Pennyroyal Green: The Legend Of Lyon Redmond Part 43

"Adam!" Olivia sat up guiltily with a start.

Lyon put his hand gently on hers to rea.s.sure her.

"I made his acquaintance before the ceremony," Lyon told her. "And asked him to keep everyone seated, should you bolt after me. And I asked him to send everyone home, if you did bolt after me."

Because Lyon, after all, was a planner.

Olivia sighed happily. "He knows me better than I know myself."

"Remarkable man, your Mr. Redmond, Olivia," Adam said. Almost ruefully.

Adam had fallen in love with an unlikely woman and he'd needed to fight for her, too. His methods were different from Mr. Redmond's, but he knew without question when he was in the presence of true love, and it was holy.

"Remarkable man, your cousin the Reverend Sylvaine." Lyon smiled at the vicar.

The two of them, each was certain, were destined to become friends.

"Will your own wedding be here in Pennyroyal Green?" Adam asked.

Olivia and Lyon looked at each other, and then turned to Adam, and together they said: "Yes."

AFTER THE WEDDING-or rather, after what was nearly a wedding-Isaiah Redmond retreated to his great s.h.i.+ning desk in his library, where he had made so many brilliant decisions in his lifetime and one or two extraordinarily poor ones. He was picturing Olivia Eversea's face this morning as she broke one man's heart and leaped, like some kind of fierce angel, down the aisle and bolted out the door, her face ablaze with the kind of love he'd seen only once before in his life.

In the face of Isolde Eversea when she'd looked at him.

Everyone present had said Olivia had bolted after Lyon.

Isaiah closed his eyes and breathed through the great, never-ending wound that was the loss of his oldest son.

He didn't know. He just didn't know.

His hands were shaking now. And it was too early to reach for the brandy and he didn't want to be that kind of man, but life had dealt one thing after another to him in the past few years, and Isaiah feared he was finally beginning to age.

A throat cleared politely at the entry of his office.

He turned absently, reluctantly from his reverie.

It was a footman. Whose eyes seemed unnaturally bright, and whose face was white.

"What is it?" Isaiah said tersely.

"Mr. Lyon Redmond here to see you, sir."

Isaiah froze.

His breath stopped.

He half stood.

And slowly, slowly, his oldest son walked into the same room where he'd last seen him five years ago.

An elegant man. Shockingly handsome. But a hard man. Isaiah could see that at once. His presence was both so peaceful and so uncompromisingly confident that Isaiah couldn't speak through the weight of it.

Lyon was here. Lyon.

His stood in the center of the room before that s.h.i.+ning desk.

The silence rang.

And the clock as usual swung off minutes.

"Lyon . . ."

Isaiah's voice was a dry rasp.

"Please don't get up, Father." He said this almost kindly.

Isaiah sat down again.

He didn't ask Lyon to sit. It was very clear Lyon didn't intend to. And Isaiah did not want to hear the rejection.

And all was silence of an almost holy kind. The room had always had a hush thanks to dense carpets and velvet upholstery and curtains.

Lyon had sailed wild seas and fought wild fights and seen lands far more dangerous.

And even though this was home, it had lost its power to intimidate. For Lyon understood his father better now than nearly anyone else in the world.

Isaiah drew in a ragged breath.

And then another.

He covered his eyes with one hand.

His shoulders swelled and fell again as he released a huge sigh. And for a moment he seemed to be absolutely motionless.

Until Lyon noticed that his father's shoulders were shaking.

Isaiah Redmond . . . was weeping.

Lyon waited. He wasn't unmoved, not entirely.

But he could not and would not be the person to comfort his father.

He didn't know who truly would, for Lyon knew that true comfort was found only with someone who knows your very heart. Lyon loved his mother with a fierce protectiveness. But it was entirely possible Isaiah was one of the loneliest men in the world. Which might be the great tragedy of Isaiah's life.

Isaiah finally sighed and took another deep breath.

He looked up at Lyon, his green eyes brilliant against the red now.

"You're an extraordinary man, Father. You always could bend nearly anything to your will. Except love."

"Lyon. Son." His voice was still raw.

"You once told me I had a choice," Lyon said thoughtfully. "And perhaps you did at one time, too. The thing is, when you make the wrong choice, love breaks you."

Isaiah simply breathed. Watching him as if he was an apparition.

"Father . . . I know about the investment you made under Jacob Eversea's name as part of the Dreieck group. The Triangle Trade."

His father was motionless now. Lyon recognized that stillness. It was both an admission of guilt and a reflection of the old Isaiah, who would immediately begin planning how to maneuver this to his advantage.

"I won't tell you how I learned it, but I undertook to seek out the source for the woman I love. As you know, it's one the things she feels most pa.s.sionately about. It's as part of her heart as I am. I feel pa.s.sionately about it as well. And I can't imagine that even you condone the practice of slavery, not even for profit."

Isaiah was absolutely silent and motionless.

"So what was the plan? To expose Jacob Eversea eventually to the authorities? Or to ultimately make sure this involvement came to light in order to destroy his reputation and tarnish him forever in the eyes of his wife and daughter?"

The d.a.m.ning silence stretched.

And then Isaiah spoke. "You don't know our story, Lyon." There was a hint of steel in that. A hint of warning. But Isaiah hadn't the right to it, completely, and he knew it.

"I am here to tell you," Lyon said slowly. "that you best not try anything like that ever again. Ever. I cannot be clearer than that."

His father pressed his lips together.

"I'm going to marry Olivia Eversea as soon as we can obtain a license. I should say next Sunday will be the day, here in Pennyroyal Green. You are welcome to be present. But neither she nor I have need of your money or approval."

Isaiah sighed, and merely nodded.

"Father, I've learned a bit over the past few years. I am the best of you. I am the worst of you. I never surrender. I have a magnificent knack for making money hand over fist. And for what it's worth, for better or for worse, I am the man I am today primarily because of you. So thank you."

"Lyon," his father said again.

Lyon waited.

Isaiah cleared his throat. "I am . . . just . . . so glad . . . you are home."

Lyon knew it to be true. He knew his father loved him, in his own way. And that everything he'd done to everyone in his family was his attempt to justify a choice he'd made years ago.

But it would never be right.

Lyon simply nodded.

The two men studied each other.

Lyon hesitated, then asked the question that had haunted him.

"Do you still love her?" his voice was soft.

He meant Isolde Eversea.

Isaiah simply looked at him. His eyes were still red, which made them seem even more brilliantly green.

And at last he made a soft sound. Almost a laugh. Far too rueful, too fatalistic to truly be a laugh.

And that was Lyon's answer.

"Does she still love you?" his voice was careful now. He was venturing into a place he was uncertain he wanted to go.

"What do you think?" Isaiah produced a bittersweet ghost of a smile.

Lyon held still, absorbing this.

Because of course she did. He was certain of that, too.

But she loved her own husband, too. That was clear to anyone who saw them together.

Lyon exhaled thoughtfully. He could feel the desolation of years. He could not imagine what it had been like for Isaiah Redmond and Isolde Eversea.

And now they would be members of the same family.

Which might very well be flinging a lit match into kindling.

So be it.

No one and nothing was going to stop Lyon and Olivia from being together.

"Lyon," his father said thoughtfully. "You may have acquired a certain amount of wisdom, but I am still older than you are. I think one day, perhaps far in the future, you may discover your heart can hold many different kinds and shades of love. When you have children, you'll begin to see what I mean. And you will be amazed at what you can learn to live with every day."

Lyon wasn't interested in the distant future at the moment. He wanted, very restlessly, to get back to Olivia, who was still with her cousin at the vicarage.

He didn't ask his father if he would still take Isolde from Jacob Eversea if he could.

He thought he knew the answer, and he didn't want to hear it.

LYON'S SIBLINGS AND their spouses were gathered in one of the drawing rooms, the room where he and his brothers had once leaped from settee to table to chair, pretending the carpet was lava, and where he'd once been fascinated by the nuts and vines carved into the mantel. He heard their voices, the cadences and timbres, the flow of conversation, all achingly familiar.

He hung back for a moment. A little uncertain.

He knew how relations.h.i.+ps could s.h.i.+ft and flow and change to fill in gaps left by someone lost. But he was unafraid of nearly everything now, and he could do this, too.

And then they all looked up and saw him.

And there was an almost comical hush.

They stared at him as if he were a rhinoceros. Shyly, with a little trepidation, and as if they all wanted to fling themselves at him and pet him but they weren't certain whether he was tame enough.

"Still ugly, I see," Jonathan said, finally.