Page 49 of Scandalous Heiress
Chapter 9
The next morning, she caught her father at his breakfast.Liv, six months pregnant at age forty-one, made it a practice to sleep late and rise at her leisure.Ada’s older brother Pierce was probably already out to his offices in the City.
“Ho, ho!Come sit by me.”Killian folded his paper and removed his reading glasses.Black Irish Hanniford was a perfect example of his Waterford ancestors whom many said descended from shipwrecked sailors of Spanish Armada cast upon the Irish shores.With ink black hair, a few gray strands and brilliant silver eyes, he was a big man with strength he still possessed at the age of fifty.“I’m glad of the company.”
The footman on duty this morning served her coffee and left them alone.
“What did you think of the exhibit last night?”he asked her, folding his hands on the table.
“Remy must be very happy.”
“He sold a commission to Lord Oldthorp.It’s to be a Venus in honor of his lordship’s new wife.”
Ada made a face.“If Venus is to be modeled on that lady, she will have a tongue long as the rumors she likes to tell.”
“And forked, don’t you think?”her father asked with a grunt.
“True to character,” she added.“But Remy told me last night that he sold every piece he put up for purchase.”
“For a man who needed to do nothing with his life except run his estate, he works harder and grows more famous by the day.”
“So does Marianne,” she said recalling the contentment she saw in her cousin’s face.“I talked with many patrons who wished they’d done a joint exhibition and sale.”
“Oil and water, don’t you think?Remy now focuses only on creating men and myths in marble while Marianne paints only women and children.”
“Remy sees men in crisis.Marianne sees women in tranquility.Two views of humankind.I think an exhibit like that would blend nicely.”
“Hmm.And what of our unexpected guest last night?”Her father teased her with a glint in his luminous eyes.“I like Lord Victor Cole.”
“Naturally.”She took a sip of her coffee.“Everyone does.”
“Including you.”
Beginning at age twenty, her father had acquired ships, factories, and shares in others’ companies.He’d run the Union blockade for one year, saved slaves off a slaver ship in the Caribbean, bought out railroad stocks of train lines going west to California and invested in European businesses.Now he ran an enormous enterprise and was worth a fortune because of his ability to read people.She was certain he understood her every thought.“I do.”
“Quite a bit.”
She lifted a shoulder.“Papa, I’ve known him only a few days.”
“Is it enough?”
She exhaled.That her father could go to the core of her challenge in the blink of an eye should not surprise her.“No.”
“Is that so?”He sat back, his appraisal intimate and unsettling.“How many more days do you need?”
She could play coy with him but that would be unjust—and oh so unnecessary.Besides, she needed his thoughts on another subject.“I don’t know.I’ll go riding with him in Hyde Park today.I can give you an estimate later, if you like.”
He grimaced.“Play me along, do.”
She chuckled.“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
He snorted.“Liv told me last night that Julian wants to invest in any new project Pierce devises.Pierce talks with Lord Victor about possibilities in Shanghai.I suspect we shall see more of Cole for business—and for pleasure.”
The very mention of the Chinese city took the wind from her sails.She might as well tell her father the crux of her problem.“Even if I like him, I don’t want to leave here, leave you, all of you.How could I?”
He clamped his hand over hers.“Would you really stay here with all of us abiding in the nooks and crannies of all our lives without a grand passion of your own in which to flourish?”
Sobered by his words, she slid her hand away and focused on her plate.She couldn’t admit aloud to her youthful yearning for all of them.That would be a pitiful declaration from a twenty-two-year-old woman who’d enjoyed the benefits of education, travel, high society…and yes, fantastic wealth.
