Aunt Ginny had instructed them to have some sort of handwork so they could occupy themselves between visitors. “Nothing is sadder, girls,” she had said, “than arriving at a home to find oneself the only visitor, and all the family sitting in their best staring hopefully at the door.”
From the look on her face, Livy was about to suggest any number of sadder things. Cilla shook her head, and Livy grimaced, but kept her peace. Cilla took her quilling project out of the basket she had left by her chair before going upstairs to dress.
Livy took out her mesh sticks and cord—she was netting something. Possibly a reticule. Each of the cousins also had a project—Pearl was knitting and Ruby and Beryl were both embroidering slippers.
They were just in time. Jasper had not read a word from his book before the door to the parlor opened, and the butler announced Mr. Andrews.
Cilla had met Mr. Andrews. He was one of Jasper’s friends, and even more immature and irresponsible than Jasper. Given the martyred look he cast around the room, he was hereunder duress—either Jasper or, more probably, Aunt Ginny had twisted his arm so that her daughters and nieces would not be entirely bereft of callers on their first day “at home”.
Ignoring the fact that Mr. Andrews had been present at several meals over the past week, Aunt Ginny introduced him to everyone except Jasper. Cilla and the cousins smiled at the poor man, which—from the looks of him—made him even more uncomfortable. Livy glared, and he cast a panicked glance toward the door.
Before he could escape, Mrs. Sandrow arrived. Her two daughters were great friends of the cousins, and the introductions were perfunctory at best, as the newcomers sat and dived straight into gossip about who was in town, who had sent out invitations, and who had not yet arrived.
Under cover of the conversation, Jasper rescued Mr. Andrews and carried him off to the window seat, where the pair of them fell into a discussion of a horse Mr. Andrews wanted to buy, though Jasper decried it as more flash than substance, and a bag of bones in a horse skin.
Since Cilla had nothing to contribute to either conversation, she focused on quilling a series of petals for the flowers that would be a feature of her design. Livy, she noted after a quick glance, was listening to the horse conversation, the netting project set up over her knees but her hands still.
“Mr. Drake Sanderson and Mr. Bane Sanderson,” announced the butler.
Was it Cilla’s imagination, or did all the females in the room straighten? Mr. Bane had a hood on—silk, Cilla thought, from the way it draped, pulled forward so his face was in deep shadow. Other than that, both men were smartly dressed in coats that fitted snugly, neatly tied cravats, and smart pantaloons. They looked as fashionable as Jasper and his friend, and much more manly. Next to the Sanderson brothers, Cilla’scousin and Mr. Andrews still had the slightly weedy look of growing boys.
“Drake and Bane,” said Aunt Ginny. “Welcome. Mrs. Sandrow, Miss Sandrow, and Miss Mary Sandrow, may I make known to you Mr. Mandrake Sanderson and Mr. Wolfbane Sanderson. Their family home borders on our country estate. Gentlemen, you know my daughters and Jasper, of course. And I believe you have met my nieces. May I make known to you Mr. Andrews? Mr. Andrews, Mr. Sanderson and Mr. Sanderson. Come and sit next to me, Bane, dear, and tell me what you have been doing since you left Marplestead. Drake, you, too, dear. Sit next to Bane. That’s it. What may I make you to drink? Tea? Chocolate?”
“A glass of brandy?” Jasper offered.
“Tea, thank you,” said Bane. “Milk. No sugar.”
“Chocolate, if you please,” Drake requested.
Cilla heard Mr. Andrews’s whisper and Jasper’s reply. “Who are they?” asked Mr. Andrews.
“Neighbors.” Jasper sounded dismissive. “A merchant family. Brother sells patent medicines. Not our sort. Mama thinks we should be nice to them because,” he put on a higher pitched voice that Cilla guessed was supposed to be his Mama, “‘They can’t help their origins, and they are nice boys’. Their brother is not too bad, but he inherited everything. This pair have no money, and what is a shopkeeper with no money?”
Her cousin and his friend were not as quiet as they clearly thought they were, and Drake cast them a sharp glance, then shifted his gaze to Cilla. His grin and his laughing eyes coaxed her to be amused at their condescending remarks.
Cilla wasn’t amused. She was angry. She would be having words with Jasper once they were in private.
Livy didn’t wait. “Iam their sort,” she said to Jasper. Thank goodness she kept her voice low, too. “From a merchant family.Your mother’s family, as it happens, so does that make you my sort, too?”
Jasper flushed. “It’s not like that,” he said. “You don’t understand. Children take their bloodlines from their father. You’re a girl. If anyone is fool enough to marry a scold like you, you’ll ascend—or descend—to his level. Choose wisely.” He sneered. “As if a shrew like you will have a choice.”
Drake excused himself from the group with Aunt Ginny, and approached the corner where Cilla and Livy were glaring at Justin. “That’s enough, Marple,” he said. “You shame your mother when you speak so rudely to a young lady of her family.”
His jaw set, Jasper was about to let fly with another insult, but he must have seen past Drake to where his mother was staring at them, her expression concerned. He stood. “Mama, Andy and I are going to see a man about a horse,” he said. “Come on, Andy.”
Drake pulled the seat Jasper had been using up beside Cilla and sat down. “He is a silly cub,” he said to Cilla. “Don’t let him upset you.”
“I do not know him well,” Cilla said. “He has never visited us when Aunt Ginny does. Lady Marple, I mean. And when we are visiting Maplehurst Hall, Jasper is always least in sight. Aunt Ginny says he can have no interest in such young ladies as his sisters and his cousins.”
“He was always a bit arrogant,” Drake commented, “but becoming a viscount before he was sixteen can’t have helped.”
“Do you think he is right?” Cilla asked him. “Will people judge us because our father is in trade?”
“Some people will,” Drake replied. “Some people, not all. Hypothetical situation. You have a choice between marrying a bankrupt earl who doesn’t like you but needs your dowry, and me—son of Sanderson of Sanderson Medicinals, and a trader in my own right.”
He raised one eyebrow and one corner of his mouth kicked up in a grin. “On the one hand, you are doomed to live your life alone, while your husband spends your dowry on gambling, women, and drink. You are invited to every fashionable event, where your husband flaunts his mistress in your face.”
Cilla grimaced.
