‘I already have,’ Drake answered. ‘Several times. It’s like riding a horse. He’s just bigger. What’s not comfortable to ride is a camel. Their gait is hard to get used to, and that makes you bounce around like a ball.’
Adam laughed. ‘You rode a camel, too?’
‘Certainly did,’ Drake replied.
The conversation continued, with the subject bouncing between the zoo animals, sailing, and other topics, which had Meridith laughing along with Adam and Drake. Eventually, Drake suggested that it was probably past Adam’s bedtime. Hepromised to discuss a zoo visit with the baron and baroness, who would confirm the day and time with Adam tomorrow morning.
By the time they left the room, Meridith was convinced that Drake could very well be the nicest man she’d ever met.
‘Thank you for joining me,’ he said, as they walked down the hallway.
‘You’re welcome. You’ve made him very happy. I’ve never seen him laugh before. He’s a very shy child.’
‘I noticed that.’
‘And I noticed you are very good at making people laugh.’
‘I try,’ he said.
‘That’s what you did with me during the croquet game. Tried your best to make me laugh.’
He grinned at her. ‘Guilty.’
‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘I like seeing people happy.’
‘Why?’ Meridith wasn’t sure why she wanted to know his reasoning so deeply, but she did. So many of the men she was introduced to were far more interested in her family—as in their finances—than they were in her.
‘Doesn’t everyone like to see others happy?’
‘I wouldn’t say everyone does,’ she admitted, thinking mainly of her siblings. It often appeared as though they wanted to make her miserable.
It hadn’t always been that way. Her family used to care what she thought. Things had changed when they’d decided that going away to school would be best for her, and since then, they kept on claiming they knew what was best for her.
‘Were you happy as a child?’ she asked Drake, reflecting on those days.
‘No, I wasn’t,’ he replied. ‘My uncle and aunt took me in when my parents died, and they were good to me. Very good. I was only four, but I knew that they were my aunt and uncle, not myparents, and well, that made me sad. I was sad for a long time, until I decided that I didn’t have to be. That I could be happy if I wanted to be. That it was up to me.’
‘How old were you when you decided that?’
‘Ten,’ he replied.
He sounded serious, but Meridith knew he had to be teasing, because it wasn’t that easy. Someone couldn’t just decide to be happy and become happy. Nothing was that easy, especially not happiness.
The expression on her face told Drake all he needed to know. ‘You don’t believe me.’ Most people didn’t believe him on this subject, even though his words were indeed true. What people didn’t realise was that happiness came from within, not from others.
He’d been about ten when he’d decided that he was tired of his cousin Archibald, gloating nonstop at how easily he was able to manipulate someone else’s feelings. Archibald had enjoyed seeing others angry, or sad—anything but happy. He’d been mean to everyone, including Grace and Della. At ten, Drake had still been smaller than Archibald and had quickly realised that anything physical would have only ended in him getting hurt—because he’d already tried that. Therefore, he’d simply decided to be happy.
At the time it had been to thwart his cousin, and it had done just that. Archibald had been furious to see him laughing instead of crying. Then, as time went on, Drake had determined that being happy had felt good, and it wasn’t that hard, either.
‘It’s not that I don’t believe you,’ she said. ‘But I do find it quite unbelievable that someone could simply decide to become happy, and that it would happen.’
‘Why?’
She shrugged. ‘Because happiness can’t just be conjured up like that.’
‘Well, I can’t say that it happened immediately. I had to work at it, and it wasn’t easy. Not at first. But I decided that no matter what happened, I wasn’t going to let anyone else control how I feel.’ Or anything else about his life. He not only enjoyed being the master of his own life; he was fully committed to remaining that way. ‘You should try it.’
