The Lyon Legacy Read online

  INVITATION TO AN ANNIVERSARY BALL

  The Lyon family and Lyon Broadcasting Corporation

  request the honor of your presence

  at the celebration of our

  50th Anniversary.

  Please join us on

  Saturday, the third of July,

  nineteen hundred and ninety-nine

  at eight o’clock in the evening

  at

  The Fontenot Hotel

  New Orleans

  RSVP

  Mrs. Margaret Hollander Lyon

  From the Authors:

  A lot can happen in fifty years. Love grows...and dies. Families bond...and rip apart. Lies told for the best of reasons can haunt generations to come. Family secrets can threaten family ties.

  To help Harlequin celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, the three of us have been privileged to create a series of stories about a family business celebrating its own golden anniversary. And what better industry with which to launch this dynasty than television, just getting off the ground in 1949?

  We hope you’ll enjoy getting to know the Lyon family of New Orleans as much as we enjoyed creating them. They’re a complex bunch—powerful and strong willed, creative and passionate. They don’t always get along, but they know in their hearts that the most significant force in their lives is family.

  Join us in celebrating their anniversary—and Harlequin’s!

  Peg Sutherland

  Roz Denny Fox

  Ruth Jean Dale

  From the Editors:

  Superromance is celebrating Harlequin’s fiftieth anniversary. with The Lyon Legacy. This very special project is a departure for us—we’ve brought together three popular authors to tell you the story of a family dynasty. We take pride in presenting this book...and the following three full-length novels about the Lyon family and its legacies.

  Family Secrets by Ruth Jean Dale (available August 1999)

  Family Fortune by Roz Denny Fox (available September 1999)

  Family Reunion by Peg Sutherland (available October 1999)

  The LYON LEGACY

  Peg Sutherland

  Roz Denny Fox

  Ruth Jean Dale

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS• TOKYO • MILAN • MADRIRD

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Award-winning author Peg Sutherland has been writing Harlequin Superromance novels for the past nine years. Her books have been both critically acclaimed and popular with readers. Of particular note is her occasional mini-series, HOPE SPRINGS. Peg is also the author of the third novel in THE LYON LEGACY trilogy. Family Reunion will be published in October 1999. Peg lives with her husband, Mike, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

  Since Roz Denny Fox was first published in 1990, she has written six Harlequin Romance novels and eight Superromance books. Her second Harlequin Romance title was nominated for a RITA Award. Roz enjoys doing in-depth research for her stories and isn’t shy about asking her husband, Denny, to help her. Roz and Denny have lived in many places throughout the U.S. and are currently residents of Tucson. They have two grown daughters and are very happy grandparents. Roz’s next book, Family Fortune, the middle book in THE LYON LEGACY trilogy, will be published in September.

  Ruth Jean Dale lives in a Colorado pine forest within shouting distance of Pikes Peak. She is surrounded by two dogs, two cats, a husband (her one and only) and a passel of grown children and grandchildren. A former newspaper reporter and editor, she is living her dream: writing romance novels for Harlequin. As she says with typical understatement, “It doesn’t get any better than this!” Watch for her book Family Secrets in August. It’s the next novel in THE LYON LEGACY.

  THE LYON FAMILLY

  INVITATION TO AN ANNIVERSARY BALL

  Title Page

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  BEGINNING

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  SILVER ANNIVERSARY

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  FAMILY SECRETS

  Copyright

  BEGINNING

  Peg Sutherland

  PROLOGUE

  New Orleans, 1998

  THE CONVERSATION about fireworks and parades and gala balls swirled around Margaret Hollander Lyon. But it didn’t capture her attention. It couldn’t break through the web of thoughts about a lifetime of lies and dissension and the enduring myths that were her legacy.

  “What do you think, Mother?”

  André’s impatient voice drew Margaret away from her regrets, back into the austere boardroom that reflected the iron will of her reign at Lyon Broadcasting. She smiled at André and, having no idea what had been said, replied, “Whatever you decide is fine with me.”

  She saw the glances exchanged by the members of Lyon’s board of directors and its management team, both made up of a granddaughter and nephews and others she had mentored through the ranks over the years. Her apparent lack of interest made them nervous. Margaret Lyon never lacked interest in the machinations of Lyon Broadcasting, especially when it came to WDIX-TV.

  WDIX-TV.

  Her fifty-year-old baby. Her other legacy, along with the fraud and the feud. Its growing pains caused, always, by the fraud and the feud.

  “We’d really like your thoughts on this, Mother.” André’s voice still carried the edge of impatience, although he’d made an attempt to temper it.

  It grew harder each day, now that André was almost sixty, to see the little boy he had been. He had the hint of Lyon aristocracy in the line of his jaw, the sharp slope of his nose. He also had the streak of Lyon stubbornness.

  Smiling slightly, she looked around the burnished burled table and calculated how many others whose gaze was now focused on her also bore that stubborn streak.

  Mary Boland, director of engineering for the past decade and privy to everything—almost everything—that Margaret was privy to, snapped everyone to attention when she spoke. “Margaret, nobody here’s going to make a single decision without your opinion. You may say it’s up to us today, but we all know you. Tomorrow you’ll be on a rampage, wanting to know why we didn’t do whatever it is you wanted all along.”

  A few of the younger people, who didn’t yet know that Margaret’s bark was worse than her bite, seemed to stop breathing as the room waited for her reaction. At seventy-seven, Margaret knew she seemed formidable to many in the room. A legend, even, with her snow-white chignon, her age-spotted hands that never shook when it mattered, and her trademark navy suits and dresses that never sported a trace of lace or frippery.

  She laughed, a deep, short laugh that sometimes meant she was amused and sometimes merely meant she knew she’d won. “All right, Mary, let’s go over it again. How are you suggesting we spend the Lyon money just to remind the citizens of New
Orleans that Paul and I have been around longer than God?”

  This time she did listen as the committee that had been appointed to plan a celebration of WDIX-TV’s fiftieth anniversary reviewed its plans: weekly documentaries between now and July the Fourth, tracking the city’s many changes since 1949; stepped-up public appearances by the station’s best-known personalities; T-shirts and ball caps; fireworks and a parade; and, the pièce de résistance, the launching of a literacy initiative, with initial funding to come from a gala ball on Independence Day.

  And, of course, a biography of Margaret and Paul Lyon.

  Margaret made a mental note to quietly nip in the bud the biography at some later date.

  “We’re going to keep things moving in this city all the way through until summer,” said Mary. “With a grand finale on July the Fourth!”

  Margaret heard the murmur of excitement around the table. She liked enthusiasm in people, even liked to think she could still conjure it up herself from time to time. Certainly she had in 1949.

  She’d managed to ignite Paul, hadn’t she?

  She frowned at those around the table, decided to see how easy it would be to extinguish that spark of excitement. She knew from experience that success depended on a high level of enthusiasm; she needed to test their level of committment before she agreed to anything. “This is New Orleans, after all,” she said. “Mardi Gras. Super Bowls. A party town like this won’t be easy to impress.”

  “That’s just it, Margaret.” Mary jumped to defend the plan. “New Orleans loves an excuse to party. Let’s give them one.”

  And so it was agreed. WDIX-TV would set New Orleans on fire—just as it had in 1949.

  Margaret remained in the boardroom after the others left. She looked around the room, at the matted-and-framed black-and-white photographs of the New Orleans skyline over the years. Canal Street clogged with dreary black sedans. The art deco New Iberia Bank building, chosen to bear the signal tower for the city’s first television station. Audubon Park. The St. Charles streetcar line winding through the elegant Garden District. Jackson Square. The riverfront, with all its many faces over the years.

  And her favorite, the photograph of a horde of people clustered around Maison Blanche department store on July 4, 1949, to watch the tiny black-and-white television screen in the display window as WDIX-TV signed on, setting the town on fire.

  Margaret looked at the aged hand in front of her on the table. That hand had controlled the switch that sent the first TV signal to those few lucky people in the city at that time who’d had a set to watch. She remembered the way that hand had trembled with fear and excitement. She remembered the way the fire of a new day roared through this town. Through her life. Through her heart.

  Margaret Hollander Lyon had done that.

  Had it all been a mistake?

  CHAPTER ONE

  New Orleans January 1949

  MARGARET HOLLANDER LYON stared at the man passed out on the rickety dock.

  At least, she hoped he was only passed out and not dead. From the looks of him, it could go either way. Thin to the point of gauntness, pale to the point of sallowness. Hardly the man to salvage her career.

  Hardly the man she’d married almost eight years ago.

  She fought unexpected tears. She hadn’t cried over Paul Lyon in a long time. She didn’t plan to start tonight. She had no time for sentimentality.

  “Take him to the car,” she said to Patrick. “If he’s still alive, that is.”

  Patrick McKenna, the burly driver from the city’s Irish Channel who had been with the Lyon family longer than Margaret had, sent her a chiding glance. She responded with a look few twenty-seven-year-old women could have pulled off. Patrick respected Margaret, but he wasn’t afraid of her. He bent over, grunting as he hoisted the limp body over his shoulder. “Sir’s not apt to like this, missy.”

  “Stop calling me that, Paddy,” she said, more out of habit than out of any expectation that he would change his ways. He’d known her since she was in braids. “Sir has had it his way long enough.”

  Margaret looked around her as Patrick negotiated his load. For this she had worn her best navy Dior dress? Not to mention new navy pumps, matching leather handbag and a jaunty hat with a demure if silly-looking veil that touched the tip of her nose. The moss-slicked dock was rotted in places and the fishing shanty was worse. The windows were bare of either glass panes or mosquito netting. The tarpaper roof probably dripped like a bride’s mother. And the screen on the door was curled and rusty. The swamp smelled of decay and fish. Beneath her veil, Margaret wrinkled her nose and walked carefully to avoid becoming mired in the damp ground.

  What demons, what hatred, would make a man choose to live here when he had a fine home in town? And a family business holding a place for him. A wife.

  A son.

  Margaret once again ignored the lump in her throat and made her way to the shiny Pierce Arrow. Paul was now slumped against the passenger window in the front seat. Patrick held a back door for Margaret.

  More to the point, Margaret thought as Patrick drove across the rutted roads to the main highway, what desperation would drive a woman like her to seek out the man who had abandoned his home and his family?

  ‘ ‘Where to, missy?’ ’ Patrick asked as the Pierce Arrow lurched onto the highway.

  “Lyoncrest.”

  He turned to look at her. “Missy, you’re aiming to stir up a fearsome ruckus.”

  “Yes, I am, Paddy.”

  He chuckled. That would not be the universal reaction, Margaret was confident of that.

  PAUL LYON KNEW before he opened his eyes that he was back at Lyoncrest.

  The fragrance of winter camellias touched him, a world away from the sharp smells of the bayou. A feather bed cradled him, softer than anything he’d bedded down on these past seven years. And he heard the whispering movements of a servant, the muffled ping of a silver serving tray placed on a table by the door.

  He groaned. At least that meant there would be coffee, dark and rich with chicory and maybe strong enough to coax him into movement.

  Without opening his eyes, he shifted to one side of the feather bed. His head spun for a moment as he sat on the edge, a linen sheet tangled around his legs.

  Lyoncrest. What in the blue blazes am I doing at Lyoncrest? His head started pounding. Somebody’s gotten one over on me.

  Thinking that would be nothing new here at Lyoncrest, he forced his eyes open. Through lids that felt puffy and scratchy, he surveyed his surroundings. No doubt about it, he was back home. Back in his old room, in fact. The four carved cherry bedposts, as graceful and shapely as a woman’s thigh, smelled of familiar lemon polish. Lace crocheted by Grandmère Lyon draped over the posts and tickled the top of his head—which was enough movement to call attention to the screaming ache in his skull. The massive chiffonier that almost touched the ceiling, the marble-topped bureau with the glass knobs, even the discreet Matisse originals on the far wall were all still here.

  He might never have been gone. And the way his head was filled with cobwebs, he might, indeed, have been lying here unconscious all these years. Everything in between might have been nothing more than a bad dream.

  The French doors leading to the second-story gallery were open; a morning breeze wafted in, fluttering the sheer curtains that spilled to a graceful puddle on the floor. It occurred to Paul to wonder—for the first time in his life—who saw to it that the lace drifted so perfectly. He’d taken it for granted before. But since leaving Lyoncrest, he’d been in plenty of places where a waterfall of lace was unheard of. Foxholes and air-raid shelters and concentration-camp bunkers where only the maggots found enough sustenance to keep themselves alive.

  A very bad dream.

  Taking a deep breath, he pushed off from the bed and took one staggering step. He steadied himself on the nightstand, struggling to remember the most recent events. By the time he made his way to the adjoining bathroom, he had recaptured snatches of mem
ory. None of it pretty.

  It had started with the cabdriver.

  No, actually, it had started long before the cabdriver. It had started yesterday morning—at least, he hoped it had only been yesterday—when he’d awoken with the knowledge of the date. January fourth. A birthday.

  Her birthday.

  Somewhere between remembering the date and awaking this morning, he’d found himself in the company of a cabdriver who’d never gotten over D-day. The walking wounded, that was how Paul thought of them. He saw them everywhere he went, even four long years after the war had ended. Men who couldn’t forget the hell they’d seen in Europe or the Pacific. Men who sometimes carried the physical scars—wounds that still ached or limbs that had been severed—and always carried the emotional scars. And they could mention those scars only to others who had been there. And usually only after enough alcohol had been downed to loosen their lips.

  Paul lowered himself to the edge of the claw-foot tub and reached for the faucets. The pipes groaned as the hot water began to run. Shedding the clothes he’d put on the morning before, he lowered himself into a tub full of scalding water.

  “Never again,” he vowed hoarsely.

  Alcohol never. worked for Paul the way it did for some men, resulting in blessed oblivion or a few hours of false euphoria. No, a couple of drinks and he passed out. He supposed he ought to be grateful he didn’t have what it took to become a rum hound. He’d seen too many men back from the war who had gone that route. Like the cabby yesterday, who had recognized Paul’s voice and launched into a conversation neither of them wanted to have, but neither could resist.

  And look where drinking had gotten him this time. Lyoncrest.

  At least he could soak in a really hot tub long enough to clear his head, then escape before he got caught up in anything going on at Lyoncrest.