Chapter Twenty-Two
Livy
Reflected in Bane’s admiring eyes, Livy saw a powerful, capable, beautiful version of herself.
She liked it. He and Drake gave her and Cilla the forward-facing seats and sat opposite them, and for the next thirty minutes, they discussed the changes to the townhouse, where both couples would live after their wedding.
Pa had purchased it from the landlord and given it to his daughters as a wedding present.
“We are all moving to the Marple townhouse in two days, so the servants can give our townhouse a thorough clean, and set up our suites,” Cilla explained, and blushed.
Was she imagining sharing a bed with Drake in the bedchamber that would be theirs?
Being with Bane was certainly on Livy’s mind.
One of the reasons for vacating the townhouse was they were going to make over Pa’s suite of two rooms into a bedchamber and sitting room for Livy and Bane, and the sisters’ adjoining bedrooms into a bedchamber and sitting room for Cilla and Drake.
And downstairs on the next floor, the family drawing room and the guest parlor would be assigned one to each couple, so they could see guests of their own separately, or open the doors between them for joint entertainments.
The discussion was practical. The way that Bane was gazing at her was far more primitive.
By the time the carriage pulled up at the foot of the Winshire House steps, she had enjoyed half an hour of admiring looks from her soon-to-be husband, and was feeling hot and prickly.
The kisses they had managed to steal had hinted that her long ago experience with Grayson Fletcher was not the measure of what to expect in her marriage. One more week. She could hardly wait!
The Duchess of Winshire’s ball was the highlight of the social calendar, and also the first one she had held as Winshire’s duchess. Livy knew about this contradiction because Aunt Ginny had spoken of little else since the invitations arrived.
Apparently, as the Duchess of Haverford, her grace was frequently asked to sponsor children for baptism.
When the first group of those goddaughters reached the age to be presented to the ton, her grace held a ball for them.
For the last quarter of a century, the ball had been a yearly event, although last year she had been the dowager duchess, and she and her daughter-in-law were joint hostesses of the event.
Now she had remarried, she was a duchess again, standing in the receiving line with the still handsome duke, who had apparently set the Polite World on its ear when his return from many years of exile revived an old feud with the Duke of Haverford.
Lord Andrew was one of Winshire’s sons by a Central Asian princess, and he and other sons and daughters were also in the receiving line. At long last, Livy was presented to Lady Sutton, wife to Winshire’s heir.
“Drew tells me you wish to know more about the work my aunt-in-law started at our estate in Essex,” she said to Livy, referring to the village where women could go to escape abusive husbands.
“Come and visit me when you return to society after your wedding, Miss Wintergreen. Our group can always use new members.”
It was a wonderful evening, culminating in the moment just before supper when the Duke of Winshire honored Livy, Cilla, Bane, and Drake by announcing the forthcoming weddings.
Drew, whose table they joined for supper, explained, “Our step-mama, Aunt Eleanor, suggested it. She said that seeing you are accepted at the highest level would put that nasty gossip fully to rest. Father said the wealthy of the merchant class are the future of Britain, and what awaits those of his class who will not diversify their holdings to work with people like Bane and Drake, is financial annihilation.”
He raised his wineglass. “To the imminent merger between Wintergreen Shipping and Sanderson Investments, and an ongoing partnership with the Winshire duchy and the Winderfield family.”
Garry, who was also at the table, added, “And the Dellborough duchy and the Versey family. We have no intention of being tomorrow’s amusing antiques.”
Livy exchanged a smile with Garry’s wife Jenna, and with Pauline Wharton.
She could not have imagined this four months ago.
Aristocrats who were friends? A marriage within her own class that came with a welcome into some of the highest houses in the realm?
A bright future with the friend and lover who had given her his heart and who held her own?
Who would have thought a crown in a Christmas pudding and a misdelivered letter could have led to such a result?
*
Bane
“We shall see you at home,” his lady told her father and cousins, and allowed Bane to escort her out to the carriage, where Drake was already handing Cilla up the carriage steps.
Cilla took the forward-facing seat, leaving room beside her.
Livy sat on the other seat. Drake was ahead of Bane, but surely he would have the sense to do the sensible thing.
Drake, take the seat beside Cilla. Drake did just that, leaving Bane to sit beside the lady he loved, trying to fit his large frame into half the space on the seat.
“Do you have your fan, Livy?” he asked.
“Why?” asked Livy, lifting the fan up from her skirts and flicking it open. “Do I need to rap you for impertinence?”
“On the contrary,” he replied, keeping his mouth solemn, though he was certain that his eyes must be laughing. “The fan is to assist me to be impertinent.”
He pulled down the blind on the carriage window on his side, and Drake, sitting opposite Livy, did the same on theirs.
“If you open your fan,” Bane said, “and hold it up as a screen, it will work nearly as well as an umbrella.”
Her eyes lit up, and she held the fan as commanded. “Do not mess my hair,” she scolded, “or muss my gown. Pa will notice.”
“No, ma’am,” he replied obediently, then touched his lips to hers and forgot the rest of the world entirely.
It was a busy night on the London streets, and the carriage frequently stopped and started.
Bane neither noticed nor cared. He had suggested to Drake that the trip might allow time for dalliance.
He had instructed the driver to knock on the intervening panel when they were a street away from the Wintergreen townhouse, and the footman not to open the door until he was told.
All his thinking had been done, and now all that mattered was feeling.
It was only a kiss—or kisses, rather. Kisses that flowed into one another, as he explored her lips and her mouth, and she did the same for him. From the sounds that penetrated his concentration, Drake and Cilla were similarly occupied.
Clearly Livy realized that, too, for the fan had been abandoned some time ago, so she could use both hands. His cravat was now a disaster, though he and Drake could easily set one another to rights. Hopefully, Livy and Cilla could do likewise, for he had, he was certain, mussed her hair.
After a long time, the carriage stopped. The knock came. After a moment, the carriage started up again. Bane lifted his head, feeling as if he was surfacing from deep under water. Livy, too, looked dazed.
“We have perhaps a minute and a half, or a little more,” Drake said, perhaps in answer to something Cilla had said, for she ordered, “Change places with Livy, Drake darling, so that Bane can fix your cravat and I can tidy Livy’s hair.”
“And I yours,” Livy retorted. “Do you have spare hair pins, dearest, or do we need to scrabble around and find them?”
Cilla produced a handful of pins from her reticule. They hadn’t done too much damage. A couple of curls needed to be re-pinned, and the aforementioned cravats retied. Hopefully Mr. Wintergreen would not notice the slight puffiness of Livy’s lips. Cilla’s, too.
Now the knock came again. They were here.
And that, Bane thought, will have to suffice until we are married. Only another week. It seemed a lifetime.
*
Drake
The double wedding at St. George’s church attracted a much larger crowd than the small invitation list predicted.
In the front pews, the Marple sisters were there for the brides and Lark, Phillip, and Frannie for the grooms. Both the investment club and Jenna’s ladies’ group were out in force, with their spouses, and the Dukes and Duchesses of Winshire and Dellborough set the seal of approval on the match by their attendance.
Behind them sat reporters for the gossip sheets, a caricaturist sketching furiously, and a number of fashionably-dressed people that Drake recognized by sight from the various entertainments he had attended over the past couple of months, but otherwise didn’t know.
Beyond them were those who had apparently come along on the coat-tails of those with a whisper of an excuse to be there, and the crowd who had seen people gather and had therefore joined the throng in the hopes of some excitement.
Drake could not have cared less, as he stood at the front of the nave, watching Cilla walking toward him.
Beside him, Bane stared at Livy, who walked at her sister’s side.
He’d left off the hood, so the besotted smile on his face was clear for all to see.
No doubt the smile on Drake’s face was just as beguiled.
It was time at last. They would say their vows and with those vows, make official in the eyes of God and the assembled congregation what had been true for months. They were made for one another—Drake and Cilla, Bane and Livy.
Drake and Bane had been brothers by blood since before they were born. Then, when their Father brought Bane home, Drake had sneaked into the sickroom and they had become brothers by love. In a few minutes, they would become brothers again, this time by marriage.
Four people who shared their lives, their work, their love. Each to all the others, a gift to the heart.