Part 17 (1/2)

The notion that Olivia should feel hurt or ashamed or abandoned, that she should think for a moment that she could bear being apart from him, tortured him at night, and London, which he had always loved, had become excruciating. Time was, once again, his enemy.

To survive, he'd mastered a permanent faint, interested smile. It was as effective as a mask, and he soon discovered it was all that seemed necessary to be considered charming, because he was Lyon Redmond, and everyone was predisposed to think him charming, anyway.

He accepted invitations to dine with old school friends; he spent a pleasant enough few nights at White's, where the waiters greeted him with real pleasure and deference and where old Colonel Kefauver still alternately snoozed, talked in his sleep, and told alarmingly violent stories of his days in India. And would, Lyon thought, until the end of time.

One evening at White's he and his father had settled in at a table with drinks, and when his father pored over the newspaper, Lyon wandered over to the betting book and flipped idly through a few pages.

He froze when his name leaped out at him.

N. Gracen wagers Lord Fincher fifteen pounds L. Redmond is engaged to Hexford's daughter by year's end.

Wagers on his proposed wedding to Lady Arabella already.

Though no one was taking much of a risk at fifteen pounds.

But Arabella was a prize, and anyone's willingness to concede her to Lyon was a way of conceding his own supremacy. Lyon was a prize, too.

At one point in the distant past, perhaps six months ago, this would have brought immense satisfaction.

And now he just felt like a prize bull kicking the walls of his pen.

The bloods at White's were fools. They would wager on anything.

And as he stared at that, he could feel the blood leaving his face.

He must have been white with fury when he turned.

His father was watching him. And he raised his gla.s.s in what appeared to be a toast.

AT HIS FATHER'S request, he persuasively presented his ideas about steam engines and railroads to a group of England's wealthiest men in what must surely be the longest, glossiest table in all of England.

He knew his father envisioned Lyon at the head of it one day.

Lyon, in fact, had envisioned himself at the head of it.

And he did lose himself for moments at a time in the enthusiasm of the investors. He loved clever minds and innovation and the idea of risking for rewards. The discussion grew lively and detailed and Lyon basked in their genuine admiration for his ideas about steam engines. He'd committed his own discretionary funds to the eendeavor.

”The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, old man,” was the consensus, as the club lingered over drinks later.

The tree being Isaiah, of course.

Which Lyon supposed was a compliment. He wasn't completely unmoved by it, either.

Isaiah certainly glowed as if it was.

But every bit of it, even this antic.i.p.ated triumph at the Mercury Club, had begun to feel like an interminable dream.

His real life only existed in about hour increments, and only on Tuesdays.

AND HE RODE in Rotten Row with Arabella, who sat a mare beautifully, and who was so accustomed to stares that she never blinked when heads whipped toward them as they rode past. The row was crowded thanks to the weather, and they were seen and remarked upon and he could antic.i.p.ate precisely what the broadsheets would print about it.

”What a magnificent couple,” he heard someone murmur appreciatively.

And when he delivered her home again she smiled and blushed with something like apology. For she knew she was too quiet and too shy, and that Lyon was brilliant. Arabella would likely never resist whatever destiny her father planned for her, and suddenly this made Lyon pity her so achingly that he gave her hand a kiss farewell.

He found his father at home when he returned, settled in his favorite chair, one that Lyon could remember always being there, a great enveloping leather behemoth. He was reading a newspaper.

”How was your ride with Lady Arabella?”

”Charming,” Lyon said shortly.

He waited another moment, in the hopes that his next words would sound more casual than desperate.

”Father, if you can spare me, I need to return to Suss.e.x.”

His father looked up from his newspaper and studied him for a moment.

”Oh? You need to? Why is that?”

”A chestnut mare I've been coveting is at last available for sale. I've put some of my allowance aside for the purchase of her.”

He'd prepared the lie as he was riding with Arabella, who was riding a chestnut mare. And Lyon had sunk his funds into the latest Mercury Club endeavor and was awaiting the return. He was hardly currently in a position to buy a mare.

His father lowered the paper all the way into his lap and regarded his oldest son calmly. And it was a moment before he spoke.

”A mare, is it?”

There was something ironic about the words that had the hairs p.r.i.c.kling on the back of Lyon's neck.

”Yes.” He was aware the word was faintly defiant, but he couldn't seem to help it.

More silence.

”Very well, Lyon,” his father said at last, in a tone Lyon found difficult to interpret. ”Go home to Pennyroyal Green. See to your mare. And tell your mother I'll be home in a week.”

OLIVIA TOOK A deep breath of clean, free air before she crossed the threshold into the Duffy household, much like a diver preparing to enter a murky sea. Her only responsibility was to leave the food with a quick, charitable smile and then depart-it really was all her parents had given her permission to do-but she never could. It wasn't as though they were chickens in a barnyard, for heaven's sake. She didn't know how any human with a heart or conscience could look about the Duffy house or into Mrs. Duffy's face and not offer some momentary respite.

She'd grown fond of the children, some of them noisy little heathens, some of them angels, all of them, truly, some blend of each, all of them vying for a sc.r.a.p of attention from their exhausted, beleaguered mother and their indifferent, hapless, usually absent father. The children scarcely were allowed to be children, anyway, pressed into service as nannies and cleaners as soon as they could walk.

Olivia tried to give each of them a word of praise, a special greeting, a question that told them that she recognized them as separate little individuals, not a ma.s.s of hungry open mouths. Everyone, she fervently believed, had a right to be loved, to be fed, to be clothed and sheltered. But her attentions were like a drop in an ocean of need.

She settled the basket of food on the begrimed table, whipped open the curtains, and slid open a window, which let out a little of the foul air but revealed the crusty remains of porridge on the stove and the fine layer of dirt that coated everything, children included. The fire was low, and wet clothes draped on the hearth seemed on the brink of mildewing.

Mrs. Duffy immediately began to unpack the basket as her children clamored around her.

”Scones today, Mrs. Duffy,” Olivia said brightly.