Part 7 (2/2)
Lyon did, pulling out a chair and arranging himself casually in it, crossing his legs and swinging one polished Hoby Hessian.
He could see the reflection of the clock in its toe. Its pendulum kept swinging traitorously.
”Did you enjoy your first ball in Suss.e.x?”
”It's definitely pleasant to be back. Very different from London. I should like to stay a bit longer and rusticate, if no one objects. I've missed the country a good deal, I realize.”
It was his way of preparing his father for the fact that he didn't intend to leave Pennyroyal Green anytime soon.
”We always enjoy having you about, Lyon. Did anything else interesting happen last night?”
”Saw a few old friends.”
”Such as young Cambersmith?”
”Yes.”
All at once suspicion flared bright and hot and he was, in an instant, on guard.
”His father mentioned that you danced with Miss Olivia Eversea. Stole a waltz right out from under his nose.” His father sounded faintly amused.
Just the very words ”Olivia Eversea” made the back of Lyon's neck warm and tightened the bands of his stomach.
He would not look at the clock he would not he would not.
”Yes. I believe I did. Among other girls.” Whose names he could not remember even if someone had pointed a pistol at his head. ”Isn't it funny that Cambersmith would tattle?” He smiled faintly.
His father was silent. Never a good sign.
Lyon and his siblings had more than once jested about his father's green eyes. They suspected he could see like a cat right through to any secrets hiding in what he no doubt (affectionately, one hoped) considered the black little hearts of his sons, as well as his one quite lively daughter. He'd always seemed to know who'd gotten jam on the banister, or who had accidentally shot the foot off the statue of Mercury in the garden, or who had stolen a cheroot from the humidor.
His father steepled his hands and tapped the tips of his fingers lightly together.
Which was peculiar, as his father was neither a fidgeter nor a procrastinator. He preferred to deliver orders and news the way a guillotine delivers a nice sharp chop. Swiftly and surgically.
”Did one of your brothers or friends dare you to dance with her, or . . .”
Lyon blinked, genuinely surprised. ”I'm sorry?”
”You're sorry for dancing with her?” His father sounded faintly relieved.
”Forgive me if I'm being obtuse, sir, but I don't understand the question. Why would anyone dare me to dance with a young woman who doesn't want for partners and would hardly be likely to refuse me? We are Redmonds, after all.” He said this half in jest.
It was the sort of jest his father typically enjoyed.
It rang flatly in the room.
Lyon dancing with an Eversea was aberrant, and they both knew it. Because Lyon was dutiful, and he had been raised with the notion that the Everseas and the Redmonds quite simply did not dance with one another, any more than cats and dogs enjoyed a good waltz.
”Why, then, did you dance with her?”
Lyon stared back. He saw only his own reflection in his father's eyes.
He wickedly contemplated saying, Because she is my destiny just to see whether his father was too young for apoplexy.
He'd never even known he was capable of thinking such words. Let alone believing them.
And then all at once it wasn't funny.
He decided to try cajoling. ”Come. You've eyes in your head, Father. And you were young once. It was an impulse, I suppose.”
His father would likely disinherit him at once if he'd said, Because she reminded me of the first wildflower in spring. His father considered excessive use of metaphor a character flaw.
His father smiled, faintly and tautly, a smile in which his eyes did not partic.i.p.ate. ”I was, indeed, young. Once.”
It was as ironic a sentence as Lyon had ever heard.
Something about it stirred a faint memory, a suspicion he'd had for some time. Because he was, as he'd told Olivia Eversea, indeed observant, and he'd seen his father's eyes linger ever so slightly on a particular woman more than once.
He cautiously echoed his father's faint smile with one of his own. Over the years he'd learned to modulate his emotions, his expressions, his word choices, all in order to ensure his father remained indulgent and proud, because that's what ensured a comfortable life in the Redmond household.
”And yet you're not typically impulsive, Lyon.”
”No. I suppose I'm not.” He knew better than to expound.
Lyon was in fact demonstrably the opposite of impulsive. He hadn't squandered his allowance in gaming h.e.l.ls, impregnated the servants, or appeared in the broadsheets for cavorting on Rotten Row with notorious aristocratic widows.
Though he had indulged in an aristocratic widow or two. Sometimes he thought G.o.d had created aristocratic widows for the sole purpose of indoctrinating handsome heirs into carnal pleasures. But he was both discreet and discerning.
From the moment he was born Lyon's responsibility as future head of a dynasty had been impressed upon him, the way a signet ring grinds into hot wax.
He was coming to realize his learned carefulness was something of a useful skill.
He was also beginning to understand the grave cost to himself.
So he said nothing more.
But G.o.d help him, he darted a swift look at the clock.
His father usually missed nothing. But if he noticed that glance, he didn't remark upon it.
”Lyon . . . you should know how proud I am of you. A man could not ask for a better son.”
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