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

interesting sort of calm.
    Lyon was a separate person from his father.
    He did not like to be told what to do.
    And, like his father, he intended to get what he wanted.
    â€œThank you, Father. Your opinion means the world to me.”
    His father said nothing. He pressed his lips together thoughtfully.
    The clock ticked inexorably on. It was now bloody hell two o’clock.
    Lyon shifted slightly. The message he’d shoved in his pocket rustled.
    He finally could no longer bear it. “Will that be all, Father?”
    â€œI hope so,” his father said. And smiled faintly.
    I T HADN’T BEEN difficult for Olivia to persuade Genevieve to accompany her into town to Tingle’s Bookshop the following afternoon. Genevieve loved Tingle’s Bookshop, and Tingle was fond of the Eversea girls. They were two of his best customers, after all, between Olivia and her pamphlets and love for a good horrid or adventure novel, and Genevieveand her predilection for florid romances and biographies of great artists and the occasional indulgence in a London broadsheet, which usually made both her and Olivia giggle.
    But Olivia rose late, because visions of waltzes had kept her feverishly awake all night. And Genevieve dawdled at home, because she was attempting, and failing, once again to curl her hair, and Olivia thought her head might launch off her neck from impatience as the clock raced toward two.
    It was a quarter past two by the time they arrived.
    They burst in the door and both paused on the threshold to inhale at once the singular perfume of leather and paper and glue that characterized Tingle’s. It was a roomy shop, serving all of Sussex, and it was partly sunny, so that people could admire the gleaming of gold-embossed bindings and comfortably flip through a page or two of books that had already had their pages cut, and partly softly dark, to keep the fine covers from fading.
    A few other people were in the store, two older gentlemen and a woman, and all were absorbed in the separate little worlds of their books.
    Tingle looked up, beamed, and bowed as if they were princesses. “If it isn’t the Eversea girls! What wonderful timing. Miss Olivia, I’ve a new pamphlet for you.”
    Mr. Tingle lived to serve his customers.
    Olivia seized it delightedly. “Oh, wonderful, Mr. Tingle. So very kind of you to remember to get it in for me.”
    â€œOh, it’s no trouble at all, my dear. And Miss Genevieve, I’ve a shipment of books I know you’ll want to see,” he said, twinkling. “It’s in the back, however.” He beamed at them. “I’ll be just a moment.”
    He ducked into the back of his shop, and theycould hear him rustling about and whistling cheerily and tunelessly under his breath.
    Olivia drifted, as casually as she could make it seem, over to the section of history books. Her blood was ringing in her ears, since her heart was circulating it rather enthusiastically.
    â€œ History books, Olivia? Wouldn’t you rather have a look at the horrid novels? I thought I saw The Orphan on the Rhine on the shelf. You want that one, remember!”
    â€œShoo,” Olivia muttered beneath her breath to Genevieve, who had attached herself to her hip.
    â€œI beg your pardon?” Genevieve was startled.
    â€œEr, my shoe. I believe there’s a pebble in it.”
    â€œOh. Well, perhaps you ought to take it off and—”
    â€œOh look! Mr. Tingle has returned with your books, Gen!”
    â€œOhhh, lovely!” Her younger sister whirled and all but skipped to the front of the store.
    Olivia took a deep breath and rounded the corner of a shelf.
    Mr. Redmond was standing there idly, his long form looking as at home there as he did in a ballroom, one leg casually bent, and he was studying the spines of the books as if he had all the time in the world to do precisely that.
    A book was already tucked under his arm.
    She stared at him.
    He