Chapter Twenty-One
Bane
Bane barely slept.He had no idea whether Livy was just humoring him by giving him a hearing or whether she had something to say. She didn’t want to marry. He knew that, so what could he tell her that might change her mind?
He spent the whole night imagining conversations. Any one of them could go horribly wrong, depending how Livy reacted, but he had decided a starting point by the time dawn slipped sullenly through his window, hampered by clouds and an incessant, light rain.
The weather did not improve. “Bane, the weather isn’t going to change because you want it to,” Drake reminded him. “You have risen to look out of the window nine times in the last hour.”
“I promised to go for a walk with Livy,” Bane explained.
“Or we could sit in comfort in their parlor for a quiet conversation, and stay dry,” Drake said comfortably.
It was all very well for Drake. His lady had agreed to marry him. He had confessed his love and Cilla had returned the sentiment.
Bane wanted the privacy of a walk in the park for his and Livy’s talk, but when the brothers left their rooms to walk to the Wintergreens’ townhouse, the steady drizzle continued—light enough to deceive a fool into thinking he could hurry throughit without an umbrella, persistent enough to soak anyone so deceived to the skin.
The Sanderson brothers were not deceived. They took a large umbrella each, walking together under one so they could converse, and carrying the other in its furled state, so it was dry at the other end, while the wet one could drip in the Wintergreen’s umbrella stand.
When they were shown into the parlor, it was clear that the sisters had had a very similar conversation, for Cilla was comfortably ensconced behind the tea tray, and Livy was just donning her coat, gloves, and bonnet. “Pa sends his complements, Bane, and asks us to be back by noon. He is at Aunt Ginny’s going through her study with the magistrate to see if they can find any letters that have passed between her and her son. And no, I do not know what he plans to do. Are you ready?”
Bane held the door to the parlor for her. “Do you need to wait for a maid to chaperone?” he asked.
Livy blushed. “Pa says there is no need. The maid will sit in the parlor with Drake and Cilla.” Even as she spoke, the maid, Barker, slipped past them and entered the parlor, closing the door behind her.
Bane opened the front door and put up his spare umbrella under the portico before offering Livy his arm. They stepped out into the rain, two of the few pedestrians out on the path.
“I have a question,” Bane said. “Two, rather. What is your objection to marriage? What must I agree in order to satisfy your concerns?”
“Straight to the point,” Livy noted. “Bane, can I answer once we are in the park? What I must tell you… we need to be private.”
That sent Bane’s mind teeming with further questions, but beyond trying to see her expression—and failing, for she had her head down, and her face was hidden beneath her bonnet—he saw no other reaction. She had, at least, agreed to answer his questions, though she sounded as nervous as he felt.
They walked in a silence that was not uncomfortable, passing between the gates of the park, and turning onto one of the pedestrian paths. The rain pattered gently on the oiled fabric of the umbrella, and seemed to enclose them in their own world. He waited for her to speak, but he did not expect what she said.
“Bane, I am unchaste.”
Curston. That unspeakable cur. The fury that surged through Bane flooded all of his senses, so that for a moment he was blind, and deaf to all but the roar of anger in his blood. “I’ll kill him,” he declared, through a stiff jaw.
“He has been dead for years,” Livy told him.
Bane blinked, his rage-soaked brain slow to understand.Not Curston, then.We were in time. The relief was almost as disabling as the wrath. He had to focus on suddenly weak knees in order to keep walking.
“For years,” he repeated.
“And I consented,” she added. “I would not want you to think… That is, he did not force me, Bane. Though if I had not thought he meant marriage… I am telling this out of order.”
For years. The pieces were falling into place. A youthful mistake, a disappointment with a man that she widened to all men. His relief that she had not been violated by Curston was growing to include a new understanding. She was telling him this story expecting him to reject her, but still trusting he would keep her secret. His mind settled with that knowledge, and his heart swelled.
“Tell me in order, then,” he suggested.
“It was during my first season. Mama was already ill, though she hid it from me. But it made her, perhaps, less careful, and Aunt Ginny was sure that Gray—my most persistent admirer—intended marriage, and so did not complain if we slipped outsidefor a few minutes. He said he loved me, that he couldn’t wait to make me his, that he would die if he could not sip the sweet nectar of my lips, and other rubbish like that.”
“The words of a seducer. He promised marriage?”
“He did not mention marriage at all, and after—you know. Did I say he was a soldier? He was, and he said that he was going off to risk his life for king and country, and so I let him…” She threw her head back to let out a growl of self-contempt. “Afterthat, I asked if we would marry before he rejoined his regiment. And then he reminded me he had never mentioned marriage, and he would say nothing about what had happened as long as I said nothing.”
“You were eighteen, and the two ladies responsible for your protection left you to the wiles of a practiced seducer,” Bane said. “Did he die in battle? I hope he got camp fever and died a horrible death in a pool of his own wastes.”
