Then Aunt Ginny came and sat next to her, and spoiled her rest by quizzing her about each of her partners, especially Lord Andrew. “He is the fourth son of a duke, you know,” she pontificated, as if she had not shared the same information before.
“The eldest has only daughters, and the other two are in some far-off foreign land and married, so I hear, to foreigners. I daresay the Prince Regent and the House of Lords would not object to making Lord Andrew the next duke, if it came to thepoint. Too high a target for you, Lucilla dear, despite his foreign mother. He might do very nicely for one of my daughters, though. Very nicely indeed. He is taking Pearl for supper. Just imagine! My Pearl, a duchess!”
Talk about building castles in the air! Cilla settled for smiling, for Aunt Ginny was not looking for any comment but had moved on to talking about other possible husbands for each of the five girls. Cilla was quite pleased when her next partner arrived.
She returned to Aunt Ginny’s side after the next set to find Drake Sanderson waiting for her. His brother was already there with Livy, and they must have been arguing, for Aunt Ginny was looking from one to the other and back again, looking both worried and confused. Cilla could have told her that Livy and Bane appeared to enjoy exchanging barbed remarks.
“Are you calling me overly large, Mr. Sanderson?” Livy was demanding as Cilla drew close enough to hear their words over the din of the ballroom.
“Not compared with me, Miss Wintergreen.”
Bane was, Cilla reflected, very much up to Livy’s weight, in every way.
*
Bane
Miss Olivia Wintergreenwas the lady for Bane. Bane still had doubts that he was the man for her, but that was a decision for her to make. And certainly, none of the popinjays he’d heard whispering about her would do for her at all.
He had been lurking in a shadowy corner, uncomfortable in the crowded and brightly lit ballroom. A group of men stopped on the other side of a potted plant to gossip about MissWintergreen, discussing her physical attributes as if she was a horse they were considering at Tattersalls, and not in any kind of complimentary fashion either.
One of them—cruelly, the one who planned to court her—even compared her to a plow horse! Bane had wanted to punch the man, but Olivia—Livy, as her sister called her—would not thank him for making her a scandal by standing up for her. Not that a fine Friesian or Cleveland Bay was a bad thing, and come to think of it, he was more a Shire or a Clydesdale himself, rather than a high-bred racehorse, all nerves and temperament, unfit for anything but running his heart out to win these idiots a few pounds.
Bane knew the speaker—the son of Viscount Curston—and he had meant the comparison as an insult, but Bane would pull in harness with Livy any day of the week. Unlike the men who were tearing her character to pieces with words like scold and harpy, and prescribing either exile to the country or a beating as treatment for her temperament.
The only attribute they favored was her dowry. Apparently, it was rumored to be enormous. The dastards agreed that the fortune she brought with her was worth putting up with her looks, her character, and even her low-born relatives.Fools.
“Not that I would allow her to see her father again,” said the toffee-nosed prat who had declared his intention of marrying her. “Her sister, once she is a viscountess, but not the father.”
Bane wondered why they were so certain that Cilla would be a viscountess, but his curiosity was satisfied in the next instant, when one of the gossipers asked the same question.
“Her cousin Marple is going to marry her,” said Curston. “Her dowry is as big as her sister’s and he has to marry. He’s got three sisters to puff off, and his mother has been spending up large. She doesn’t know that he’s in the suds.”
“I don’t think Miss Lucilla Wintergreen likes him above half,” one of the others said.
Marple’s friend shrugged. “She spends a lot of time in his house, and he is going to get his mother to invite her to move in. If he can’t seduce her, he’ll compromise her. She’ll marry him then, right enough. And then I’ll try my luck with the shrew. She must be desperate to wed after three failed seasons, and if not, I’ll take the same route to marriage as my future brother-in-law. And then I’ll beat her till she learns to obey.”
Like hell.
Bane was well aware of the disadvantages he presented as a husband, but if she chose him, he would love and cherish her every day for the rest of his life. And even if she did not choose him, he could still arm her with knowledge about her cousin’s plans, and the plans of his friend.
Yes, and he’d tell his brother, too. Drake needed to know about the risk to Cilla.
The set currently on the floor was ending. Bane sidled along the wall behind the potted plants until he could emerge some distance from the pack of curs he’d been listening to, and then strode in the direction of Lady Marple.
Was the old bat part of the plot against her nieces? Marple’s friend Curston had claimed that Livy’s aunt did not know of the dire straits her son was in, and if that was true, Curston’s father was keeping secrets from his lover. On the other hand, the young viscount was as ignorant as he was arrogant. In Bane’s experience, a family’s womenfolk were much more attuned to the misdemeanors of their so-called lords and masters than said menfolk wanted to believe. It was, Bane assumed, a matter of survival.
Certainly, Bane’s stepmother and his half-brother’s wife had known how their husbands strayed, and usually with whom—forall that they feigned ignorance to maintain the peace and their own dignity.
Livy was already with Lady Marple. “You don’t have to dance with me, Mr. Sanderson,” she blurted. “I will not hold you to your offer. I know your brother dragooned you into it.”
Bane was amused. “Drake doesn’t make my decisions for me, Miss Wintergreen,” he told her.
Perhaps she thought he was laughing at her, for she lifted her chin and sniffed as if offended. “I am not interested in a pity-dance,” she said, through gritted teeth.
“Good. Neither am I. I wish to dance with the only woman in this ballroom who is worth a second look.”
He meant every word, but she had made up her mind to be contrary, or she thought he was spouting empty flattery for she snapped back, “Go and ask her, then.”
