Part 25 (1/2)

The way his clothes fit, their quality . . . it was clear they were staggeringly expensive. He almost looked as though he could have stepped out of White's an hour or so ago.

But something was different.

His hair, black and always p.r.o.ne to waving, was long enough to be pulled back into a short queue. And his face was sun-browned.

It made his eyes so.

d.a.m.ned.

Blue.

And when he suddenly became brilliant and convex she realized her own eyes were welling with tears.

He produced a handkerchief with magical immediacy and thrust it out.

Their hands did not touch when she took it. Instantly, an old reflex, she ran her thumb over the corner, and there they were: ”LAJR.”

Lyon Arthur James Redmond.

”It's shock. That's all. Just surprise.” She sounded remarkably calm in her own ears, but she might have been hearing someone else speaking through gla.s.s.

So those were going to be the first words she said to Lyon Redmond after all these years. It's shock. That's all. Just surprise.

Mundane and not at all true.

”Is that so? Are you certain those aren't tears of joy?”

He'd never spoken to her in that tone before. All dark irony.

He'd never spoken to her with anything other than affection.

”Humans either faint or weep when shocked. If we emitted a lavender scent instead I'm certain I would have done that.”

He laughed at that, sounding startled, because who wouldn't? It was an absolutely ridiculous thing to say.

That laugh.

The sound she'd once loved more than any other sound in the world.

And suddenly all of it . . . her name spoken in that quick, gruff voice, his handkerchief with his initials in the corner that she used to run her thumb over and over, because they were precious because they were his . . . all the things that were the same about him and the things that were different about him . . .

All of it, all of it made her blackly furious.

She thrust the handkerchief back at him, because she wanted to kick him.

He took it with a surprised grunt.

Good G.o.d, his abdomen was hard as a rock.

He was motionless a moment, staring down at the handkerchief as if she had indeed shoved a sword in.

And then he looked up at her and folded it neatly, deliberately, and placed it back in his pocket.

As if to demonstrate his total composure in the face of her loss of it.

And then he looked up slowly and studied her. Almost dispa.s.sionately. Measuring her as he would an opponent.

She wondered if he knew how much he looked like his father when he did that.

Once she could all but read his every emotion. But that was because he'd trusted her. Somehow over the years Lyon had learned cold, hard inscrutability, that air of looking at someone through a magnifying gla.s.s.

She supposed she had herself partially to thank for that, too.

She stood and withstood his scrutiny, wondering what he saw.

How had she changed, or had she?

He'd once traced her lips with a single finger, as if he wanted to imprint the memory of her on his soul.

Perhaps since he'd left, a dozen other women had diluted the memory of her.

Her shoulder twitched, as if it sensed her intention to whirl on her heels and flee.

But she couldn't seem to complete the motion any more than a tree could uproot itself and take a stroll across the Suss.e.x downs.

He seemed to sense her impulse to flee.

”Olivia.”

It was her name, all right, but it was another tone she'd never before heard him use. No ardor, no cajoling, no playfulness, no tenderness.

It was quite distinctly a command.

Very nearly a warning.

And this was when sense finally jostled aside the confusing tide of dammed emotion: he might have been torturously vivid in her memories and dreams.

But he was, in fact, a stranger now.

And he didn't like her.

”Yes?” she said. She attempted to mimic his cool tone. She was still shaking. She hid her trembling hands in her skirt.

”I should like to talk with you at some length. I think perhaps we have some unfinished business.”

Well, this was una.s.sailably true.