Chapter Two
Livy
Livy had come down to earth with a crash. Everything had been going so well. Sanderson had come in response to the letter. He had drunk the wine she had given him and passed out. Her collaborators had helped to strip him and put on the goat’s head. Exactly as they had planned.
And, oh, the uplifting sensation of striking back at all the men who thought they could have whatever they pleased while denying the same freedom to women!
Pacing beside the ass, surrounded by her temporary subjects, she had felt powerful, free, and above all, accepted.
And then he had arrived. The man in the hood.
Riding through the gathered women to haul their prisoner up onto his horse, and then delivering the devastating words that laid bare her mistake.
It didn’t help that something about his voice, his posture, his sheer presence made her tingle, and not in an unpleasant way. A ridiculous and shaming reaction to a complete stranger she had just offended.
Why had she insisted on having none of the locals in the room before Sanderson had been blinded by the goat head? She had meant to protect them from retaliation, and instead, she had led them into a debacle.
Though they didn’t seem downhearted. They were carrying on with the plans they’d had for the evening before the Maplehurst Hall party had joined them. Blankets had been spread out on the ground. Some of the matrons were carrying around baskets of food.
Several of the villagers were passing out jugs of wine. A group was singing. Livy had heard the tune before, but the scandalous lyrics were new to her.
“Come along, Miss Wintergreen,” said a girl from the village that Livy had met earlier in the evening. “Come and have fun.”
Livy allowed herself to be led to where her sister and other people from the house party were sitting, all mixed in with the villagers and other neighbors. “I am so sorry,” she said to them. “My mistake has ruined the evening.”
“Not your mistake,” someone protested. “You had no way of knowing that the silly boy would take the letter to the wrong brother.”
The whole neighborhood—but not the house party—had known that Colin Sanderson was holding a scandalous gathering at his house for Livy’s cousin Jasper Marple and his friends, all of whom were apparently cut from the same cloth.
Mrs. Sanderson had gone to spend Christmas with her mother and had given every maid under forty leave to do likewise.
Mr. Sanderson had responded by bringing in a carriage load of scandalous women from the nearest town.
“It sounds as if Colin Sanderson well and truly deserved a shaming,” Cilla observed. “What a pity we got the wrong brother. We didn’t even know there was more than one brother.”
“If I had asked someone who knows him to look…” Livy said.
“They are kind of alike,” another of the villagers offered. “Mr. Drake and Mr. Colin. Though I doubt Mr. Colin Sanderson looks so good with his shirt off! Mr. Drake works on the farms and such.”
That remark set all the women into talking about the two younger Sanderson brothers, and Livy heard more than she wanted to know about how kind Mr. Drake was, and how Mr. Bane could be depended on to lend a helping hand to anyone in need.
Livy learned there were four Sandersons—their father had had three sons and a daughter, all with different mothers. Each was named for one of the plants whose medicinal properties were the foundation of the family fortune, though the eldest insisted on being called Colin rather than Hemlock.
Apparently, the eldest brother did not get on with the other two.
Mr. Bane was the odd one out, dark where the others were fair, and the villagers conceded that one could not altogether blame Mr. Sanderson for not wanting his father’s by-blow to live under his roof—“even if he has been raised as a gentleman, and even if his father wanted him to stay.”
They agreed, though, that Mr. Sanderson was unkind to his legitimate half-brother as well. “Maybe because Mr. Bane and Mr. Drake are as thick as thieves. Always have been, ever since Mr. Sanderson—the old Mr. Sanderson, who was their father—brought Mr. Bane home.”
Livy learned the odd fact that Mr. Bane always wore a hood to conceal his face, and the various neighborhood speculations about his reasons. A base-born son with a ruined face. A pity he was the first man Livy had ever met that produced that disquieting tingle.
Papa would be horrified if you announced a tendre for a merchant’s scarred bastard son.
It was the first cheering thought Livy had had since Bane Sanderson crashed her party.
If it wasn’t certain to backfire on her when her father went rampaging to Mr. Sanderson to order him to withdraw his suit, she might try it.
*
Bane
In the morning, Drake was a bit sluggish but otherwise unharmed.
“Nothing but a few bruises, Bane. I am fine. Sorry they didn’t get Colin as they intended, though.
I wonder what they had against him? Knowing Colin, he probably seduced someone he shouldn’t.
Ah, well. Misrule Night will come around again in Marplestead in just under a year.
We can hope they get the right Sanderson next time. ”
He was fully recovered by the time the revelers at Bancroft Hall went home, and Drake prepared to do likewise.
“If Colin has heard what happened, you might be going home to trouble,” Bane warned.
“He won’t want to risk you telling Frannie that the revelers thought you were him.
” Everyone knew that the victims of Misrule Night had done something scandalous, even if no one ever said what it was.
Word had spread through the neighborhood that the shaming had been intended for Colin Sanderson, and if no one knew the specific reason for it, everyone agreed that they were not surprised.
Drake waved off the warning. “Leaving aside that I would never tell Colin’s wife anything to distress her, poor woman, we are nearly ready to go out on our own. If Colin throws me out, shall we just move our leaving date up a bit?”
“Done,” said Bane. “Just keep your distance, Drake. Don’t let him goad you into a fight.”
He fretted right through the morning, until Drake turned up at the blacksmith’s on the riding horse he had purchased last year, leading his older horse, which was carrying laden saddle bags.
“I was packing when he turned up, told me I was a disgrace, and threw me out,” said Drake. “I was so tempted to tell him they mistook me for him.” He flashed an evil grin. “But it will be better if it comes as a surprise.”
“Much better,” Bane agreed. Colin would be meeting quite a few cold shoulders in the neighborhood next time he ventured from home.
And perhaps at home, as well, for several of the matrons had apparently declared their intention to have a word with his wife.
Poor Frannie. As if she did not know what Colin was like!
“I’ve a few commissions to finish up here. Can you hire a gig and pick me up in half an hour? We’ll take the last trunk to Wart.”
Wart was Viscount Wharton, who was their next-door neighbor.
He was the same age as Bane and Drake, and an old companion on many a boyhood adventure.
They’d seen him after Father’s funeral, and had asked him if he’d store some trunks for them, and in the following months, transferred to his place the items they wanted to keep but didn’t want to take with them.
They both had a few last things to add to the store, from Bane’s barn and Drake’s bedroom. They would take only what they could carry. Without their horses, for Wart had promised to care for them, too.
He must have seen them from a window, for he was out on the steps when the gig drew up in the carriage way, and had footmen carrying the trunks inside before Drake and Bane could reach for them.
“The grooms will look after your horses,” he said. “Come in for a drink. Stay the night, if you wish.”
“We’ll take that drink,” Bane said, speaking for them both.
“But we won’t stay, Wart.” Drake finished the thought. “We’ve been cast out into the world and are off to seek our fortunes.”
Wart grinned as he led them to his library. ‘Off to seek our fortunes’ had been one of their favorite games when they were boys. “It’ll be London then?” he asked.
Bane exchanged a look with Drake. They had decided on London, but it was not because of their childhood game. Was it?
Drake shrugged. “London is the biggest city in England; perhaps in the world. Parliament is there. Merchants from all over the world are there, and those with investments to sell. Where better?”
Where, indeed. Five years ago, when their sister Larkspur had married, Father had given Drake and Bane what Drake liked to call their dowries.
Five thousand pounds each made ten thousand.
They’d put five thousand into government bonds—the Funds, as they were called—and sought investment opportunities for the rest, continuing to live at home while their money went out into the world to grow.
When Bane was thrown out after Father’s death, he worked for board and keep, rather than touch any part of their joint capital.
They had both taken to heart a saying of Father’s—“The rich don’t work for money. Their money works for them.”
“And the Marriage Mart,” said Wart, helpfully, as he poured them each a drink. “The quickest way to make a fortune is to marry one.”
Wart should know. After he inherited the viscountcy, he had taken the impoverished title to London and had bartered it for an heiress.
One he liked, furthermore. In fact, if Bane was reading the signs right, Lord and Lady Wharton might have married on mere liking, but in Bane’s opinion, they were well on the way to becoming a love match.
“Alfred,” said the lady herself from the doorway of the library. “You did not tell me we were to have visitors.”
The gentlemen, who had been lounging in the comfortable chairs by the fire, stood as soon as they realized she was there. “We called unexpectedly, Lady Wharton,” he explained. “Bane and I are leaving, and came to say goodbye to your husband.”
“Sanderson has thrown them out and they are off to seek their fortunes,” Wart explained.
Bane winced at the frank explanation, but no doubt the Sanderson servants would have spread the news all over the countryside before nightfall.
Lady Wharton, faced with a merchant’s bastard who was also her husband’s best friend, proved her mettle, and instead of objecting to Bane’s presence, said, “You must stay with us until you have managed to settle your affairs, Mr. Sanderson, Mr. Wolfbane Sanderson.”
“I asked ’em,” Wart said. “But they’re keen to get to the fortune bit. They won’t stay.”
The lady went up further in Bane’s estimation when she did not show her relief. “I shall wish you every success then, gentlemen.”
Drake did the pretty, bowing gracefully. “Thank you, Lady Wharton. It was very kind of you to ask us to stay, and we appreciate your good wishes.”
She curtseyed in response. “You are my husband’s dearest friends. Of course, I wish you well.”
Very nicely said. Bane bowed, too. “We shall say goodbye then, my lady.”
“Farewell, rather,” said Wart. “Lady Wharton and I are for London, too. Lady Wharton believes I should take my seat in the house. And you should check out the social scene. I’m sure I can get you some invitations.
Perhaps you shall be as fortunate as I am.
” His smile at his lady could only be described as fatuous, and hers back was every bit as inane.
It was definitely becoming a love match.
“The last thing I need,” said Drake, as they drove down the carriageway, “is a wife. Not that any woman I might meet at a ton affair is going to be interested in the third son of a merchant.”
“That goes double for me,” Bane pointed out.
“Not only am I the second son of a merchant, but my mother was the man’s mistress.
” Or had been. By the time she died, her erratic behavior had ended the relationship, though—to give Father due credit—he never failed to send money for his son’s upkeep, even if Ma did spend it on laudanum and other substances.
“Anyway,” said Drake, “We’re not looking for wives, are we?”
“Good lord, no,” Bane agreed. And why Lady Misrule’s lovely form should suddenly appear in his imagination, he refused to consider.