What did grate though, was the pronunciation of the silent 'r' in Iron.
As hautdesert and SirJolt noted, it's not the 'r' that's (usually) silent, it's the 'o' that is made into a
schwa, turning it into something like "EYE-urn".
I made a deliberate choice to pronounce Iron's name that way, for a few reasons.
Firstly, it sounded a bit more old-fashioned to my ear, and suited to a time when people travelled by carriage.
Another reason was to distinguish it as a name. I don't recall the
word 'iron' appearing in the story, but if it had (or did) I may well have pronounced it the usual way (or at least, tried to remember to do so).
Also, I felt it worked with the character; it seemed to me that a lazy pronunciation of his name (which is what "eye-urn" is, really) would be something he himself would not tolerate.
My final reason was a pleasing (to me) association with Lord Byron (which I admit didn't occur to me until I'd heard myself say it a few times).
Lest you feel that I overthought this - probably true - I don't think much of it was all that conscious at the time (except the Lord Byron part).
I'm sorry you didn't like it, Loz, but at least now you know why it was like that.
'Lord Ion' is an interesting name, too, though.
(*Edited to acknowledge the posts that came up between starting and finishing this entry.)