A voice startled the young man from his thoughts.

“Parker, brother, how was your afternoon? Beneficial, I expect.”

Cooper. Does he never tire of these four walls?

“Quite excellent, brother; and how may I ask, do you spend your afternoons here? Do you never tire of seeing and hearing the exact same things all the time?” Parker pulled his black suit coat off by the cuff of one sleeve, then the other, folding it over the back of a chair behind him.

“You know I never have benefited from dinner parties as yourself, Parker. Unlike you, I don’t prosper in the spotlight.”

“Correct you are, Cooper – you deteriorate.”

He knew he didn’t always possess a charm worth presenting, but deteriorate?

The elder soon put words out for discussion once more. “For sure and for certain you have some longing to see your lady in her finest. If not for her, at least you desire a manly conversation with the men and their port?”

“I have no desire for any of that. Mary Elisabeth and I have not an aspiration to parade our relationship in faces of those who thrive on the downfall of others. ”

“Honestly, how is the same blood in both our veins? You are most definitely a cut of another kind.”

Irritated with a lifelong exasperation of his conniving older brother, Cooper spat out quickly, “Do tell me how Reymond and Lily happen to be like myself, then, dear brother…”

“Whoa, little brother, don’t get cynical. I suppose rather than argue my point – which is valid, might I add – that Marguerite and Cambridge favor their elder brother,” Reese’s index finger pointing to his brawny torso, “I shall merely say you are correct on your account. However, no one person is correct one hundred percent, being that I am correct in this matter also.”

“Human genes are passed from parents to their children, Reese. Father is outgoing and witty, mother was a quiet, timid woman – fair enough chance for their children to favor either-or.”

“Sure, I’ll go along with your preposterous talk of science; just beware those books don’t know everything there is to know under the sun, little brother.”

“How little could one be if only three years separate the two involved? I declare you were correct when I was an infant and you a toddler; but Reese, I am twenty and you only twenty and three. Next time you refer to me as some rank of sibling, I suggest you leave the kid brother aspect out.”

Reese appeared absent minded as he spoke. “If you truly detest my pet name for you, I could give it thought.”

“Yes, I would appreciate it if you would. Or would you prefer I ask Reymond to begin your address with baby brother; for, as you know, he is two years your senior.” Cooper gave a big smile as he finally caught Reese with one of his own tricks.

Just then a knock sounded on the doorframe, followed by one voice known true to be their younger sister. “Brothers, do come quickly! Father seems quite out of his frame…”

It is likely to be that he has discovered third son has no personality except with the fauna of the walls and floorboards in this house, murmured Reese under his breath.

A/N : Introducing Lily Gilliam, one of the younger sisters in the Gilliam family.

Willie and Ophelia Mei Gilliam continued toward the massive oak tree in the right center of the back premises of the plantation where rays could not penetrate through the enormous boughs of round pointed lobes shading the population underneath, Lily slowly following behind them, gazing off into the distant wooded pines.

The younger children stopped at the edge of a wildflower patch to pick several pink and purplish flowers, ending the escapade when the hundred beautiful petals were all they could hold.

Something stirred by the small creek in the clearing not too far into the wooded area. When Lily peered a bit more carefully, there was someone kneeled at the water’s edge, with their hands cupping the cool, clear water, allowing it to run down their ebony face and down their chest, darkening the off white burlap shirt wrapped around tight biceps and loosely fit around the torso. The sight caught Lily’s eye as she noticed the young man was indeed Dean.

A/N: Introducing Cooper, one of the older Gilliam brothers and the father, A.H. Gilliam

A.H. Gilliam peered over his reading glasses, marking the page in his volume, “Home so soon, my boy? Whatever causes my son to depart the festivities of a grand home with five daughters before ten o’clock? It wasn’t as if you could not coax many a woman to conversation, I know.”

Cooper knew too well that his father loved the ladies. “Everything was fine, father. I’m just not feeling well.”

“Perhaps the Feinstein’s cooking does not settle too well with you, eh?”

“That could be the source. If it’s alright with you, I am going to retire early tonight.”

“Maybe a little rest is what you need to feel up to tomorrow’s ledger duties.”

“Yes, sir; I’ll see you in the morning, given this aching ceases,” announced Cooper, his right arm planted on the white marble stairwell banister, his back to A.H.

“Your brothers, were they having a fine time with the ladies?”

Turning to face his father once again, “Indeed. Reese found it most agreeable that Lena Johnson promised him waltzes.”

“He is at last presenting her with an authoritative request, without waiting for the brazen retort she often gives – the way it should be with them. And what of Reymond and Cambridge, they were enjoying themselves as well, I assume?”

“I didn’t encounter them much this evening. I believe they were enjoying themselves quite differently than Reese. I heard Thaddeus King and the men in the library before I left, enjoying quite a strong blend of foreign cigars, flasks of vodka and shots of whiskey.”

“If I hadn’t have been preoccupied, I would have been there in the center of it myself. They must be having a delightful time this evening, but, enough with me keeping you from your rest. On to your room, for you must be well enough tomorrow to proceed with the task I require of you.”

“Certainly, father.”

“Cooper, there will be no excuse which can wiggle you free of your prior commitment to me, for I hold the rod in this house. Your mother isn’t here to nag at me on your behalf; he is a growing boy who needs his rest, Allen. ”

“Yes, father. I will be down for breakfast by seven.”

“My men will be strong, like whiskey. Weakness is a sign of feminine nature; you must be able to withstand what the women cannot. Otherwise, your hand would be the only command in your home, and not the deepness of your voice and nature.”

“I understand.”

As his third step was shadowing the mahogany stair step, Allen Gilliam called to him, “Son – not that I presume you are giving pretenses, but just so that I am certain – I do have your word, do I not… about your brothers that is? Uncommon as it may be for young men of their years, I’ve never found Cambridge or Reymond to like the taste of superior tobacco or spirits. Reese – of course, but never your brothers. I find it hard to believe they have engrossed their attention to those instead of a raging conversation on the ever swelling demand of cotton in the textile mills of those abolitionist Yanks.”

Before he turned to face his father, he whispered a silent prayer to God that He would somehow see that the false information that he had given his father as an excuse for his brothers would be forgiven in light of the good they were accomplishing this moment. “You have my word, sir.”

Anderson gave a pleased smile in the confident answer he received. “Good. They are finally my sons, and no longer their mother’s boys.”

“And I do believe your sisters are attending the Feinstein’s ball as well, for I have not heard any raging queries of new bolts of fabric of maroon and emerald colors. If the young ladies were here I know for certain I would have had more than one knock upon the door of my study.”

“Yes, father, I believe Marguerite was escorted by Henderson O’Neill earlier this afternoon – to start off the evening with a light dinner with Mr. and Mrs. O’Neill and his sister, Madeleine, who returned from her studies at the finishing school in Charleston a few weeks ago.” He did know where his elder sister was, for sure and for certain – she was at the evening’s festivities of the Feinstein’s’; however, he also knew Lily was partaking of the worthwhile excursion with Rey and Cambridge.