Pennyroyal Green: The Legend Of Lyon Redmond Part 2

Oh, she supposed she'd resorted to the p.r.o.noun "he" once or twice, when it could not be avoided. As if Lyon were the Almighty. Or Beelzebub.

And surely this delicacy was ludicrous. Perhaps if she made a habit of tossing his name into idle conversation now and again, it would lose its power and become meaningless and strange, as any word will if you stare at it long enough.

On the other hand, the first night she'd danced with Lyon, she'd lain sleepless, thrumming with some unnamed new joy, and then she'd crept out of bed, seized a sheet of foolscap, and feverishly filled the front and back of it with those two words. They had spilled out of her like a hosannah, or like an attempt at exorcism.

They hadn't lost any of their power then.

"Will ye put your signature to my composition for me then, Miss Eversea?" Mr. Pickles was all humility now. Or rather, three parts humility, one part commerce. "It might very well make me a rich man. I could sell it to the Montmorency Museum to show along with your brother's, Mr. Colin Eversea's, suit of clothes. The ones he was nearly hung in."

Blast. She'd forgotten about Colin's bequest. She sighed.

Someone was bound to fund a Museum of Eversea Ignominy one day.

"She'll sign nothing," Landsdowne said evenly. But his eyes were flints. "I'll give you a s.h.i.+lling to leave here and never return."

Olivia's head jerked toward him in astonishment. He hadn't yet looked directly at her or greeted her, which was both unnerving and intriguing.

Obviously his intent was to protect her honor.

Not to mention his own.

But she'd always found it well nigh intolerable when someone else spoke for her. And this was the first time Landsdowne had done any such thing.

They locked eyes at last, and she watched his soften, the way they always did when they landed on her.

"Oh, where's the harm in signing it?" she coaxed him. "Perhaps if Mr. Pickles becomes wealthy he won't need to sell more of these songs. And far be it for any of us to discourage an entrepreneur."

"Miss Eversea, if I may interject? In the spirit of honesty, I fear I am at the mercy of the muse. My compositions burble forth like a spring from the earth, and riches are hardly likely to discourage them." Mr. Pickles was the picture of contrite humility.

"Then tell me what it will cost to build a dam," Landsdowne said grimly.

"We'll have Madame Marceau fetch a quill," Olivia soothed. "I shall sign it and leave it with her, with instructions to give it to Mr. Pickles after I'm gone for the day."

She'd learned that her smiles were Landsdowne's weakness, so she gave him one. Conciliatory and charming and warm.

And challenging.

He hesitated. As if he was contemplating countermanding her.

She stiffened her spine, as if bracing for a wind.

This was what marriage would be like, she realized. Countless little negotiations, both subtle and overt. Which the two of them, of course, would conduct in the most civilized manner imaginable, because two more reasonable adults had never walked the earth, and a more even-tempered man had never been born. And surely it would be balm after brothers who had dangled from the trellises of married countesses, gone to the gallows only to vanish from them in a cloud of smoke, married controversial American heiresses, and been shot at a good deal during the war.

Nor would Landsdowne ever throw a handful of pebbles up at her window at midnight.

Lyon's face flashed before her eyes then. White and stunned, like a man bleeding inside. His s.h.i.+rt glued to his body by rain, because he'd slung his coat around her.

That image was her purgatory.

She shoved it away, back into the shadows of her mind, the only safe place for it.

No, Landsdowne's courts.h.i.+p had been calm, determined, and relentless. He'd conducted it the way the sea conducts a campaign to wear away a cliff.

His mouth at last quirked at the corner. "Very well, my dear. If you must."

My dear. He'd slipped those words into conversation shortly after they'd become engaged, and he'd begun to use them more and more. It was husbandly and sweet and made her inexplicably as restless as if he'd reached over and fastened a diamond collar round her neck.

Lyon had called her "Liv."

He'd called her other things, too, things that began with "my." My heart. My love. He'd used words with the innocent recklessness of someone who had never before been hurt.

They'd of course both learned the harm that words could do.

She suddenly wished for another moment alone. She still felt weak, as if an old fever had stirred.

"Isn't it better to show everyone how little we care about this nonsense?" she murmured to Landsdowne.

His smile became real then. He shoved two pence at Mr. Pickles, who accepted them with pleasure.

Olivia kept the song.

"A pleasure, Mr. Pickles," he said ironically. "And there's a s.h.i.+lling in it for you if you move your little choir a few shops down."

Mr. Pickles accepted the s.h.i.+lling and herded his carolers down the street.

Landsdowne cupped her elbow and resolutely steered her through the pedestrians to Madame Marceau's shop, s.h.i.+elding her with the breadth of his body.

But Olivia stopped abruptly and eased from his grip long enough to crouch before the beggars leaning against the wall. They were so tattered and filthy and abject they were almost as indistinguishable from each other as they were from the shadows. Two of them were bandaged, one around a hand, the other across his face, in all likelihood to hide some kind of disfigurement-war or accident. It mattered not to her.

Her s.h.i.+llings clinked hollowly in the single cup.

"I'm sorry," she said softly to them, "it's all I have today . . . but it might be enough to buy mail coach pa.s.sage to Suss.e.x. Reverend Sylvaine in Pennyroyal Green can help you find work and food, perhaps shelter . . ."

But it was all she could say, because their unwashed stench was overpowering, and she was ashamed when she needed push herself to her feet again.

She stepped back abruptly against her strong, clean fiance, who claimed her elbow once more.

But she waited for the beggar, who raised his hand and slowly brought it down in his graceful, characteristic blessing.

She was not typically superst.i.tious, but his blessing had become important as she walked into Madame Marceau's for her fittings.

Landsdowne handed her a handkerchief, which smelled of starch and a hint of bay rum and was neatly embroidered with his initials. She applied it to her nose with a relief that shamed her.

And one day it would be her responsibility, nay, her privilege, to embroider those little initials into the corner of his handkerchiefs.

Rather like the handkerchief she kept in her reticule.

There were initials on that, too.

And blood.

She ought to burn it the way she'd burned the foolscap covered with his name.

"That lot will likely only drink those s.h.i.+llings," Landsdowne muttered dryly.

"They may do whatever they see fit with them." She'd said it a little too abruptly, pulling the handkerchief from her nose and handing it back to him.

"The poor are with us always, Olivia."

"Oh, are they now? Do enlighten me."

He stiffened.

Which is when she realized she'd snapped at him.

She drew in a breath, blew it out again, and squared her shoulders. She smiled at him apologetically. "Oh, do let's begin again. And forgive my nerves? It's been a day full of startling things and it's scarcely even begun. I'm terribly sorry to be so shrewish."

"There's nothing to forgive," he said instantly. "Or rather, forgive me. I was merely making an innocuous comment, and I didn't intend for it to sound like a lecture. And you are an angel, not a shrew. Certainly you know more than I do with regards to the ubiquity of the poor."

"Oh, I'm a novice compared to Mrs. Sneath."

"Everyone is a novice at everything compared to Mrs. Sneath."

She laughed.

"All these wedding preparations would shred even Admiral Nelson's nerves, Olivia. Mine are usually una.s.sailable, and I swear I can hear them groaning from the strain," he confided. "Are you certain you won't allow me to whisk you off to Gretna Green?" It was only half in jest.

"As tempting as that sounds, my mother and Madame Marceau would likely make a widow of me the day they found out. We've had a number of weddings in the family lately, but no pomp, and I think everyone believes they deserve a little pomp."

"Oh, but we deserve pomp, too," he teased gently. "And truthfully, my mother and sisters are both expecting and demanding it, too. Very well. Then at least allow me to take you to Ackermann's for tea, or perhaps Twining's when they've done pinning you, or whatever it is they do to women in there." He gestured at the shop. "They're both on the Strand and we're so close. I knew you'd be here-I stopped by your town house and spoke a bit with your mother and your brother. It was . . . I'd simply hoped to steal some time with you."

"I would love that!" she said quite sincerely. She loved wandering about Ackermann's, poring over the new prints and sifting through the pretty little gifts they sold. She'd found her tortoisesh.e.l.l card case there. "And please don't consider it stealing time. I shall give it freely and happily."

"Perhaps we can find a new print or two for our town house in Ackermann's. I should like you to impose your taste upon it, since I haven't any of my own."

Our. They were going to be an our, too.

She'd have a new home. New furnis.h.i.+ngs.

A new . . . bed.

A new life.

"Nonsense. Your taste is excellent, if a trifle subdued. Be careful what you wish for-you may find yourself up to your ears in embroidered pillows."

"It sounds comfortable. I'll never fear stumbling in the house if I can antic.i.p.ate a soft landing."

She laughed. "Call for me in two hours? I should have been sufficiently tortured by the seamstresses by then."

"Until we meet again, my dear," he said, with a quirk of one brow, and bowed.

As he turned to go he tripped over the beggar's foot, which was suddenly and inconveniently thrust outward.

Landsdowne swore softly and recovered aplomb neatly, and he was on his way.

Olivia bit back a smile and stepped into the shop at last.

Madame Marceau, whose name was French and purely fictional, and her long, pleasingly homely face pure Plantagenet, clasped her hands in delight when she saw Olivia, and then curtsied, and then wrung the very same hands in despair.

"Oh, Miss Eversea, I am so thrilled we'll be pinning you into your wedding gown today. It will rival even Princess Charlotte's! But you see, we have a bit of a predicament. The girl who a.s.sisted me, Mademoiselle Marie-Anne, has abandoned me suddenly-she came into some money and moved to the country like that!" Madame Marceau snapped her fingers. "And I have been called to see to an urgent matter in my other shop on Bond Street. Fortunately Providence has seen fit to provide me with the very competent new a.s.sistant just when my need is greatest. I am so sorry to be unable to see to you personally today!"

"Think nothing of it, Madame. I trust your judgment implicitly, and I'm sure your new a.s.sistant, Mademoiselle . . ."

"Lilette."

Lilette? Olivia almost rolled her eyes. ". . . Mademoiselle Lilette will acquit herself admirably, as I know you would only employ the best."

Madame Marceau beamed gratefully at this, and the mademoiselle in question appeared from behind her. She was small, pale, pleasingly round girl with soulful dark eyes and dark hair, which was sc.r.a.ped away from her face into a tight, sensible knot. Her severe, high-necked, exquisitely tailored dress implied only the clientele were allowed to s.h.i.+ne.

"Mademoiselle Lilette, if you would be so kind as to a.s.sist Miss Eversea? I shall return as quickly as possible."

"Mais bien sr, Madame Marceau. If you would follow me, Miss Eversea."

Olivia followed her and divested herself of her pelisse and dress behind a screen and slipped into what would be her wedding gown when she finally decided on the proper trim and all the millions of measurements were concluded. Mademoiselle Lilette dropped to her knees at Olivia's feet with the torture instruments of her trade, pins and measure tape.

A s.h.i.+lling clearly hadn't bought enough distance. The b.l.o.o.d.y song started up again outside.

Eight verses wouldn't come close to addressing the millions of things she'd imagined happening to Lyon Redmond over the years. She wondered whether there were any verses about Lyon Redmond dying in a ditch. Certainly a good many things rhymed with "ditch."

They were on the ". . . did he take to the wide open sea?" line, the least painful of the lines for Olivia to imagine, when Mademoiselle Lilette spoke.

"Miss Eversea, if you would hold still, like so, or your hem will be wavy and not even. Interesting, non, but wavy is not the style?"

"My apologies, Mademoiselle Lilette." Olivia obediently froze.

"Such exquisite taste you have, Miss Eversea."

Mademoiselle Lilette's accent was authentically French and her flattery unsurprisingly rote.

"Thank you," Olivia said, in a tone that meant Please stop talking.

"So fortunate you are to be marrying such a grand man, n'est-ce pas? A handsome viscount, oui?"

"Oui," Olivia said tautly.

The song appeared to be rounding on the second verse now.

Would that her last name was . . . oh, Silver, perhaps, instead. Nothing rhymed with Silver.