”

“Oh my. Dear me. Yes. I was.”

She knew it to be definitely true, because her mother's face took on a misty, reminiscent glow. She hadn't settled for Jacob Eversea instead of Isaiah Redmond. Olivia was glad.

“Was he very handsome when he was younger?”

“You should have seen him when he was a boy, Olivia. He rode his horse at breakneck speeds, but he was such a brilliant rider, it was a pleasure to see him. Very thrilling for a young girl, you know. It got so that every time I heard the thunder of hooves my heart would about jump from chest, because I knew it was him. To this day when I hear hooves my heart leaps. And your papa no longer thunders, as you know.”

Olivia smiled. “A bit like Colin used to ride. Before Madeline.”

Her mother's face went peculiarly still and she stood up abruptly and paced to the window and looked out. Perhaps imagining a young Jacob Eversea galloping out there on the green.

She didn't reply for some time.

“It's not as though love doesn't get tested over the years, on occasion, Olivia. When you were a little girl, your father went to sea for a time, as he did when he was younger. He was a little too fond of risks with money, though he is generally very good at it, but we lost a good deal at one time. And then he went out in search of more fortune. It was . . . it was a difficult time. But true love weathers those things, and only grows stronger.”

It was interesting to hear this version of her parents. Similar to hearing what her father had told her years ago about her courting her mother.

He hadn't been trying to warn her about Lyon then, she understood now. He'd been trying to warn her about Isaiah.

“That was just before Colin was born, right? When Papa went to sea?”

“Yes,” her mother said.

“And you and Papa . . .”

“. . . are on the whole very happy, and we congratulate ourselves on our successful match and splendid offspring quite often.”

Olivia laughed.

“And I cannot speak for all of womankind, Olivia. I can speak from experience and observation. I think there's the kind of love you're
born
with. The kind you can't help, because it's like your eye color or anything else. There's the kind you fall into. And there's the kind that you find yourself enveloped in after years of familiarity and comfort and a family to bind you. Which I suppose is the kind that Pauline and your uncle now have. I don't know if they're in love, but of a certainty they love each other. I don't know that one is better than the other, ultimately. All love is a blessing. The opportunity to give it and receive may be what humans are born for. And I like to think that if you loved once . . . it only means you can love again.”

The words “Lyon Redmond” were never mentioned, but of course, the last sentence was all about him, and they both knew it.

“I love you, Mama.”

“I love you, too, my dear. Olivia, all your father and I want is for you to be happy and safe and loved. It is all we ever wanted for you. Never forget it.”

She said this fervently. As though delivering a message.

But given the condition of Olivia's nerves, everything had begun to seem significant.

Olivia, who had long loathed being told what to do, still rather wished that someone would.

S
HE SLIPPED FROM
the house and walked alone to the vicarage, past the churchyard fence. She recalled the view of hems and boot toes when she'd dropped her prayer book, at the very spot she stood now, then looking up into Lyon's eyes. And even now it made her heart leap.

And how she had gone walking with Landsdowne in public past this very churchyard, knowing the town would see her. Signaling to everyone that she intended to move on and live her life.

On impulse she veered into the churchyard to prowl among the stones of her ancestors.

She paused before a newer one, Lady Fennimore's.

She was a curmudgeon, that one, and Olivia always smiled when she saw what was written on her headstone.

Don't think it won't happen to you.

Which could apply to anything in life, really. Olivia liked it. Quite a flexible message. A message of dread or hope, depending on what sort of day you were having and who you were. She would have to think of a similar one to amuse future generations of Everseas who might stroll through this churchyard.

Olivia, Lady Landsdowne.

That's what her headstone would say.

For she would be married tomorrow.

She drew in a long breath, and tried to decide how she felt about it.

If Lyon wanted to intervene in her wedding, now would be the time to do it.

But damn him to Hell, he was nowhere to be seen. And if she thought about it too much she nearly stopped breathing. The force of the longing
was too much to bear, and once she made a decision, she could begin allowing it to ebb.

Love
could
happen.

She decided today that Lady Fennimore was delivering a message of hope.

She didn't feel uplifted by it. But the momentum of her decision would carry her through, she supposed.

She glanced up toward the vicarage, and she shaded her eyes, and went still.

And then her heart gave a little glad lurch.

Her cousin Adam, the vicar, was in front of the vicarage, in shirtsleeves. He'd been out cutting wood, from the looks of things. And he was speaking to the bandaged beggar from Madame Marceau's! He ushered the beggar swiftly into the vicarage, but it was unmistakably him: the same shabby, tattered clothing, the bandages. The poor soul appeared to be bent, too, and he dragged a foot, which was likely why he'd spent so much time sitting.

And she was glad she could send him to Adam, who seemed to have endless reserves of time and goodness to give to those who needed it. And if she'd been the means by which that man found help and comfort, well then, that was the only wedding present she needed.

It seemed like a sign.

Though she would have preferred to have one of the beggar's blessings, just to be certain of it.

A
N EXHAUSTED, ANTICIPATORY
hush had finally fallen over Eversea house.

Olivia's wedding dress was laid out on a bed in a miraculously unoccupied Eversea bedroom. Her relatives had all visited it in a hush, in turn, as if it
were a loved one lying in state, and pronounced it exquisite.

Tomorrow everyone would troop down to the church—Landsdowne and his party of mother, sisters, and an old friend who had agreed to stand up with him would meet the Eversea family there—and the last of all the Eversea siblings to get married (as more than one aunt had reminded Olivia) was finally going to do just that. Though it was worth it, everyone conceded. It seemed Clever Olivia had clearly been holding out for a viscount all along. It wasn't quite the same as a duke, but dukes were hardly thick on the ground and Landsdowne was indisputably a catch, and thankfully she could now put all that Lyon Redmond nonsense behind her once and for all.

And after that, there would be a great party and dancing, with Seamus Duggan and his merry band of players providing the music, and the doors of Eversea House would be open to the whole of the town to celebrate the event of a decade, an event no one had truly thought would ever occur.

“J
OHN
E
DGAR, WILT
thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”

Landsdowne's response was instant.

“I will.”

The words filled the corners of the church like the triumphant notes of an organ.

The church was crammed full of bodies—everybody who had ever lived in Pennyroyal Green
seemed to be in attendance, including all of the Redmonds, who never missed a church service if it could be helped, and perhaps had ulterior motives for being present at this one—and it was warmer than she could ever remember it being. But still Olivia shivered in her wedding dress.

She could scarcely remember how she'd gotten here.

She'd awakened at dawn, and her mother and her sister and aunts, in a reverent, understanding hush, had slid the beautiful, much-discussed, flawlessly lovely dress over her head.

She remembered answering questions in monosyllables. She remembered trembling; she still was. And as Mademoiselle Lilette-Digby had said, only two things were required of her today: that she look beautiful, and that she repeat the right words at the vicar's prompting.

She'd accomplished the first.

“Wilt thou, Olivia Katherine, have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”

So long as ye both shall live.

The words seemed to knell.

It was a simple question. Asked millions of times, likely, since the ancient, binding words were first written.

It required a simple two-word answer.

It suddenly seemed perilous that only two words could lie between a person and the rest of her life.

Two words.

And yet she'd forgotten how to speak.

She glanced over her shoulder.

The congregation was almost comically motionless. They knew something was awry. Her senses were suddenly exquisitely acute. The very silence seemed to ring a high clear note, and everyone she'd known her entire life suddenly seemed as distinct as a woodcut.