The Legend of Lyon Redmond by Julie Anne Long Read Free Book Online Page A

needs a flame. She felt just that pointless.
    She hadn’t even fully realized she’d stopped eating until her mother began to panic.
    And at some point she had begun again, because here she was.
    Yet food had never tasted quite the same since.
    Lyon had abandoned her.
    And Landsdowne was here.
    â€œYou’re very kind,” she said impulsively to Landsdowne. For he was. Good and solid and kind and perhaps most importantly, here .
    He quirked his mouth self-deprecatingly.
    They each took fortifying sips of tea.
    â€œI have a friend who trains and races horses,” he said, after a long pause. “It is his passion. He fell off a spirited one and broke his arm badly, and thedoctor told him he could set it one of two positions. If he set it the usual way, the way that afforded him the most freedom of movement, he wouldn’t be able hold reins effectively ever again. He chose to have his arm set in the second option—in such a way that he could grip the reins.”
    â€œSo you say we are broken into the shape of our wounds. Or in the shape of the thing that means the most to us, and so we are suited to one thing only.”
    He smiled at her swiftly. Landsdowne genuinely appreciated her intelligence.
    She didn’t smile. A chill was slowly spreading in her gut.
    â€œDo you perhaps speak from experience?” she challenged lightly. Suddenly nervous.
    He shrugged. “Oh, I don’t think so. I just thought it was anecdote worth sharing. That it perhaps merited a philosophical discussion.”
    â€œI’m not certain I’m equal to a philosophical discussion at the moment, when I must tell Madame Marceau before next week which trim to use on the hem—the silver or the cream? Or beading? Perhaps Parliament would be thoughtful enough to put it to a vote. Though I’m certain your metaphor doesn’t apply to me.”
    He was quiet, and this time it was he who turned his teacup a few times.
    â€œYou haven’t yet wed, and you’ve had countless options.”
    A fortnight after she’d filled a sheet of foolscap with Lyon’s name she’d filled another one: Olivia Redmond Olivia Redmond Olivia Redmond. Over and over and over. She hadn’t known what else to do with the geyser of emotion she could share with no one but Lyon. It was too new, too potent, and far, far too big to contain or understand.
    She’d thrown that sheet of foolscap into the fire, too.
    Because as far as her family and his were concerned, it amounted to heresy.
    â€œI haven’t wed because I’ve only lately met you,” she told Landsdowne.
    It was such a perfect thing to say that he decided to believe it.
    He reached for her hand and gripped it. And his was so solid and warm and real and fine, and nothing in her lurched in joy or in any other emotion, and she thought, surely this sort of safety was better, and madness was for the very young.

Chapter 4
    About five years earlier, at the Sussex Christmas Eve Assembly . . .
    â€œN O, NO, MILES, IT’S like this.”
    Jonathan Redmond slouched against the wall of the milling ballroom, shoved his hands in his pockets, narrowed his eyes, and aimed a look down the bridge of his nose at a young woman who was at least five years his senior.
    The woman intercepted Jonathan’s gaze, frowned faintly, puzzled but indulgent, gave her fan an irritated little twitch, and turned away. Coltish Jonathan, of course, was all but invisible to her at his age.
    His brother Miles stifled a laugh. “You look like you just took a cricket ball to the head. It’s more like this .”
    He tipped his head back, slitted his eyes, clenched his jaw, and aimed a gaze at the same woman.
    And while Miles Redmond, the second oldest, had many splendid qualities, he wore spectacles and hadn’t yet quite grown into his nose, and this time the woman remained oblivious.
    â€œYou’ve succeeded only in looking constipated.”