Any Groom Will Do

by Charis Michaels

  DEDICATION

  This one is dedicated with love to my sister Shelly and her husband, Tim—Living proof that a Couple is a Family.

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  All Dressed in White

  About the Author

  Also by Charis Michaels

  A Letter from the Editor

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  In the early spring of 1813, eight-year-old Lady Wilhelmina Hunnicut fell ill from a bout of peritonitis that nearly took her life. For ten days she lay contorted in pain and wracked with fever, fighting an infection that simmered and glowed like the hot coals of a low fire.

  Her mother and father, not particularly attentive parents even in the best of times, hastened to their daughter’s bedside. They pursed their lips and wrung their hands; they cried.

  Willow’s father, Lord Lytton, was an earl, and their home in Surrey, Leland Park, was a lavish estate with renowned stables. Immediately, the earl sent for the best doctors from London. They arrived posthaste to bleed and swab and minister to the child. All the while her parents implored her, “Be a brave girl, darling. Do try to survive.”

  By some miracle, Lady Willow did survive. She sat up in bed on the eleventh day, requested toast and tea, the lavender coverlet, and a view of the gardens. A cadre of footmen and maids descended, and the chief surgeon took Lord Lytton and his lady wife aside.

  “It is a miracle that the child has pulled through,” the doctor whispered. “Praise be to God. But I must warn you that an infection of this severity—the abdominal colic, the fever, the ague . . . ” He paused, blotting his temple. “The girl will be barren, I’m afraid. Unable to have children all of her life. Her belly was inflamed for weeks. She will never be a mother, mark my words.”

  Her father scarcely heard this news, so relieved was he that his daughter would not die.

  Her mother heard the prognosis but chose to ignore it. “But how could he possibly know what may or may not happen?” the countess told Willow whenever she ventured onto the topic. “Dr. Whiting is not God. He cannot read the future. He said for two weeks that you would not live to see the next morning, and look at you now.”

  Yes, Willow thought, each time her mother said this, look at me now.

  She grew into womanhood—tall and lithe, with clear skin and a bright smile—but with no trace of the monthly cycle that would prove the doctor wrong or her mother right.

  And so a childhood illness decided Lady Willow would never be a mother, but it was Willow herself, some nine years later, who decided that she would never—not ever—become anyone’s wife.

  “I will never marry,” she vowed to her two dearest friends, Sabine Noble and Tessa St. Croix. “What man would marry a woman who cannot provide him with an heir and a family? And despite what my mother suggests, I cannot lie.”

  Instead, Willow pursued other interests, cultivated her talents, and never allowed herself to wallow or waste time. She was a spirited girl, determined but cheerful, with an eye for visual harmony and unexpected beauty. Her life’s passion was design. Color and texture, form and light. She commissioned a workshop on the grounds of Leland Park and made over the rooms and corridors of the manor house, one at a time. She sent away for books about the interiors of stately homes and castles from around the world. She learned to weave intricate trim for tapestries and rugs, to paint plaster, to create mosaics with little bits of colored tile. Her parents indulged these pursuits because they kept her occupied, and an occupied daughter required less of their time.

  If Willow noticed the young men who noticed her, who complimented her auburn hair or blue-green eyes, she didn’t dwell on it. She encouraged nothing, she danced never, and she always refused the rare young man who asked to walk with her in the village. Social diversion was limited to the exclusive company of her two old friends, Sabine and Tessa. Beyond this, she was content to create and seek the beauty in everyday life.

  “Spinsterhood?” she would say. “So be it. Why wrestle with the futility of a union that I will never have?”

  But futility, Willow soon discovered, did not come in the form of a union (or lack thereof); it came as the absence of nearly all of her rights. Without the protection of marriage, Willow was not permitted to seriously pursue anything she truly enjoyed. Without her father’s permission, she could not travel alone outside of Surrey. She could not let a flat in London. She could not submit her sketches for publication. After her father died, she was forced to seek this permission from her brother, Phillip.

  In the end, it was not the solitude that troubled Willow; it was the limits.

  Through it all, she relied upon Sabine and Tessa. They encouraged and supported her; they served as touchstones when her own parents were dismissive or away; and they understood that loneliness and contentedness could, in fact, exist at the same time.

  What they did not understand—what even Willow herself did not know—was that a “contented” life, lonely or not, was but one of many paths that young women may take.

  And a path that leaps clear of contentment and deals instead in courage and determination and true fulfillment is what this story is about.

  CHAPTER ONE

  October 1830

  Surrey

  When Lady Wilhelmina Hunnicut decided to advertise for a husband on the docks in London, she knew in advance who would oppose the idea.

  Her mother, first and foremost. Lady Lytton would be highly opposed—if she bothered to notice, which she would not.

  Her brother, Phillip, second, who would oppose the plan in theory but would be easily convinced in the end. The great value to her and the complete lack of bother to him would be irresistible.

  Third, the well-meaning people of Pixham, Surrey. Collectively, they would be opposed, as they were to all imaginative thinking, to anything different or new.

  And finally, her father (may God rest him). Earl Lytton would be opposed from a heavenly realm, but considering the dowry he’d left her, he was an unwitting enabler. In essence, he was the sponsor of the plan.

  There were others, of course. If pressed, Willow would say that most anyone she cared to ask would oppose her plan, but she’d designed it with both discretion and speed in mind, and the whole sordid business would be over before action or voice could be put to opposition from any side.

  Unless, of course, the opposition came from the two young women the plan was meant to save.

  As it did now.

  Annoyingly.

  Inconveniently.

  One day before they were meant to launch the plan from conjecture to real life.

  “I wish you would look again,” Lady Willow said to her friends, swallowing a sigh. She felt the tips of he
r ears burn red. “I’ve not changed a word since breakfast.” The brightness in her voice was forced. She jabbed her pen in the ink pot. “It’s nearly there.”

  “Nearly where?” asked Sabine Noble, squinting down at the large expanse of yellow parchment sprawled across the desk.

  “Nearly perfect,” said Willow, carefully carrying the parchment to a low table near the window. They’d met in her father’s library, a room she’d redesigned two years ago in stately mahogany and masculine blue. It had seemed dignified and scholarly at the time, but now the room felt foreboding. Too dim to properly read the advertisement, too hushed and shrouded to allow for open points of view. Lantern light only revealed so much; for this, they required sunshine.

  Willow smoothed the parchment and stepped back, allowing the window to illuminate her carefully scripted words.

  “Read the whole of it before you make any remark,” she instructed. “Pretend you’ve stumbled upon it on the docks in London, completely unaware.”

  “Which docks?” asked Tessa. She had not moved from the desk across the room.

  Willow narrowed her eyes. “It makes no difference which docks. First we’ll compose the advertisement. Then we’ll determine where to post it. Mr. Fisk is a native of South London. He will help us.”

  She stepped away and gestured the two women closer. “Come and have a better look. I am prepared for your reactions, good or ill.”

  “This, I doubt,” said Sabine, crossing with marked reluctance to the window. Tessa trailed tentatively behind.

  “Go on,” prompted Willow.

  Sabine sighed and read aloud from the parchment:

  WANTED

  PROFESSIONAL TRAVELERS

  GENTLEMAN SAILORS

  ENTREPRENEURS WITH FOREIGN INTERESTS.

  INVESTOR SEEKS SUITABLE CANDIDATE FOR

  DISBURSEMENT OF MODEST FORTUNE.

  FUNDS MUST BE APPLIED TO INTERNATIONAL ENDEAVOR.

  CHOSEN MAN MUST PERSONALLY MANAGE

  VENTURE ABROAD.

  SLOW-YIELD INDUSTRIES PREFERRED.

  PROGRESSIVE-MINDED, UNMARRIED MEN

  WITH NO DEPENDENTS ONLY.

  APPLY BY INTRODUCTORY LETTER TO

  W. J. HUNNICUT, LELAND PARK,

  PIXHAM, SURREY.

  For a long moment, no one spoke. Willow held her breath and glanced at Tessa. Of the two friends, she was more likely to be generous. Now, she remained generously silent.

  “What is a ‘Gentleman Sailor’?” asked Sabine.

  “I thought we agreed that it was best to solicit gentlemen,” said Willow.

  “This assumes that the advertisement will solicit anyone at all,” said Sabine. “Now ’tis only to be gentlemen who apply?”

  “And why shouldn’t we ask for exactly what we want?” said Willow. “ ‘Gentleman Sailor’ is an inspired phrase.”

  “It’s an imaginary phrase,” said Sabine. “If you mean to ask for exactly what you want, why not say ‘Will Trade Dowry for Absentee Husband’?”

  Now Tessa spoke up. “I think it a very . . . dashing advertisement, Willow.”

  “Dashing?” Willow repeated dully. “Dashing? It is brilliant, and you both know it. It will solicit hundreds of applications. We’ll interview as many as necessary until we identify the perfect three.” She took up the pen to thicken the letters of her script.

  For a long moment, the two other women watched in silence. Finally, Tessa asked, “What if they’re awful, Willow? These men. Will you consider horrible men? Will you consider toads?”

  “Toad or not, we’re only meant to endure them long enough to marry them and bid them bon voyage,” said Willow.

  “In other words, yes,” Sabine said. “They will be awful. Depend upon it.”

  Willow gritted her teeth. “We do not, at present, luxuriate in unlimited options, do we? Tessa, you are in a delicate situation and refuse to appeal to your parents. And you, Sabine?” Willow sighed heavily. “I shudder to think what will come of you if you continue to provoke your uncle.”

  Neither friend contradicted her; how could they when she spoke the truth? Willow went on. “And I have the opportunity to follow my passion to London—to actually make something of my life. But as you know, I’ve no acceptable way to make a home there. Not in my current situation: young, female, and alone.

  Willow held out her hands, palms up. “As obstacles go, these are considerable, but our fathers settled dowries on us for a reason. Not these reasons, I’ll grant you, but we shall seize what we can. If we cannot buy freedom outright, we shall buy three men desperate enough to marry us and let us go.”

  This speech, which had been rehearsed down to the last “desperate enough,” was met with still more silence. Her friends shared a look.

  “Might I remind you that I was set to never marry?” Willow added. “For obvious reasons, painful reasons, I had reconciled myself to a life alone. I’ve flipped those intentions to save the two of you—”

  “We aren’t denying that you do this to help, Willow . . . ” said Sabine, trailing off.

  Willow tried again. “I’ve explained that my aunt’s townhouse in Belgravia is large enough for the three of us, and she’s welcomed us all. When we conceived the idea, it was that we would go together.”

  “Yes, but conceiving it,” Sabine said, “and actually doing it are . . . ” She held out her hands as if the correct words could be snatched from the air. “It’s one thing to discuss the plan in theory, but quite another to post your name and direction in London and invite these men to . . . apply to you. And that’s not the worst of it. It is a gross misrepresentation to refer to my dowry or your dowry as a ‘modest fortune’ to ‘disburse.’ We are not investors, Willow, we are girls who these men—strangers to us—would be forced to marry if they wished to receive one farthing.”

  “Not strangers,” corrected Willow.

  “Excuse me, these ‘gentleman sailors,’ which, by the way, is not a known distinction.”

  “Alright,” Willow agreed, “the plan is wholly outrageous—is this what you wish to hear? If so, I’ll be the first to admit it. But that doesn’t mean it cannot happen. Outrageous is not impossible. Remember Gwen Pierpont? Shall I tell the story again? Gwen married a sea captain who spends years at sea. Years. He is practically never at home in England, and when he is, it is only long enough to provision for his next voyage. Gwen, therefore, has complete freedom to do as she pleases—in London or Surrey or wherever she cares to go. She’s a married woman, and no one says a word against her. Can you imagine answering to no one? She is the happiest woman we know.”

  “But married to a man she never sees?” said Tessa, dropping into a chair. “That sounds wretched.”

  “You would do well to see fewer men, Tessa,” sighed Sabine, “not more.”

  “Sabine, please,” said Willow.

  “You’ve said yourself that Tessa does not have the freedom to be selective,” Sabine shot back. “None of us does.”

  “I can be selective,” Tessa asserted. “I can select my brother’s friend Randall and marry him. He would marry me tomorrow if I would but say the word.”

  In unison, Sabine and Willow said, “You’re not marrying Randall.”

  Tessa’s daily threat to marry the dull and dim-witted Randall elicited the reliable chorus of “You’re not marrying Randall.” It was why she had said it. But they could only reassure her for so long. Tessa’s situation was distressing, and it grew more urgent with every passing day.

  Sabine said, “Willow, you cannot fault us for wanting more assurance than one neighbor who happened into an absentee marriage with a particularly diligent sea captain. This hardly guarantees our same luck. Especially as we will ‘happen’ into nothing. You’re endeavoring to construct this arrangement. From the start.”

  “We will have constructed it together, and good for us,” said Willow. “What choice do you have, Sabine? Tessa’s condition will be obvious to everyone in a matter of months.”

  Sabine walked
to the window. After a moment, she said, “I would do nearly anything to escape my uncle—you know this—but your plan isn’t something to do, is it?”

  “We are doing something,” insisted Willow. “We are soliciting potential husbands.”

  “No, you have written this advert, and now we must sit idly by and wait,” said Sabine, turning back. The light from the window illuminated the healing bruise beneath her right eye. “If a stranger eventually writes us, there is a very great risk that he’ll report the scheme to your mother, or Tessa’s parents, or, God forbid, my uncle.” She made an expression of what if? and put a hand to the top of her head. Her hand trailed from her hair and down her face, lingering idly on the healing eye. She looked at Willow. “I cannot.”

  “But the men will introduce themselves by letter first, and we shall only meet in person with the candidates who portray themselves as the most fitting and safe. And even then, we shall broach the terms carefully, feeling our way. I’ll not reveal the full extent of the barter unless an applicant appears amenable to a marriage spent in separate corners of the globe.”

  “Effective immediately,” said Tessa skeptically.

  “And extenuating always,” added Sabine.

  Willow carefully replaced her pen. She walked a small circle in the room. What did they want? To be begged? To agree that the whole scheme was a great risk? To snap her fingers and magically produce ideal husbands who would whisk them away from their hopeless situations in Surrey?

  She settled each of them with a hard look. “You are running out of time, each in your own way. I’ve the least to lose, but hear me now; this advertisement will go to London tomorrow by Mr. Fisk. Five copies will be posted. The applications will surely follow. After that, I’ll convene interviews. You know me well enough to appreciate my determination. I will marry when the correct man comes along. You may join me with the other men the advert will surely bring, or you may remain in Surrey to deal with your own fates.”

  “But Willow,” Sabine asked after a pause. Her voice was softer now, careful. “What about your . . . barrenness? Will you tell him? This correct man, when he comes along—will you tell him?”