Sweet Siren: Those Notorious Americans, Book 3

by Cerise DeLand

  "When I went to Elanna's wedding a year ago June, I went out of curiosity to see you. I had no intention to meet you. None at all. In fact, I wished only to view you from afar. The rich American robber baron who had come to London with his family."

  He said nothing, but as his expression darkened into a frown, she saw he waited for the whole of it.

  "I hated you."

  He grimaced, jerking away as if she'd struck him.

  "I was rude to you and although I hadn't intended harsh words, I chastised myself for my childish behavior. Even if you did not know who I was, I'd been brutish to you. So when I received the invitation to attend Marianne's and Remy's wedding in Paris, I had to go. I intended to apologize to you."

  "And to tell me who you were?"

  She tipped her head, whimsical in her denial. "I had to, didn't I, because I was trapped in my own vise. I was attracted to you. Charmed by your smile when I was so rude to you. You could forgive that? It was astonishing. Against all my intentions, all my instincts, I found you irresistible."

  He stared at his shoes. "And?"

  "I hated myself for it."

  His dark brows shot high. In the rays of the gas lamps, his silver eyes were brilliant with confusion.

  Once again, she was ashamed of herself.

  "Not the usual way to begin a love affair is it?" he said, glancing at anyone and anything but her.

  It was her turn to stare at her shoes. "No. I grew to care for you quickly. Too quickly. My negative feelings for you dissolved like rain in the sun. Those weeks with you in Willowreach—with all your family—showed me who you were. Kind. Vigilant. Honest. I admired you. Cared for you. At first, I told myself it was the fact that I'd been starved for affection for decades. Then I decided my attraction to you was lust. Silly to think a woman of my age could want a man like that. But there you have it. Need, desire and finally delight in your company. The more I saw you, the less I was compelled to dislike you. I was caught in a web of my own design. I hated that. I had to change."

  "Good."

  She gave him a wan smile. "The time I spent with you at Willowreach, the enjoyment I saw you have in your family touched me. And I—oh!—I enjoyed it too. I spoke of an idyll, a time apart, and it was that for me. Because you were there, a comfort, a bulwark against fear, even the likes of Carbury. You showed me what a man could be, should be to his family."

  He listened, his gaze in hers, without response.

  She owed him more. "Your house has been a delight to create. The fact that you gave me rein meant I conjured you up as I saw you. I was down to the man, the real man, though I saw only my interpretation of you. And I like him. In the flesh. In my reverie, too. To imagine you in the small drawing room reading a newspaper or at a desk in the office working has meant I've seen you, not as others have painted you, but as you truly are."

  Pain wrinkled his brow. "And how is that?"

  "A man who works hard, who is devoted to his family and who has ethics about the businesses he owns."

  He leaned an elbow on the rail and turned to look out to sea. "That has not always been so."

  "I know."

  He took both her hands. "When I was young, I was also very hungry. My sister and I had sailed to America with a pittance she'd earned. Poverty makes you mean. And angry."

  "That I understand."

  "I won't ingratiate myself with you by telling you a tale of misery. That would not be fair. But I will tell you that when I first earned money, enough of it, to buy other men's businesses, I did so without regard to ethics. I grew wealthy. I also grew ruthless. I stopped only when I learned that a man I'd ruined had hung himself."

  She struggled to speak. "My father."

  He winced. "Robert Emley, Lord Newton, who owned Emley Shipping Limited sold me his majority stock in eighteen sixty-one. I found an ad in the Liverpool Daily Post, went to meet the broker in Water Street. He was a shark, fast talking, rough. But I needed more ships. I needed them soon. I knew how the South would fall to the North. I'd traveled in those ports and saw how meager their defenses and their resources.

  "For weeks, I negotiated the asking price of those two steamers for less than they were worth. I knew finances of many British shipping companies were in jeopardy. Our war and problems in trade with China and India wrecked havoc on the economy here. Prices were high and getting more ridiculous every day."

  He squinted into the distance, shame and sorrow haunted his magnificent eyes.

  "I never met the owner, Emley, but two months later my banker in the City of London paid the broker the first of three installments of the sales figure. I took over the two steamers and hired a crew to supplement the old. We prospered. I used them along the Irish Sea out of Liverpool into Dublin and Waterford. A few months later, my banker informed me that the broker failed to appear to take his last payment. He seemed to have disappeared."

  Liv caught her breath. "Do you think the broker cheated my father on the sale?"

  "I did learn soon afterward that he never collected the last third.” He faced her squarely and in the dark, his face was tortured. “Last month, I launched a new investigation with my banker, my solicitor and Scotland Yard. We must find this man and put him in jail.”

  Killian had gone to the police as well as his banker and solicitor. Her heart swelled with gratitude. “Oh, Killian. How can I ever thank you for that?”

  “If we find him, I might allow it. But, Liv, I am to blame here.”

  She could have been polite and objected, but he was right.

  “So you see, if your father was paid the right amounts of the first two installments is a matter we must try to discover. If you have any records, that would help."

  Astonished, she cleared her head. "I may have the papers, yes.”

  "Please search for them. They may prove the crime. In the meantime, we wait to see if we can find the man. I waited to tell you this in hopes of good news. So far, we have none.

  "But there’s more, Liv. You have to know that when the broker disappeared, I didn't think any more of it. I should have. The funds remained available should he have decided to collect them, but he never did. More than a year later, my London man of business wrote to me that the former owner of Emley had died. By his own hand."

  Killian pursed his lips, his heartache palpable. "I felt his loss keenly. I shared the news with my wife who told me my greed was the man's sorrow. She was furious with me. I was shaken. How could I know a man would do such a thing? Could sink so low? But then, of course I did understand poverty. No coin for bread or peat or ale. But my own criticism was small compared to Aileen's. My wife told me how unprincipled I was becoming and gave me an ultimatum. I was to become more ethical or she'd leave me and take our children with her. You can't imagine how that gutted me. She was the love of my life. The one who brought me everything I value, her love, children, a good home, and I couldn't bear to lose her."

  He sighed. "Of course, she was right. I changed. I learned to build prosperity for those who work for me and I studied pricing to pay fairly for anything I bought. Occasionally, recognizing the potential of a product or a business, I paid more. I still do."

  "I've heard that's true."

  "But you've paid a price for my greed," he said with anguish. "If I could change that, I would."

  "Much as I wish it, I don’t need that. I’ve come to terms with my past and learned from it. Changed. For the better, I believe."

  "I’m pleased to hear it. But I will tell you one thing I've learned. To go to America is to leave your past behind and to work for a better life. But to become an American is to believe you can become a better person."

  That filled her with hope. "There is only one way to ameliorate the past. If you can forgive yourself, it is the best beginning. And then there is this." She fished from her skirt pocket the gold ring he'd offered her that day in Paris.

  His face fell. "You're giving it back to me?"

  "I saved it," she said and put it in his hand, cu
rling his fingers over it. "Frankly, I had no idea what to do with it. At first, that is."

  "You can't forgive me," he said it like a death sentence.

  Tears pooled on her lashes. "I hoped you might offer it to me again."

  His silver eyes glistened with his own tears. "You want me to ask you to marry me?"

  "I hoped you would. I could ask you, of course, if you'd excuse the impropriety of it. Whichever you choose, I don't care. I want it done. Above all, I believe the best way to forgive the past may well be to live a future filled with proper loving care for each other."

  He shook his head. "Liv, this is extraordinary."

  She knew his hesitancy had everything to do with what she had not yet said. "What you were affected us all. But that was yesterday. You and I could choose to live apart, reflecting on those dark days until we die, but what real happiness might that bring either of us?"

  She cupped his jaw. "We've both changed. You are richer but wiser. I am stronger and I hope wise enough to forgive the past. My darling, I love you. I love you as you've become. So if you'll be good enough to ask me once more to marry you, I'd like to accept."

  He took the ring and slid it onto her finger. "To wear down the rough edges of each of our personalities."

  "To become better people."

  "Marry me, please, Liv."

  Her heart filled with all the possibilities their lives together held. "I will."

  "Say that again."

  She laughed and hugged him. "I will. I love you. Now do you mind, dear sir, if I kiss you?"

  "Here?" His eyes danced. "In front of all these people?"

  "In front of anyone, everyone, everywhere, Killian. I don't care who sees that I love you."

  He swung her up and around in his arms. Then he stopped and caught her face between his large warm hands and his lips were on hers, a promise of a magnificent future. "I love you."

  Epilogue

  May 29, 1880

  Brighton

  Liv grinned to herself as she rounded the drive up the hill to the house. Open now three months, the residence was not yet completely furnished, not fully decorated with all of Killian's prized original paintings, but the rays of the sun glinting off the pale Mansard roof and the Bath stone filled her with more than pride in her own work. It brought tears to her eyes and inspired her with gratitude that her life had been so changed by the love of a man she once thought she hated.

  They'd married last September in London in the American embassy and later in a private church ceremony. To marry them, the American ambassador required Killian's birth certificate. But Killian, an immigrant to America at age six, could show no such paper. He'd certified who he claimed to be with a few other documents such as London bank statements. With those impressive references, the clergy had no problems officiating. A day later, the private church ceremony with only family in attendance was to declare they were man and wife for the certitude of everyone in Britain.

  Their engagement appeared in the London newspapers and in others. Yet no one had written to her nor had anyone commented that Olivia Louise Emley Bereston was to marry the man who had ruined her father's and her family's lives. Killian had let it be known in his own business circles that the Liverpool broker was a hunted man. Gossipers did the rest to connect the reasons why the American tycoon, Hanniford, would seek out the shipping broker. Once that was public knowledge, others searched for him as well. It seemed the man had committed similar cases of fraud. The Rothschild bank had traced him to Naples and on to Tangier. But once more he had disappeared. The search continued.

  However Liv did not need that man's presence to wash away the bitterness of yesterday. She had the love of the first man in her life whom she adored. Marriage to David had been one of mutual convenience, hers for financial succor, his to hide his desires for other men. Marriage to Killian Hanniford was one of fascination and the most thrilling passion she'd ever known. At her age, to find herself abed with her lover at nine or ten in the mornings should be outrageous. She couldn't care at any of that. This was her house, her lover, her husband and she found him more irresistible each time he took her in his arms and told her he adored her.

  She giggled at the very thought. But the coach drew nigh to the entrance and she cleared her throat, straightened in the plush black leather squabs and told herself to behave. She had marvelous news to tell, but she must not look like she'd just swallowed a canary. Killian would detect her secret and she wanted to shock him. Shock him to the same kind of giddiness she felt.

  Taking the hand of their footman, she allowed him to assist her down the steps of their brougham onto the graveled drive under the porte cochère. The May day was a brilliant clear blue with warm breezes off the coast and Hanniford Manor glimmered in the spring sunshine. The wind took tendrils of her hair and coiled them about her face and she smiled that the day was bringing her more than she'd originally anticipated.

  "Thank you, Alfred," she said to the young man whom they'd recently hired to live here and assist the new butler. Killian wished to live here in the spring and summer months, keeping his rented Piccadilly house open for his frequent trips to London on business. "Where is Mister Hanniford?"

  "His office, Madam. He says he has news and he wishes to see you immediately."

  "Wonderful," she said as she strode through the broad front door.

  "Jenkins," she greeted the new butler, a young man from Hove who seemed always chipper. "Thank you. You may have my hat and gloves. Has everyone had luncheon?"

  "They have, ma'am. As you instructed, we didn't wait for you to return."

  "Good." The new Hanniford Manor was chock full to the rafters with Hannifords, young and older and extended family. Remy and Marianne were here with their one-year-old Rand while Marianne finished painting a mural upon one wall in the dining room. Pierce had come down from London two days ago, licking his wounds over the loss of an investment. Ada had arrived last week, "thoroughly distressed over the Season and lack of new amusing men." Lily and Julian had come down from Willowreach yesterday with Garrett along, "in need of cheering up" because Elanna and Carbury were driving them mad with their frequent arguments.

  She walked into the spacious foyer and turned left. Before her along the straight line to the terrace, stood the Dominican arches, the sea and the serenity of this life she was building with a man she cherished.

  Near the end of the hall, she stopped and knocked on the wooden door.

  Killian's rich bass voice reached out to her and she entered.

  "Hello!" He removed his spectacles, pushed up and grinned at her. His hair bore more silver strands at his temples. He might even be developing a waving silver streak over his brow. "How are you?"

  "Very well," she said, the news bubbling inside her like a hot spring.

  "The plasterers at the Lockern site are getting along, are they?" He came around his desk to take her in his arms, hold her close to his strong body and kiss her on the lips.

  "They are. They see the value of working with another crew. Finally."

  "Ah, well. When you pay them all well, who can complain, eh?"

  "True."

  He pulled back to peer at her. "What?"

  "What do you mean? I fixed the labor dispute. We are all back to work."

  "You look..." His brow furrowed. "Different."

  "Really?" How to hide things from a man who saw everything about you? Your desire for him, your never-ending need to crawl into his arms at night and to kiss him until he caressed each inch of your own body?

  "Your hair. It's mussed from the wind."

  She patted it. Ready to tell him.

  "Now, I have two things to show you." He took her hand and led her toward the drawing room.

  There, against the vermilion walls, framed by fresh flowers in huge vases, he'd hung the portrait by Delacroix of Chopin. Playing the man's compositions as she did often when they were in their London house in Piccadilly, she laughed when Killian had told her he owned the pie
ce. "Even if it's only half of the original."

  "Half? Why?" she'd asked, shocked.

  "No idea. Some ass cut the canvas and here is Chopin by himself. Alone. Poor bugger."

  But today, Chopin looked very different.

  Or beneath his portrait, standing boldly forth in the north corner near the large stone fireplace was a new element. A huge black grand piano.

  She halted in her tracks. "Killian."

  "It arrived while you were out." He led her to the marvelous piece and offered her the long bench. "Will you sit? You look like you should, darling."

  "Killian. Oh, my. A concert grand piano? For the country?"

  "Do you like it?"

  "Oh, Killian. I'd be quite insane not to adore it." She ran her hands over satin finish and the golden inscription of the manufacturer's name. "By Blüthner? You had this shipped from Leipzig?"

  "I ordered it from their agent in Cavendish Square. You read that Richard Strauss owns one. I think you need one, too. Besides, I want to hear you play often. When you come in from work on your houses. When you're happy. In the afternoons, as you did last year when you filled Willowreach with calm and joy."

  She spun and rushed into his arms. And kissed him, kissed him, kissed him. "There's been so much to do, I'd forgotten how I miss it. How I love it."

  "I want you to enjoy every minute here," he said as he grinned at her.

  "How could I not? I'm with you. You are my every dream come true."

  "As you are mine, my darling." He pulled away, a devilish grin flowing over his features, and took her wrist again. "Come now. There's more."

  "More? More what? Where are we going? I have to talk to you."

  "Soon. Come along, Mrs. Hanniford. You will love this news."

  "I liked this last bit."

  "This one's different. Old. Rare."

  "You're being mysterious, Hanniford."

  "I know." He led her from the drawing room down the hall and out past the orangeries to the terrace. "Stand here. Close your eyes."