After that was all settled, and Drake had confirmed the time would work for him, the two of them found his cousins, Della and Grace. Meridith had met them in the past, but had never really talked with them. They were delightful, and the way they teased Drake about being at the ball made her smile. They told her that she must be a miracle worker, because he never attended social events. She proclaimed she wasn’t, but that she was happy he’d agreed to escort her to the event.
That was a truth she couldn’t deny. She was happy that Drake was her escort.
He introduced her to other people, who were all very pleasant and genuine. Unfortunately, the only people she could introduce him to were men whom her family had at one time or another, tried to encourage her to consider as a husband—a fact that should have embarrassed her, but didn’t. She felt comfortablebeing completely honest with Drake. That, too, felt surprisingly pleasant. She rarely could say what was on her mind without getting some sort of reprimand from one of her siblings, mainly her sisters.
‘I’ve come to the conclusion that you may not want to get married,’ Drake said, after Meridith had introduced him to Chester Hillman, a man who owned twenty-six dogs. Though she enjoyed animals, twenty-six seemed a few more than one person needed or could properly care for.
‘You are wrong,’ she didn’t mind telling him. ‘I do want to get married and have children, but it has to be the right man.’
‘Describe him to me,’ he said, taking a sip from his glass of champagne.
Her heart began to thud, and she had to look away for a moment, afraid that what she might describe could sound an awful lot like him. Except that he’d already said, more than once, that he was heading back out to sea as soon as possible. ‘Well, he has to be kind and generous, trustworthy and committed, hard-working and well-established, so my family’s money won’t be of interest to him, and he needs to want to get married and have children.’
‘That doesn’t sound too demanding.’
‘Because I’m not demanding,’ she said.
His skeptical chuckle said he didn’t believe her words, but the jocular light in his eyes let her know that he was only teasing. She playfully slapped his arm. ‘I’m not.’
‘I think I’ve met a dozen men tonight who might think otherwise.’
That was true. Meridith could only justify herself by saying, ‘I’m particular. We are talking about the rest of my life.’
‘You have every right to be particular about that.’ He took her glass and handed it along with his to a passing servant. ‘Let’s dance.’
There was a fluttering in her stomach at the thought of dancing with him. However, in all honesty, her stomach had been fluttering since she’d seen him standing on the black-and-white tiles in the foyer of her brother’s house. She couldn’t help relating it to Drake’s presence. There was a constant, teasing twinkle in his eyes and an appealing curl of his lips, a half-smile, that together were enough to perpetually renew the strange sensation.
There was also a unique sense of happiness building inside her. One she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Suddenly, though, she remembered the words of Drake’s cousins, and the feeling was tinged with guilt over the fact that he had been coerced into accompanying her tonight, to an event he wouldn’t usually relish. ‘We don’t have to dance,’ she said.
‘You don’t want to?’ he asked.
‘I don’t want you to feel obligated.’
He grasped her hand and tugged her towards the dance floor. ‘I don’t feel obligated. I feel like dancing.’
There was a skip in her step and her heart as she caught up with him and walked onto the dance floor. She’d danced in the past, with a number of men, but had never wanted to dance as much as she wanted to right now. Which was unusual, but the entire evening was extraordinarily unusual in the simple fact that she was enjoying herself.
The realisation of that made her swallow hard. There could be consequences to such happiness. In peopleseeingher look happy in Drake’s company, to be precise. Her family would undoubtedly draw one conclusion—that her introduction to Captain Taylor had been a success, and would finally lead her towards the altar.
They were already standing in a dance hold as they waited for the music to begin, one of her hands on his shoulder, the other clasped in Drake’s own. His other palm was resting againsther waist, and her side was tingling from his touch; her entire body felt flushed at being so close to him. In a way that felt, well, different from anything she’d experienced before, and quite thrilling.
‘Do you think that you’ll ever want to get married?’ she blurted out.
Embarrassment washed over her. She had no idea where that question had come from. If it had crossed her mind, she certainly hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
He chuckled softly. ‘Have no fear,’ he said quietly. ‘I am not attempting to deceive you in any way. I am not, nor will I ever be interested in marriage. I’m already married to the sea, and she is the only wife I’ll ever need.’
‘I wasn’t—I was just—’ She stopped herself from stammering and shook her head. ‘I apologize.’
‘No need to apologize. I’ve seen the number of men seeking your hand, and though it’s a beautiful hand, as beautiful as the rest of you, I discovered long ago that I like being in control of my life. Total control. A married man doesn’t have that.’
She nodded, as if completely understanding, yet, out of what felt like nowhere, she heard herself asking, ‘What about children? Don’t you want them?’
‘Whether I’d like to have children or not is beside the point. It wouldn’t be fair to any child to have a father who was always at sea. Nor would it be fair to their mother, for her to be alone for months on end. I was a child once, one who lost both of his parents, and would never wish that loneliness upon another.’
That, Meridith could fully understand. She too had lost both of her parents, and now instead of having a mother, a father, and a bevy of siblings, it felt as if she had several sets of parents, all proclaiming they knew what was best for her. ‘That is difficult, isn’t it? For a child to lose their parents.’
