Pennyroyal Green: The Legend Of Lyon Redmond Part 23

His father had once had a heart. He knew all about love.

And he had burned his own love down to the ground many years ago by marrying the wrong woman.

"Ah," Lyon said softly. "I believe I understand now. You didn't have the courage to fight for the woman you loved. You made the wrong choice. And look at you. Look at what you've become."

Lyon's head went back hard.

It was a moment before he fully realized he'd been struck.

He tasted blood, coppery in his mouth.

And in seconds, the initial numbness gave way to burn in the shape of his father's handprint.

It was the last mark Isaiah Redmond would ever leave on him.

Lyon stood up slowly.

His father stared at him, eyes almost unseeing, splotches of vivid color high on his face.

And Lyon could have sworn he saw fear there, too.

Good.

And Lyon turned on his heel and was gone.

It was the last his father ever saw of him.

Chapter 13.

WHEN THE FIRST PEBBLE hit her window, Olivia thought perhaps it had begun to hail. The little painted porcelain clock next to her bed said it was a quarter past one in the morning.

The cold was fierce and the sky was a solid, sullen shade of slate when she'd pulled her curtains closed for the evening.

The color of dread.

Surely it could also be the color of hope? Surely good things had happened on other rainy days throughout history?

But the cold outside had leached from the room whatever heat had managed to soak into the floors, and not even her low-burning fire could penetrate it. It was merciless and thorough, as if it had a point to make.

The first little click was followed by another.

Followed by a scatter of more.

It wasn't how hail behaved, and insects didn't go about das.h.i.+ng themselves to death on windows on freezing Suss.e.x nights.

She slipped out of bed, pushed her feet into slippers, and reached for a pelisse. Fur-lined, an elegant, much-loved birthday gift from her parents. Every time she shoved her arms into its furry embrace she was reminded of how loved and fortunate she was.

She opened her window a crack. And peered down. It was nearly black in the garden, but she could make out the glow of one of the stone benches scattered about the ground.

Her breath caught when she saw the outline of a man, his face tipped up at her window.

Lyon!

"Olivia, come down."

"What are you doing? It's freezing!"

"You must come down at once."

She'd never heard that tone in his voice. Urgency and desperation and command.

She had the presence of mind to light and seize a little lamp before she bolted down the stairs, skidding a little on the way. The house was absolutely silent and dark, but every shadow and corner of it was familiar, and she likely could have done it with her eyes closed.

She darted through the kitchen and bolted out the door. She could feel the cold through her slippers.

She ran to him.

He seized her by her arms. "Liv. Run away with me, Olivia. We can go tonight and be in Scotland inside of two days, and then we can be married."

Her breath left her in a shocked gust.

"Gretna Green," he continued in a feverish rush. "We can leave tonight, be there in two days, and then we-"

"Lyon, have you been drinking?"

"No," he said firmly, as he shook out of his overcoat and draped it over her, then pulled her close to him, so she could benefit from whatever heat remained in his body. But he was vibrating with a suppressed fury that frightened her. "I have never been more clear in my entire life."

"The lamp," she rasped.

He took it from and leaned over to place it on the bench.

And as he did it illuminated his face.

She gasped.

"Lyon, you've blood . . . There's blood . . ."

He touched the corner of his mouth. "I'm sorry. I came straight here from . . ."

He stopped abruptly.

She thrust her hands into his coat pocket and came out with the handkerchief she knew would be there.

"Oh, Lyon." She tenderly, gingerly touched it to the corner of his mouth. His beautiful, beloved mouth. He didn't even wince. "How did you . . ."

And then realization sank through her with guillotine brutality.

"He hit you."

She had her answer when he said nothing.

And a red haze of rage, like nothing she'd ever before experienced, moved over her eyes.

How dare, how dare anyone hurt him?

His face was white and tense in the lamplight, but she still saw a flicker of shame. An expression that never, ever should have shadowed Lyon Redmond's face.

Her heart cracked, and in poured terror that made her s.h.i.+ver, and that's when the sky broke open and the rain began to fall.

This was the end. Of everything.

She suddenly knew it with absolute certainty.

How on earth could she have prepared for this? For the ghastly pain that she knew was about to follow and swallow her whole.

His voice was steady, but there was an abstracted, stunned quality to it.

"I told him that I wished to marry you. And I asked for his understanding and his blessing and told him he would grow to love you, too, for who wouldn't?"

"And he hit you."

"He hit me for another reason altogether, but the two events were related, yes."

"Tell me why he hit you."

"I can't."

He said this in a way that brooked no argument. She knew quite clearly that he would not tell her.

She couldn't bear picturing it. Proud, clever, bold Lyon laying his tender heart bare to his cold father. Suddenly their love seemed as fragile as the Duffys' sickly baby.

How sordid it must have sounded to his father, the man who could not abide weakness, the man who needed always to be in control. A secret love affair, this sudden engagement request. Callow, foolish, careless. How could any words capture the grandeur and torment and sweetness and rightness of it? Let alone the careful, formal ones Lyon would have been forced to use before the merciless green gaze of his father. How little of consequence the two of them must seem to someone who owned not only much of England, like her own father, but essentially owned his son, too, and was accustomed to making everyone do precisely what he wanted.

"And then?" she said hoa.r.s.ely.

"Oh, he forbade a match." He sounded almost mordantly cheery. "He said he would cut me off from all funds and every member of my family, and ensure I would never be received in any decent home or club ever again."

The guillotine, indeed.

And Isaiah Redmond could do it, too.

"And he hit you. Because of . . . me?"

"Not because of you. Because of me. I've been hit before, Liv," He sounded almost reasonable, and there was a hint of black humor in it. "Not by him, of course. But I'm male. It's difficult to avoid hitting and being hit on the way to manhood. It's all part of it."

"But it's different when you can't defend yourself."

He said nothing because he knew she was right: Lyon would never in a million years strike his father.

Then again, he was a different man from his father.

And the fear iced her limbs and a surge of panic that threatened to become anger. Fear that he was not different enough, because he had not been allowed to be.

"P-Perhaps . . . perhaps your father simply needs a little more time . . . perhaps he reacted badly because he was surprised . . . perhaps . . ."

"Oh, my father was not surprised," Lyon said with bitter irony.

And now her cheeks were ablaze.

Of course. Love's blindness had clearly extended to the lovers themselves. People had noticed something was different; how could they not have?

Olivia had been walking about in a radiant haze for months now. And her family, delicately, had attempted to point it out. To warn her.

Perhaps even Mrs. Sneath knew.

"Olivia, I've been given two choices: he's going to send me to the continent tomorrow, or I'm to propose to Lady Arabella this week. So you see, don't you, that you must come with me tonight. We'll leave Suss.e.x, marry, and make our own life. It will be heaven, Liv."

She was speechless. The roil of emotions he always caused stormed through her.

And it was this perhaps that brought home to her the reality of their circ.u.mstance, which was dire. Lyon had been exquisitely bred, and could ride and shoot and fence and dance and charm. He was brilliant and gifted. He was her very heart.

But she was in love with a man whose father hit him simply because he could.

And could cut off his allowance.

She knew her silence was d.a.m.ning.

"You must come with me. You must trust me to take care of you, Liv. Will you trust me?"

She stiffened in his arms.

"Liv?"

And then he stiffened, too.

"What the devil are you afraid of?" His voice was low and taut. It emerged as an accusation.

With a tinge of fear.

As usual, he'd looked right into the heart of the matter: he knew she was afraid.