Page 73 of Sweet Siren
Killian nodded and went to the corner where the butler had set out the brandy decanter and cigars on the serving cart. He asked if Remy would care for another pour, but the man refused politely. Pouring himself a good measure of spirits, Killian strode over to face them and take a seat in the grand Rococo upholstered chair. He downed a drink, looking for the right words to broach hissubject.
Marianne grewgrave.
Her husband took anothersip.
"Liv returned to Londonyesterday."
They waited, patient and placid. He'd told them that when they arrived and they'd expressed theirdisappointment.
"At the restaurant, the man who accompanied Edouard Montand was once a friend of her husband. His presence disturbed her and I have a small understanding of thecause."
Remy cleared his throat and got to his feet. "May I?" he gestured to thecart.
"Ofcourse."
Marianne sat with concern wrinkling her brow. Killian doubted she knew much of Liv's past and so he waited until Remy was ready to tell himmore.
"Liv's mother was a second cousin to my own," he said when he returned and took his place beside his wife. "The woman was, as some term it in England, nervous. She was from the English aristocracy, a younger daughter with only a small widow's portion and no particular talents or graces to commend her. Their marriage was not notable for its happiness. Liv was their only child. Her father was a viscount of little means and a small estate. He owned stock in a few companies, but he was not skilled atadministration."
Remy studied his glass, seeming reluctant to go on. "At a young age, he negotiated away his shares in his greatest holding. As a result, the family could not live as they had. The debts were double their income and the tenants suffered. I understand many simply left for London and the land went untilled. Liv's mother refused to go out into society. On a few occasions, they found her in the streets in her nightrail, muttering obscenities. She was, they say, prone to hurting herself. Mama sent funds each month to help them. I think for years they lived off that. Liv became her parents' caretaker. Cook, maid, who knows what else. After a few years when her mother became unmanageable, Liv sent her mother to a secluded home in the country. She and her father moved to a smaller house east of London near the docks, and soon after her father hunghimself."
"A very sad life," Killian said. Shock did not roll through him. As soon as she’d told him her maiden name, he’d recoiled. All the horror of his greatest disaster rained upon him like acid. "For all ofthem."
"A scandal Liv wished toescape."
Killian felt the despair of all Liv had lived through. She'd been the only one to stand up through financial decline, madness and suicide. "And when did shemarry?"
"A few weeks after she buried her father, David visited her. From what I understand from bits and pieces of Liv's conversations when she'd visit Mama and me, his family and Liv's had known each other forever. She and David grew up as neighbors until her father's loss of his businesses. David was aware of Liv's circumstances. He visited often and was appalled at their circumstances. He might even have given Liv money to aidthem."
"Why didn't he marry her before the death of herfather?"
Remy inhaled. "He didn't have to. But about the same time that Liv's father died, David had his own challenges. He'd long been known as a dandy. A fine dresser, owing much more to his tailor than appropriate for a man of his limited means. He had fine tastes in Spitalfields silks and Aubusson carpets, Japanese lacquers. But he also showed certain, shall we say, proclivities toward other men and that is not tolerated well in Englishsociety."
Killian was more interested in her husband’s temperament. "He was a kindman?"
"Gentle, soft-spoken, intelligent. But he was growing careless with his assignations and he'd had a few occasions when in London, that he'd been discovered with men of a differentrepute."
Killian stared at Remy who honored Liv's husband with polite words. "He was ahomosexual."
Remy nodded. "He was. Here in France we look the other way. Allow people their rightful choice of lovers. But in England, they cannot overlook public displays of affections such as that. Their moral code demandsconformity."
"With a vengeance." Killian had had experience with the English demand for a patina of respectability. His oldest daughter Lily had married partly because she was discovered with her future husband in questionable circumstances. Fortunately she and her husband Julian adored each other so the wedding had been a joyous occasion and the hint of impropriety had not destroyed them. His youngest daughter Ada had escaped similar censure when she'd had a romp in Cherbourg last summer with her friends. The current scandal that brewed within his extended family was a virulent one of the marital strife between Julian's sister Elanna and her husband, the earl ofCarbury.
"People are not kind," Marianne said with a watery smile atKillian.
She had also escaped censure when she'd lived with Remy up in Montmartre for a month last year. Remy had warned his friends to breathe not a word of her presence in his house. His fellow artists, respectful and careful of each other, hadcomplied.
Killian's whole family had felt the lick of gossip's destructive flames. But he himself was the greatest villain. During the war, he'd sailed his three ships through the Yankee blockade to Manchester and Portsmouth. Carrying cotton from the Confederates, he brought home gunpowder and rifles. He'd traded for profit. He'd prolonged the fighting and he had become ashamed of it. Yes, the proceeds had made him a rich man. A feared man. A man who reformed because his wife despised his actions—and prodded hisconscience.
"Who are you, Killian?" she'd asked him one morning, unsympathetic and angry after the unnecessary loss of a ship and eight of his seamen in a hurricane off the Chesapeake Bay. "A poor man who'd risk the lives of good men to earn a dollar? A man who'd fuel the fires of war to gain a fortune? A man who earns his daily bread by cheating others out of theirs? Or a man who offers others a way up and out of poverty? Decide. Do it quickly because I'd like once more to be proud ofyou."
Months later, he refitted his two remaining ships. Ended the illegal English trade. Formed an alliance—and avoided prosecution as a traitor to the Union to transport supplies to rebuild railroads in the southern states. His wife smiled at him once again. He smiled at himself. For a few months. Until that other disaster in England had reached his ears. That other disaster that paralyzed him with shame. And guilt. If he would not trade guns to prolong an ugly war, would he countenance a purchase that was illegally negotiated…and killed aman?
He’d walked through the fires of hell years ago to deal with that. And still today he’d had no closure on thenews.
Now he was in love with the woman who had been burned by that same fire. Because he’d set her family ablaze, she had suffered. Yet, through it all, she had cared for her parents and endured hardship and loss. She'd beenbrave.
He loved her more. Much more than he had known. He was proud of her. His challenge was not simply to tell her, but to prove it to her. Buthow?
