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

Jonathan was indignant. “And what woman will succumb to that?”
    â€œHow do you know that isn’t Lyon’s secret?” Miles retorted.
    They both laughed.
    Lyon Redmond rolled his eyes. His brothers were taking the piss out of him, which he normally rather enjoyed. Taking the piss out of each other was one of the myriad pleasures of having brothers. Affection, if displayed, was usually conveyed via insults and wrestling, which they all found satisfactory and sufficient.
    But then, his brothers could laugh.
    They didn’t have to be him.
    It was true he did, in fact, have a patented sultry look. It really didn’t require much more than simply being Lyon Redmond while aiming appreciative, unswerving attention at a woman for a tick longer than was strictly proper.
    It raised a blush nearly every time.
    And it was generally agreed among the bloods of the ton that given an option, they would choose his life over theirs, if only for a day. Perhaps that day would be spent at Manton’s, shooting the hearts out of targets or whipping the foil out of his fencing master’s hand; followed by an hour or two in London at their father’s secretive and exclusive Mercury Club, where England’s wealthiest men devised strategies for making themselves and each other wealthier; and perhaps conclude with a ball much like this one, where most of the women could be counted on to look yearningly past every other man present in the hopes they would intercept one of his smolders.
    What Lyon could have told nearly anyone was that even he envied Lyon Redmond. Because the Lyon Redmond of current lore was primarily simply that: lore.
    It was said he effortlessly excelled at everything. It wasn’t true. He focused on what he wanted tomaster and methodically, ruthlessly conquered it, whether it was cricket or calculus or fencing or shooting or a woman. And while it was true he invariably got what he wanted, he made absolutely certain the effort never showed.
    He’d been born knowing the power of subtlety and the advantage of surprise. It was in the Redmond blood, after all.
    Which meant he was also discreet about his carnal indulgences.
    All in all, given other choices, Lyon would still ultimately probably decide to remain himself.
    But he was beginning to feel like a prize bull confined to a gilded pen until such time as his father, Isaiah Redmond, deemed it was time for him to fertilize a carefully chosen aristocratic heifer. The Duke of Hexford’s daughter, Arabella, seemed a likely choice. Though Arabella was hardly a heifer. She was stunning and shy to the point of muteness and blushed apologetically after everything she said.
    But she wasn’t here tonight. This particular ball was far too rustic an event for the daughter of a duke. Lyon was home for good from Oxford, though he had come by way of a lengthy stay in the family town house in London. London’s diversions were a startling contrast to those of Pennyroyal Green, whose closest thing to a den of iniquity was the Pig & Thistle and the perennial cutthroat chess game between Mr. Culpepper and Mr. Cooke.
    Not that Lyon lingered in any iniquity dens. He cherished his inheritance, and he knew precisely what was required of him in order to keep it.
    â€œPay attention, you hapless fools,” he commanded his brothers. “It’s more like . . .”
    Dozens of young women were milling about,most of them in white, some of them titled, all of them glowing and pretty in the way that youth and hope is always pretty, and it was charming and comfortable and as English a scene as one could wish for.
    Later, Miles would swear he literally heard the sound of a gong being struck when Lyon clapped eyes on her.
    But for Lyon, the prevailing sensation could only be described as panic.
    Panic that she might be a vision rather than an actual woman. Panic that she was an actual woman, but that he might never be able to touch her, and his entire life