Part 5 (2/2)
”I have a friend who trains and races horses,” he said, after a long pause. ”It is his pa.s.sion. He fell off a spirited one and broke his arm badly, and the doctor told him he could set it one of two positions. If he set it the usual way, the way that afforded him the most freedom of movement, he wouldn't be able hold reins effectively ever again. He chose to have his arm set in the second option-in such a way that he could grip the reins.”
”So you say we are broken into the shape of our wounds. Or in the shape of the thing that means the most to us, and so we are suited to one thing only.”
He smiled at her swiftly. Landsdowne genuinely appreciated her intelligence.
She didn't smile. A chill was slowly spreading in her gut.
”Do you perhaps speak from experience?” she challenged lightly. Suddenly nervous.
He shrugged. ”Oh, I don't think so. I just thought it was anecdote worth sharing. That it perhaps merited a philosophical discussion.”
”I'm not certain I'm equal to a philosophical discussion at the moment, when I must tell Madame Marceau before next week which trim to use on the hem-the silver or the cream? Or beading? Perhaps Parliament would be thoughtful enough to put it to a vote. Though I'm certain your metaphor doesn't apply to me.”
He was quiet, and this time it was he who turned his teacup a few times.
”You haven't yet wed, and you've had countless options.”
A fortnight after she'd filled a sheet of foolscap with Lyon's name she'd filled another one: Olivia Redmond Olivia Redmond Olivia Redmond. Over and over and over. She hadn't known what else to do with the geyser of emotion she could share with no one but Lyon. It was too new, too potent, and far, far too big to contain or understand.
She'd thrown that sheet of foolscap into the fire, too.
Because as far as her family and his were concerned, it amounted to heresy.
”I haven't wed because I've only lately met you,” she told Landsdowne.
It was such a perfect thing to say that he decided to believe it.
He reached for her hand and gripped it. And his was so solid and warm and real and fine, and nothing in her lurched in joy or in any other emotion, and she thought, surely this sort of safety was better, and madness was for the very young.
Chapter 4.
About five years earlier, at the Suss.e.x Christmas Eve a.s.sembly . . .
”NO, NO, MILES, IT'S like this.”
Jonathan Redmond slouched against the wall of the milling ballroom, shoved his hands in his pockets, narrowed his eyes, and aimed a look down the bridge of his nose at a young woman who was at least five years his senior.
The woman intercepted Jonathan's gaze, frowned faintly, puzzled but indulgent, gave her fan an irritated little twitch, and turned away. Coltish Jonathan, of course, was all but invisible to her at his age.
His brother Miles stifled a laugh. ”You look like you just took a cricket ball to the head. It's more like this.”
He tipped his head back, slitted his eyes, clenched his jaw, and aimed a gaze at the same woman.
And while Miles Redmond, the second oldest, had many splendid qualities, he wore spectacles and hadn't yet quite grown into his nose, and this time the woman remained oblivious.
”You've succeeded only in looking constipated.” Jonathan was indignant. ”And what woman will succ.u.mb to that?”
”How do you know that isn't Lyon's secret?” Miles retorted.
They both laughed.
Lyon Redmond rolled his eyes. His brothers were taking the p.i.s.s out of him, which he normally rather enjoyed. Taking the p.i.s.s out of each other was one of the myriad pleasures of having brothers. Affection, if displayed, was usually conveyed via insults and wrestling, which they all found satisfactory and sufficient.
But then, his brothers could laugh.
They didn't have to be him.
It was true he did, in fact, have a patented sultry look. It really didn't require much more than simply being Lyon Redmond while aiming appreciative, unswerving attention at a woman for a tick longer than was strictly proper.
It raised a blush nearly every time.
And it was generally agreed among the bloods of the ton that given an option, they would choose his life over theirs, if only for a day. Perhaps that day would be spent at Manton's, shooting the hearts out of targets or whipping the foil out of his fencing master's hand; followed by an hour or two in London at their father's secretive and exclusive Mercury Club, where England's wealthiest men devised strategies for making themselves and each other wealthier; and perhaps conclude with a ball much like this one, where most of the women could be counted on to look yearningly past every other man present in the hopes they would intercept one of his smolders.
What Lyon could have told nearly anyone was that even he envied Lyon Redmond. Because the Lyon Redmond of current lore was primarily simply that: lore.
It was said he effortlessly excelled at everything. It wasn't true. He focused on what he wanted to master and methodically, ruthlessly conquered it, whether it was cricket or calculus or fencing or shooting or a woman. And while it was true he invariably got what he wanted, he made absolutely certain the effort never showed.
He'd been born knowing the power of subtlety and the advantage of surprise. It was in the Redmond blood, after all.
Which meant he was also discreet about his carnal indulgences.
All in all, given other choices, Lyon would still ultimately probably decide to remain himself.
But he was beginning to feel like a prize bull confined to a gilded pen until such time as his father, Isaiah Redmond, deemed it was time for him to fertilize a carefully chosen aristocratic heifer. The Duke of Hexford's daughter, Arabella, seemed a likely choice. Though Arabella was hardly a heifer. She was stunning and shy to the point of muteness and blushed apologetically after everything she said.
But she wasn't here tonight. This particular ball was far too rustic an event for the daughter of a duke. Lyon was home for good from Oxford, though he had come by way of a lengthy stay in the family town house in London. London's diversions were a startling contrast to those of Pennyroyal Green, whose closest thing to a den of iniquity was the Pig & Thistle and the perennial cutthroat chess game between Mr. Culpepper and Mr. Cooke.
Not that Lyon lingered in any iniquity dens. He cherished his inheritance, and he knew precisely what was required of him in order to keep it.
”Pay attention, you hapless fools,” he commanded his brothers. ”It's more like . . .”
Dozens of young women were milling about, most of them in white, some of them t.i.tled, all of them glowing and pretty in the way that youth and hope is always pretty, and it was charming and comfortable and as English a scene as one could wish for.
Later, Miles would swear he literally heard the sound of a gong being struck when Lyon clapped eyes on her.
But for Lyon, the prevailing sensation could only be described as panic.
Panic that she might be a vision rather than an actual woman. Panic that she was an actual woman, but that he might never be able to touch her, and his entire life would be rendered meaningless if he couldn't. Panic that she would have nothing to do with him. Panic that he wouldn't know what to say if she would have something to do with him.
It was absolutely absurd, and all of this would have amused every person who had ever met him, for Lyon, like his father, seemed to have been born knowing just what to say to get people to do just what he wanted.
She was wearing white muslin, beautifully cut and simple, but so were many of the other girls. She was pet.i.te. So were many of the other girls.
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