Chapter Fourteen
Drake
Drake and Bane had arrived back at the Wintergreen house a little before their time.
Wintergreen had welcomed them inside, gave them the newspaper, and told them to wait while he fetched his daughters.
“I shall not wave a red flag in front of my sister by having you with me, gentlemen. I shall be back with Olivia and Lucilla shortly.”
He was gone for no more than thirty minutes. Drake heard the front door open, and Cilla’s voice greeting the butler, giving him time to stand before she entered the room, her sister and then her father behind her.
“Miss Cilla,” he greeted her.
She dimpled when she smiled. “Mr. Drake.”
Bane was speaking to Livy, asking her if she would care for a walk.
“I would like that,” Livy commented. “We have been sitting in Aunt’s parlor for two hours and I have to walk or find something to punch.”
“She is quite serious,” Cilla said. “She hates having to sit still. She must always be up and doing. I think that is why she loves dancing.”
“I shall remember that,” Bane said to Cilla.
“Mr. Wintergreen did not need to know that,” Livy complained, but she was smiling.
“If you are ready,” said Cilla, “we can go now.”
They filed out into the hall, where the maid, Barker, was waiting, already in her coat and bonnet. The butler handed the men their outerwear and opened the front door.
“I want to know everything about you,” Bane told Livy.
“I cannot imagine why,” Livy grumbled.
He offered her his arm and a smile. “I think you can if you try, Miss Wintergreen.”
The couple set off at a swift pace along the footpath, still arguing.
“I am beginning to believe they enjoy arguing,” said Cilla as she took Drake’s arm.
“I am certain they do. I imagine they will still be arguing after fifty years of marriage. We had a couple like that in our village. If he said it was a fine day, she would insist it was about to rain, and if she complained of the cold, he’d tell her he was warm enough.
And yet if anyone else criticized either one of them, the other would defend them to their last breath. ”
“You take it for granted that Livy will have your brother,” Cilla commented.
“Do you think she won’t? Am I wrong to think she likes him?”
Cilla pursed her lips in a way that made Drake think about kissing—but then he thought of kissing all the time when in her company.
“Livy enjoys arguing with your brother,” she said.
“It is a long way from that to marrying him, is it not? Livy has sworn she will never marry. She says she has never met a man she would risk giving up her freedom for.”
“How do you feel about marriage, Miss Cilla?” Drake asked.
“I see my sister’s point, Mr. Sanderson,” Cilla replied. “Marriage is a gamble for both men and women, but if a woman’s choice proves to be unwise, men hold most of the cards.”
A fair point. “What would you need to know about a suitor to better inform your choice?” Drake asked. “We began the game of questions on our last walk, Miss Cilla. Shall we continue?”
Cilla glanced back and Drake checked behind them, too. Barker was trailing them by quite some distance—close enough to observe, but not close enough to overhear, if they were quiet.
“Very well,” Cilla said. “But I should like the person asking the question to be able to ask further questions on the same topic. Is that agreed?”
“Agreed,” Drake said.
“I shall go first. Do you have a mistress, Mr. Sanderson?”
“I do not,” Drake was glad to be able to give that as his honest reply.
To clarify, he said. “Neither Bane nor I have ever kept a mistress, and nor do we frequent brothels.” That made them sound like a pair of saints, which was far from the truth, and an innocent like Cilla might not understand the difference between the various type of partner for physical intimacy.
“I should add that I have had lovers, and I’ve also enjoyed the occasional temporary liaison. ”
She proved her lack of knowledge by her next question. “A brothel is a place where men buy women. Am I right?”
Rented, rather, but the more accurate term sounded disgusting. “Where men buy the right to be intimate with one of the women,” he corrected. One or more, but there were surely limits to how much Cilla needed him to disclose.
“How does a mistress differ from a lover?” she wanted to know.
How did we come to be having this discussion?
Drake could feel himself blushing. “One is obliged to pay for the time of a mistress, and probably also her housing and her servants. One understands that a lover will be receptive to gifts, but it is not so much of a contractual arrangement.” Thinking of some of his early experiences, he added, “In fact, sometimes, when the lady is the wealthy one, the gentleman receives the more expensive gifts.”
“Define ‘temporary liaison’,” the lady demanded.
Ouch. That was a tricky one to explain to an innocent.
“Um… an agreement to be intimate with no expectations beyond the single encounter?” Or a single night or a few days.
But, once again, she didn’t need those details.
He was feeling increasingly uncomfortable, and Wintergreen would be entitled to shoot him if the man knew what Drake was saying to Cilla.
“I see,” said Cilla, without explaining what she could see.
Drake, shut up. You are not doing yourself any favors.
“I think this is my last question,” Cilla told him. “Then it will be your turn. Do you think you shall keep a mistress or take a lover or have liaisons when you are married?”
At last! A question to which he could give an answer she would like.
“No. Definitely not. I saw what my father did to his marriages—at least to the one I observed, and I assume to the others—and to his children, by being unfaithful to his wedding vows. I won’t do that to my own family.
I have not had any interest in other women since I met you, so perhaps I shall not even be tempted.
But if I am, I shall remember my wife, my partner, my friend, my life’s purpose.
And so I shall turn away and come home.”
“Hmm,” said Cilla. “Is that true? That you have not had a lover or a liaison since you met me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“It has only been a month, though,” she commented. “And you have been busy.”
Arguing with her would only take them back into the thorny territory of the women he had bedded. Whether or not an actual bed was involved. “My turn,” he said. “For you, what does your ideal married life look like?”
“You said it,” Cilla answered. “Partnership. Friendship. A husband who respects me and listens to my opinion, my ideas, my concerns. I want a man who does something with his life. I cannot understand people like Cousin Jasper and his friends, whose lives revolve around gambling, naughty deeds, silly tricks, and who has a higher status than whom.”
Drake agreed. “It makes no sense to me, either. Nothing they do is of any importance. Are they not bored?”
“But not a man who works all the hours God gives,” Cilla continued, ignoring his comment.
“For how can I be friends with a man who is never at home? Besides, I want a husband who spends time with his children. I barely saw my father when I was a child. It was not until Mama died, which was four years ago, so I was nearly grown, that Papa began showing any interest in me.”
“That must have been hard,” Drake said.
“I had Mama and Livy,” said Cilla, with an elegant shrug of her dainty shoulders.
Drake tried not to notice how the shrug pulled the cloth of her coat tightly across the shape of two perfectly-formed breasts, each just the size to fill one of his hands.
“I had Bane,” Drake said. “My mother died when I was three, after a long illness. My father married again when I was four, but my stepmother left me to the servants, and my father was never home. Then Bane came to live with us, when I was ten. It seems to me that he was the first person to ever love me. Perhaps my mother did, though I do not remember. But I had Bane.”
He hated thinking about the lonely years before Bane. Hated it. Hated the way his throat stiffened and his eyes stung. He sucked a breath into his nostrils and blinked rapidly.
Cilla had her hand in the crook of his elbow. She hugged his arm. “You will be a better father than yours or mine, Drake,” she said confidently.
She had called him by his name, which cheered him immeasurably. “I shall certainly try. I know there are worse fathers than ours, Cilla, but I should like to be the kind of father who knows his children and enjoys spending time with them.”
“What is going on here?” The interruption came from Jasper Marple, who had stopped his horse to glare at them from the riding path. “Lucilla? Olivia? What are you doing with those men?”
“Walking, Cousin Jasper,” replied Livy. “A healthful activity. I recommend it.”
“My mother has instructed you not to encourage the Sanderson brothers,” Jasper said, pitching his voice to carry to all the other people who had stopped to enjoy the show.
Bane spoke up before Livy could do so. “We have Mr. Wintergreen’s permission to escort his daughters and their maid, Lord Marple. Lady Marple can have no complaint.”
Marple sneered. “We’ll see what Mr. Wintergreen says when I tell him what I have heard from your older brother about the dissolute behavior that saw you banned from your home, and the sharp business practices and cheating that your brother has uncovered since he has been investigating.”
“Drake and I shall happily submit our records and the names of our business partners to any independent and impartial investigator,” Bane replied calmly.
“As to dissolute behavior, you are trusting the wrong Sanderson, Marple. Surprising, given you have attended at least one of his parties. But in front of the ladies, I shall say no more on that point.”
“Rubbish,” said Marple. “You have been caught out, and you should slink back to the provinces where you belong.”