Part 44 (1/2)
”Are you talking to the mirror?” Lyon said mildly.
Everyone laughed. Brotherly communication and affection was reestablished, and the ice was broken and Violet hurled herself into his arms.
”Well, my brave girl,” he murmured to her, and gave her a squeeze. ”One day we shall have a chat.”
He'd noted straight away that her husband, the Earl of Ardmay, also known as Captain Flint, was in the corner of the room, leaning back and cuddling the baby. Violet, being a girl, was allowed to weep all over Lyon, and everyone else, even his brothers, found the carpet or ceiling interesting or discovered they'd gotten dust in their eyes and needed to blink a good deal.
Except Lyon.
”Don't hog him, Violet!” Jonathan said irritably.
”Yes, don't be a Lyon hog, Violet!” Miles teased.
”Lyon hog! That sounds like some hybrid animal Miles would find in Lacao,” Lyon said.
There was more laughter and his brothers hugged and thumped him in a manly fas.h.i.+on and he hugged and thumped them in return.
If anyone in the room had harbored any lingering resentment about Lyon's disappearance and the crus.h.i.+ng confusion and pain of his loss, it was instantly drowned by the superior power of love and grat.i.tude and the sheer rightness of having Lyon here again. And now that they were older, and each of them had fallen in love, they understood more fully why Lyon had to do what he'd done. And relations.h.i.+ps could s.h.i.+ft and flow to allow him back in.
Each of them had won their own loves the hard way, and had been transformed and softened and deepened in the process, whether they wanted to be or not.
Five years, and now Jonathan was a man, das.h.i.+ng and imposing, who could very nearly be Lyon's twin.
Five years, and now Miles was handsome and calmly, resolutely confident.
Both had gravitas and presence and Lyon was fiercely proud of them. He knew how hard they must have needed to fight for their happiness and independence. He half wondered if this was his father's plan from the very beginning, but surely not even Isaiah Redmond was that clever.
Though he also knew he had their wives to thank for giving them the courage.
He learned rather quickly, and to his great relief, that Thomasina and Cynthia, Jonathan's and Miles's wives, were lively and witty and charming and warm. And very pretty, a pleasure to have in any room. Tommy had dark red hair and green eyes; she was an exotic beauty. Cynthia was a lovely blonde with blue eyes.
”Beautiful” was the word he reserved for Olivia.
”You're both clearly better than Jonathan and Miles deserve,” he p.r.o.nounced, upon meeting the two wives. ”I can see that at once.”
”I won Tommy by smoldering at her,” Jonathan claimed. ”Which I learned from you.”
”He did, rather,” Tommy admitted. ”Smolder at me.”
”Then I insist upon being the G.o.dfather of your children.”
”We already have one hundred of 'em,” Jonathan said idly.
Everyone present had already heard this joke, but it was Lyon's first time, and they thoroughly enjoyed his reaction.
Though if he'd known how many times he would hear it in the years to come, he might have rolled his eyes.
He learned very quickly a little about Jonathan and Tommy's work on behalf of child labor laws.
”We need to talk at length later. You and Olivia will have much to say to each other,” he told Tommy. ”And I need to discuss projects in which to invest.”
And there transpired an infinitesimal silence and a few strained smiles.
Olivia Eversea was synonymous with Beelzebub in the Redmond household. She'd long been blamed for his disappearance. Undoing that wouldn't happen precisely overnight.
”You will love her. And she will be part of our family, and we will be a part of hers, as soon as I can get a license. I imagine we can be married as soon as Sunday next. I'm quite looking forward to having Olivia and Violet in the same room.”
Violet made a face at him.
”Then you're a braver man than I am, Lyon,” Jonathan said.
”Well, that goes without saying.” Lyon was moving, casually, toward the Earl of Ardmay, Captain Flint, who had judiciously kept his distance, because, remarkably, baby Ruby was still asleep in his arms.
”Did you smolder at Cynthia?” Lyon asked Miles. ”As I recall, your techniques required some refinement.”
”She smoldered at me,” Miles teased.
”We'll have to compare notes on our techniques, Cynthia.” Lyon winked at her.
And then he moved over and leaned against the wall next to the earl, who had once been charged with capturing Le Chat and bringing him to justice, and had refused to do it, for the love of a woman. The madness that drove a man into being a pirate was the same kind of madness that made another man let him go free: it was all for the love of a woman.
”Ardmay,” Lyon said simply, by way of greeting.
The earl had nothing to say to Lyon except, ”Welcome home, Redmond.”
He handed the baby to him, and Lyon took her as if she were an egg.
He could tell Ruby was born to break hearts. A tiny, snoozing, velvety pale thing with the most shockingly miniature eyelashes. He thought the first heart she might break would be his.
The Earl of Ardmay interrupted Lyon's reverie. ”Do you want one of these?”
He sounded amused. He could see the expression on Lyon's face.
”Dozens,” Lyon said absently, only just realizing it. He thought about how Olivia had been with the Duffys, and he knew that the two of them were going to be the best parents ever born.
”Lyon, did you smolder at Olivia?” Tommy wanted to know.
Lyon looked up from baby Ruby, his eyes still misty with reveries about babies that looked like Olivia.
”No,” Miles answered for him. ”He didn't. But I was there that night. And let me tell you what happened. When he clapped eyes on her, I could have sworn a gong went off . . .”
IT WASN'T UNTIL he met with his mother alone, and she folded him in her arms, that Lyon Redmond finally wept. For all that he knew, and all that he was certain she knew and understood, and because he loved and had missed his mother.
Chapter 24.
The next Sunday . . .