As each drifted away to their duties, Killian and she finished their meal.
Liv drained her tea cup. "Lily has asked me to remain for a week or two."
This put a grin on his face. "I hope you agreed."
"Do you mind?"
"Why in the world would I? Not an hour ago, we were friends. Your term." If she thought he'd hold her to that ridiculous stipulation that they remain client and consultant, he'd disabuse her of it. Maybe even kiss her to rid her of that idea. "You've helped my daughter give birth to the heir to the dukedom, my grandson, Ada's and Pierce's nephew. I'd say you are friend of the entire family. There are few walls between us."
She sat back in her chair and frowned. "Lily wants me to help her learn how to handle Garrett."
"There's no one better, I'd say."
"She's concerned. Doesn't know what to do. How to hold him. Why he cries."
"I know she'd be grateful." I'd be delighted to have you here indefinitely.
"There's a problem though. I have only my one valise. One gown. I need to go back to London and get a few clothes. I could catch the coach tomorrow and return the following afternoon."
"Tell me what you need. I'll get it for you."
"No, Killian. I cannot allow you to do that. It's not proper."
"You've been up all night and half the day. You're dead on your feet and want to travel to London by a coach constructed in the last century."
"Oh, come now! Not that bad."
"Almost!" He reached over and took her hand. "I won't let you go. Lily needs you. Garrett, too. How can you desert those who require your presence?"
She pressed her lips together.
"Stay and in the hours when you're not helping Lily, you'll be working with me."
"On the houses." She brightened, sitting taller at the suggestion. "Of course."
"You'll tell me what you like. Need."
"What I don't like too. We can take a drive to Ashford or Tunbridge. There are homes there that should be bombed."
She chuckled. "But the interiors? Ah, those have treasures centuries old. Tapestries and portraits and—"
"I'm an American, my dear." He'd almost called her his darling. She was, but he must wait to let her enjoy that. "I want what's new and exciting. I look forward not back."
She blinked at that and removed her hand from his. Whatever he'd said had sobered her.
Well, it was true. He looked to the future. Always. "The past is not a landscape I can change."
That sobered her. “I agree on that.”
He wanted to take her hand once more but did not dare use more than logic. "Say you will stay and let me get what you need."
"Yes." She nodded and shook off whatever had obsessed her. "Perhaps if we sent one of the maids up to my house? I'd send a note for her to give my housekeeper with a list of items I'd like."
"I'll speak with Julian and I'm sure he'll agree." I'll make my own list of gifts you'll have to fill your stay.
"I don't mean to be a burden."
"Never. Now…is it time to go to rest?"
"Oh, it definitely is." She rose, took his arm and they made their way up to the ground floor and up the grand staircase. Midway, she missed a step.
He swept her up into his arms. Her surprise melted to surrender as he strode with her to the landing and down the hall to her door.
"Open it," he said and carried her inside. At the side of her bed, he set her down.
She turned in his arms, her hands cupping his neck. "Thank you."
What could he allow himself and still be a gentleman? Nothing but words. "You're welcome."
"You could let me go." She shook back her long red hair, her voice was half teasing, half warning him.
"Good business ethics," he joked.
She stroked the hair at his nape.
But he didn't release her and she didn't move. He grew hard, his blood racing with her touches.
"It's not fair to take advantage of a tired woman." Her eyes twinkled.
"I know." He grinned.
"You are a rogue."
"And you, Lady Savage, are a sweet temptation."
"I should insist."
"Hmmm. I suppose so." He considered the ceiling for a moment. "But this business behavior was all your idea."
"Woe unto me."
She gave him a saucy once-over and turned her back to him. "Do me the favor to unlace me?"
She'd brought no lady's maid. Lily had not assigned her one. And given the nearness of her delectable body, he didn't wish to summon one. "At your service, my lady."
As she clamped two hands to the bedpost, his own hands shook. Desire rolled through him like thunder. He wanted her as he had not wanted any woman in more than a decade. He clenched his fingers and splayed them wide.
Turning, she caught his gaze. "Undo me," she said and turned back again toward the post to whisper, "You already have, you know."
"Minx," he murmured in protest and praise. He made nimble work of her buttons and pushed her gown from her delicate shoulders and down her graceful arms. Her back was lean, muscular. Her skin was flawless, pink, perfect. She was too ripe a temptation and he was too prudent to seduce the exhausted woman who has just helped his daughter bring her first child into the world.
"Step out of it," he ordered her and when she did, he picked up the gown to place upon the nearby chair. He untaped her petticoat and let it whoosh to the carpet. Then he set to untying her laces, listening to her tiny sighs of pleasure and controlling his desire to strip away the damn corset and replace it with his hands, his lips, his tongue.
He swallowed loudly.
She shrugged and the corset dropped down, down, down, over her petticoat, hooking on the cursed bustle and dropping to the floor. He untaped the bustle and her crinoline so that she stood only in her shift.
He itched to take that off, too. He breathed her in, her jasmine fragrance and hot little breaths of desire. With every inch of his rigid body, he willed her to be naked and natural in his arms. But not now, man. Not now.
He cleared his throat. "I'll leave you."
She didn't turn, didn't agree, but cupped her shoulders and nodded. Then she whirled to face him, her dark brown eyes hungry. "You won't kiss me again?"
He pinched her nose. "You need your sleep. I need to go."
She looked forlorn, confused. "I do. But oh..."
"Liv, if I stay, we will go to that bed and enjoy ourselves."
She blinked, then laughed, coming back to her wits. "You'd get no joy of it. I can't lift a finger let alone make proper love to that blackguard Killian Hanniford."
She would welcome the passion that sparked between them. How could he be so fortunate? What had happened to her earlier denial of her interest in him? He'd have to ask, insist she tell him. But not now. He smiled at her, willing himself not to grab her and put her to the bed. "You're tired. I am too. We'll discuss this later."
She caught him by the ends of his cravat and it unraveled in her hand. "Oh dear, I cannot even detain you properly."
He chuckled. This ploy of hers was so sweet. But the time, the place was not right to claim all of her. "You could."
She tipped her head, a teasing smile upon her luscious lips. "How?"
"Call me darling again."
"Did I do that?" Her voice held uncertainty.
He said not a word, but arched one brow high.
She blushed, her cheeks pink. "I must've been dreaming."
"Do dream again."
And then she shocked him to his core.
She flowed against him, the suppleness of her breasts and belly the spontaneous invitation to passion he'd craved from her. Her hands flowed up his chest to frame his jaw, then to sink into his hair. Rising on her toes, against his lips she whispered, "I prefer the reality."
She skimmed her mouth along his, the brush of her flesh molten and angelic. She put the full of her lips to his and he was lost, gone to a bliss he'd forgotten existed, filled with the new raptu
re that was kissing Liv Bereston.
He set her from him.
She looked bereft, her mouth turned down.
He slanted two fingers across her swollen lips. "There will be more. Not here. Not now But soon."
She was so tired, she wavered.
He caught her up in his arms and seizing the will power that had forged him into a wealthy man, he set her to the bed. He yanked the coverlet over her. "Go to sleep. Rest."
She cupped his cheek.
Unable to deny her, he bent low, caught her hand and pressed it to his heart. With a tenderness he summoned from the fathomless well she'd shown him existed in her own soul, he kissed her magnificent mouth. "We need you. All of us."
Chapter 10
July 2, 1879
“I must go up to London," she told Killian as she closed her notebook and they ended their regular morning meeting about design and decor for his houses. "Roger will be eager to hear about our discussions. The townhouse plans are as he drew them. And the major changes are to your own house."
"His original sketches were sound," Killian said. "He did a fine job. The biggest change we've made is to extend the foyer. I want that rotunda. Make it big, but not a wind tunnel. I've walked in the door of too many houses where the poor butler was nearly swept up to the rafters like a bird in the cross draft."
She grinned at him. "It shouldn't be difficult for Roger to redesign the foyer so that it sits forward of the main line of the house. With the porte cochère, a rotunda will look impressive but not opulent. Just as you want it. A home."
"Exactly. And be certain he understands that the most important aspect is to turn left from the foyer, so anyone still has a view to the arches out to the sea."
"If only those arches could talk," she said with a thrill for how he saved them. "They'd shout their gratitude to you for preserving them."
Killian rose from behind the desk in the library. In his sky blue waistcoat and white shirt, he was the country gentleman at his leisure. London toffs might not approve of his appearance before her without his frock coat, but she did. Stripped nearer to his skin, she could admire his health and his natural male vigor. When younger, Killian Hanniford had surely been a heartbreaker. Now, he was devastating to any woman who saw him. And yet, she chastised herself for her desire for him, forbidden as it was.
Last night, he'd returned from his most recent visit to London. He and Pierce had gone to town five days ago to settle a negotiation that was going badly. Only Killian returned. When she saw him enter the salon last night, her heart had leapt in her throat.
That was so telling. While he'd been away, Liv had pined for him like a debutante for her first beau. One look at him and she'd lost her breath, pinning herself to her chair so as not to rush up to embrace him.
She'd been so good these past few weeks, not to touch him, not to kiss him. And he had not approached her intimately either. For that she was grateful. But angry too. At herself. At her past. Here was a man who elicited her every torrid feminine need and she should not countenance her infatuation. Nor should she encourage him to court her.
And yet...and yet she'd prized the other little tokens she could accept. The burn of his gaze on her own. The caress of his fingers as he took her arm and escorted her in to dinner or out to the gardens for a stroll in the moonlight. The scent of his cologne as he bent to turn the pages of the musical scores for her when she played the piano each afternoon in the small salon. As before, she didn't need the sheet music, but she did need his nearness, his attentions. God help her.
"Liv," he spoke to her as he stood before her chair. "Where are you? Dreaming again?"
Of you. Yes. She licked her lips, imagining she’d reach up and enfold him in her arms, absorb his magnetic strength, empowered with his might. But that was for naught. She'd told him months ago that they'd had their idyll on the shores of the Seine. But the true idyll had been here at Willowreach. In his presence. With his family. Near him, a step away, each day, each hour. Living with his ideas, his energy, his boldness. And his irresistible, novel optimism. One that was innate to his nature. As opposed to her own that was self-taught, deliberately nurtured.
And oh, she must pack. Must leave here. Because I care so much. More than is allowed.
"Liv." He reached out and for the first time since she'd kissed him the day Garrett was born, he touched her. Lifting her chin with two fingers, he smiled sadly at her. "I don't want you to go, Liv."
"I should," she said with a fearful determination borne of the longing for him that she'd experienced while he was away—and the painful memory of how she'd spent years damning him. "Lily and Garrett are getting on quite well. The new nurse they've hired understands her duties and they all have a suitable routine. They no longer need my advice."
His shoulders sagged. He dropped his hand. "I know she'll miss you."
"I've enjoyed every minute. All of you are so easy to be with." Easy to love.
"Then why not come to Paris with all of us for the christening of Marianne and Remy's son?"
The family had received a letter yesterday that Marianne had delivered her baby three days ago. The young heir to the dukedom of Remy and the princedom of d'Aumale was to be christened Bertrand Andre Duquesne Marceau, after both of his grandfathers and his father. All the Hannifords planned to go to Paris to attend the ceremony the first of September and they had invited Liv along. Tempted to accept, she'd refused. Caution was best when the lure to remaining near Killian night and day could mean she'd succumb to her desire for him. Memories of how forward she'd been to call him darling and to kiss him made her hungry to taste his lips again. The memory did not shame her, as it might have years ago. She surprised herself. How long could one continue to condemn another? Negativity took such a toll on the body and mind.
But duty called, as did prudence. "I cannot, Killian. I have so much work to do. I must return to London to prepare my meetings for your furniture and upholstery, the rugs and ever so much more. Good furniture and draperies take so much time to construct. And we want to finish your house, especially, in a reasonable period of time."
She stopped, appalled she'd sounded like a nervous twit, rattling on about details.
"I won't rush the builder," he said. "Ten months is what he quoted me from the time he laid the foundation. I'm in no hurry. I simply want it done right. He predicts March at earliest, if we don't have much snow."
"Expect April," she told him, happy to change the subject. "Or early May."
He gazed down at her, his regard much too intimate to be comfortable. "When do you wish to go?"
"Tomorrow." The sooner, the better. Everything about him drew her like a magnet. In three weeks, he'd changed her view of him. Where was her loyalty to the sorrows of the past?
"Let me escort you back to town."
His concern ran through her like warm honey, lulling her with desire. She must object. "You've only just returned."
"I came as quickly as I could only to be with you again."
She turned her face aside and shut her eyes. "You should not make decisions like that based on an attraction that—"
"That we both feel?"
He went to one knee and took both her hands. "Look at me, please. Liv, you and I have developed an affection each other. You cannot deny it."
"I don't." That's what eats at me.
"I keep hoping you'll learn to trust me enough to tell me why you reject me."
"It's not a matter of trust, Killian." That was the truth. Could he understand her old hatred of him? He'd been her devil. The man who'd ruined her family.
"After that morning Garrett was born," he went on, "I hoped you were accepting our regard for each other."
She faced him, resolve to be brave strong in her mind but weak in her soul. "I did. You must see that on that morning when Garrett came in to the world, I was tired."
"You were spontaneous," he said with dancing eyes.
She stiffened. "You and I are not a good match in any wa
y."
"I don't agree."
She tried to extricate her hands from him, but he would not let her go. "You must."
"Then you must tell me why."
She tore away and shot to her feet. Why? Because society would howl if they learned I valued you. They'll surely denounce me when they learn I work for you. And then what will happen to my reputation? My clientele? My business and earnings? How can I support Camille?
She whirled on him. "I owe you nothing."
The insult of her words made him blanch. "I do not agree."
Was that Killian Hanniford the hard-hearted negotiator?
She stared at him, a pain of realization stabbing her.
This man before her was not Hanniford, the terror, the thief, the robber. But Hanniford, the man who cared for her.
She had hurt him. She clutched her hands together. She hated her own actions. But how could she relent? "I return to London tomorrow. Then I'm on to Brighton to survey the properties. That is, if you still wish me to consult on design and interiors."
"I do." He stood before her, at once composed, the veneer of the consummate businessman, polite and congenial.
She'd wounded him. She saw it in the tick of a muscle in his jaw, the grey shadows in his eyes, the down turn of the corners of his mouth. What have I done? I cannot bear to make him unhappy, but I cannot bear to remain and betray my parents' memories.
"I want you to do this for me, Liv. Your expertise is what I need and want. For the months ahead as we work together, I promise you we will be as you wished. Strictly business associates."
The hole in the region of her heart opened into a pit. But she swallowed hard and said, "Thank you. I welcome the work. It's challenging and a project I'd like to complete. The land you've bought from young Lord Savage is a stunning bit of coast." I long to see it again. Feel the wind in my hair. Absorb the sun on my skin. Hear the endless water crashing on the shore. "And renovation of the townhouses is a unique challenge."
Sweet Siren: Those Notorious Americans, Book 3 Page 9