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THE LEGEND OF LYON REDMOND
Pennyroyal Green #11
Julie Anne Long
Releasing Sept 29th, 2015
Avon Books
Bound
by centuries of bad blood, England’s two most powerful
families maintain a veneer of civility...until the heir to the staggering
Redmond fortune disappears, reviving rumors of an ancient curse: a Redmond and
an Eversea are destined to fall disastrously in love once per generation.
An enduring legend
Rumor
has it she broke Lyon Redmond’s heart. But while many a man has since wooed the
dazzling Olivia Eversea, none has ever won her—which is why jaws drop when she
suddenly accepts a viscount’s proposal. Now London waits with bated breath for
the wedding of a decade…and wagers on the return of an heir.
An eternal love
It
was instant and irresistible, forbidden...and unforgettable. And Lyon—now a
driven, dangerous, infinitely devastating man—decides it’s time for a
reckoning. As the day of her wedding races toward them, Lyon and Olivia will
decide whether their love is a curse destined to tear their families part...or
the stuff of which legends are made.
She was the last of the Eversea children to
be married, and she was going to be the wife of a viscount. Her brothers had
all married unusual women, not one of whom possessed a title. Genevieve had
married a duke—to the quietly gleeful satisfaction of her father, for they had
trumped the Redmonds, who acquired a mere earl by marriage—but she and
Falconbridge had wed by special license. Olivia was the family’s last chance
for pomp.
And she knew everyone who loved her would
exhale only when she was waving merrily good-bye from Landsdowne’s carriage as
they went off on their wedding journey.
No one had said as much, of course.
And this was the unspoken source of all the
tension.
They had nothing to worry about. Olivia was
definitely going to marry him.
The betting books at White’s, of course, had
it otherwise.
God, but she was infinitely weary of being a sport
for the wager-happy wastrels at White’s. She did not want to be an event.
But if she’d learned anything over the years,
wanting something and getting it were not always sequential events. Even for
Everseas.
She pressed her head back against the plump
seat, which smelled vaguely and soothingly of her father’s tobacco, then gave a
start and fished about in her reticule.
“Blast!” Only two shillings were in there,
along with her hussif, her tortoiseshell card case, and, of course, a square of
linen folded in sixteenths that she always pretended not to see but that
traveled with her everywhere.
It had become a personal ritual, her way of
tithing, to say a few kind words and drop a few coins into the cups of the
beggars who had appeared weeks ago and lingered near Madame Marceau’s shop, and
who reappeared no matter how often Madame Marceau tried to shoo them away. They
were as intrepid as ants. They knew where to find sustenance, and that was from
the affluent women who frequented the modiste.
But Olivia, as usual, always wished she had
more to give.
At last “Madame Marceau, Modiste,” a gaudy sign gilded swinging on
chains, came into view, Olivia sat up alertly. The Strand was even livelier
than usual today, apparently: she could hear a choir, of all things.
She didn’t know the tune, but it was
certainly infectious, lilting and lively. Her foot was already tapping before
the footman pulled open the door of the carriage, and she was smiling when he
handed her down.
A half-dozen men were arrayed before Madame
Marceau’s, arms slung about each other, swaying rhythmically, their heads
tipped back in full-throated song. Another man seemed to be presiding as a
conductor, strutting to and fro before them and holding a sheaf of papers in
one hand.
He waved one in the air. “Get yer flash
ballad here! Two pence! Be the first to teach your friends the song all of
London will be singing for centuries to come!”
This was quite a claim, given that one of
London’s other favorite songs was all about Olivia’s brother Colin, and it,
like Colin, who had survived the gallows, refused to die.
Years of distributing and accepting pamphlets
for the causes nearest her heart—the eradication of slavery and the protection
of the poor—had Olivia reflexively stretching out her hand for it.
The man hesitated, then saw the outstretched
hand was encased in an expensive blue kid glove and decided to let her hold it.
“Two pence, madame, if ye’d like to take it
with you.” He beamed persuasively at her.
She didn’t hear him.
She was transfixed in horror by the first
words on the page.
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Julie Anne Long originally
set out to be a rock star when she grew up, and she has the guitars and the
questionable wardrobe stuffed in the back of her closet t prove it. When
playing to indifferent crowds at midnight in dank clubs lost its, ahem, charm,
she realized she could incorporate all of the best things about being in a
band—namely, drama, passion and men with unruly hair—into novels, while at the
same time indulging her love of history and research. So she made the move from
guitar to keyboard (the computer variety) and embarked on a considerably more
civilized, if not much more peaceful, career as a novelist.
Julie
lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with a fat orange cat. (Little known fact:
they issue you a cat the minute you become a romance novelist.)
