Page 81 of Sweet Siren
This renewal of their friendship he hoped would be gradual, a mutual acceptance of what was inevitable. He loved her. And though she had not declared it, Killian could see in her words, her smiles that she cared for him. Although she had to come to the statement of it in her own good time, he worried that she could never love him enough to forgive the past and marryhim.
Pierce was a fine companion for these trips. Jovial, joking with him, Pierce understood Killian's sorrow that Liv had rejected his proposal. So he was good enough to come along. Though today, he had not been keen to leave London. On the train, he'd confided that he'd called upon Elanna yesterday in her Londontownhouse.
"She's horribly unhappy," Pierce had told him. "No one receives her by herself. She's furious at the snub. Carbury's been up to London just this week again to barge in and demand she returnhome."
"It is his house and his wife," Killian said with foreboding in his heart. His intelligent son was obsessed with the young and foolish Countess of Carbury and could not stop himself from interfering. "And you can and should do nothing to irritate thesituation."
"I know. I do know. She's like...a drug. I cannot stop. Nor can Phillip Leland. He was leaving as Iarrived."
"Leland's constant attentions make matters worse. Carbury already hates Leland and suspects him of 'criminal conversation'. If he becomes incensed and sues for divorce, he may include any other man he suspects on alist."
"Me?" Pierce turned beat red in fury. "Absurd. He knows I'm herfriend."
"Leland probably says thesame."
But Carbury was so incensed about his wife's spurning him, he would reject reasonable explanations. He could do anything. Anything atall.
Killian wished he could do more to distract his son from the web of the seductive countess. Warning him of disgrace had not seemed to besufficient.
At least, Pierce was eager to come along to Brighton each Saturday and help him renew his friendship with Liv. He hadn't expected to fall in love. Not at his age. But he couldn't help the admiration he felt for Liv...or the desire. To learn that she was the daughter of the man whose livelihood he had ruined had shocked him. But it also resurrected in him a belief that on rare occasions in one's life it was possible to correct the harm one had done toanother.
Killian prayed his efforts to make amends to Liv would not be in vain—and that she might come to love him and live with him as hiswife.
"Shall we go?" Camille asked when they'd dried the last plate. "I'm ready and the band begins at eight o'clock on thestroke."
* * *
"Are you chilled?"Killian asked her as they found a spot on the terrace sheltered from the sea by the bandstand. "The air has turnedcolder."
"It will rain tomorrow, I think," she said and leaned against the wooden rail that enclosed the public dancefloor.
"You can have mycoat."
"I don't need it," she said, though she gathered her wool shawl around her throat. Turning aside to watch Camille and Pierce waltzing to the band's rendition of a Viennese tune, she found her voice and her logic. "They're very attuned to each other. Some couples never get the rhythmright."
"Wecould."
She took that opening to say her peace. Admiring the sharp, clean lines of his handsome face, she said, "We could. What remains is for me to tell you the real reason I refused you that day. Will you let menow?"
His mouth curved at one corner. Reaching out, he smoothed tendrils of her hair from her cheek. It was the most intimately he'd touched her since they'd parted in the Grand Hotel. "Please."
"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 hisfamily."
He said nothing, but as his expression darkened into a frown, she saw he waited for the whole ofit.
"I hatedyou."
He grimaced, jerking away as if she'd struckhim.
"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 toyou."
"And to tell me who youwere?"
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 youirresistible."
He stared at his shoes. "And?"
"I hated myself forit."
