Page 50 of Sweet Siren
"The Prince had a dragon in his diningroom?"
"He did. Made of silver. Hanging from the dome to hold a thirty-foot-long chandelier. A Chinese dragon for goodluck."
"Anything money can buy,eh?"
"When some starve, it's heinous to buy frivolous things," she said on asigh.
"Iagree."
Over the years, after the catastrophe with her father and mother, she'd always ask acquaintances for details about him and his businesses. She'd learned much about the small Irish boy who'd immigrated to America with his older sister. How he'd worked the docks, learned to sail, bought a frigate for a song, then won another gambling. How as a ship owner, he'd once saved Negroes on a sinking slave ship off the coast of Florida. Set them free in Baltimore. She'd heard how he'd built a factory in Baltimore of stone and ordered windows installed for fresh air to flow in. "Is it true that you pay your factory workerswell?"
"I pay them better than many a man. Yes." He frowned and faced her one hip to the stones, his arms crossed. "Do you think my house here isfrivolous?"
"Let's see," she teased him. "With electricity, bathrooms with running water, efficient w.c.s and fourlifts?"
He winced. "Tellme."
"Not frivolous. You've created it as a retreat. A home for entertaining. A seasideescape."
"With ten bathrooms with running water? Electric wires for lights? Four lifts? How is that different from other rich men’s new country homes?" He cocked a darkbrow.
"It's notpretentious."
Now he raised both brows. "You'recertain?"
"If it were, you'd have two drawing rooms, a smoking room, a library as well as an office. And you've no ballroom,either."
"And the fourlifts?"
She laughed. "Two to carry hot food to the table? One to carry luggage up to the second floor? The other forfurniture?"
"Yes,those."
"Well, as I read the house plans, sir, none of those are for you. But for the health and welfare of yourservants."
He pursed his lips and glanced back at the sea. "The house is not afolly?"
"It is large. Huge," she said with conviction. "But the abundance of bedroom suites with plumbing declares that the house is for your family. Your ever-growingfamily."
Slowly, he nodded, seeming content with heranswer.
She smiled at him and swept out a hand. "But the element that ensures the house will be a haven for all Hannifords isthis."
"You like it?" he asked, proud but seeking herapproval.
She let her expression tell him the answer. "You are so wise to preserve it, Killian. Generations will thankyou."
"Will you likeit?"
"Oh, yes," she said with passion borne of her weeks working on it and having been given a free hand on so much. "The stone masons have shored up the base all around. They've cleaned the stones, repaired the cracks. It isspectacular."
"I want you to loveit."
That sucked the air right out of herlungs.
He narrowed his gaze on her mouth. He parted his lips, said her name, but then he turnedaway.
Her hope that he'd kiss herdied.
