Any Groom Will Do

by Charis Michaels

  And mind-blanking attraction, he thought suddenly, honestly.

  “I appear mad to you, my lord?”

  “I’m not finished,” he said. “Your promise of money is unsubstantiated. What if some poor sod does the unthinkable and marries you, only to discover there is no money? No money at all?”

  “It takes no effort to prove the validity of a dowry,” she said.

  This was true, of course. She was the most charming when she raised some truth. No matter what point he made, she always countered with something just as valid. He’d never met another female so willing to challenge him.

  “But perhaps you simply feel that you cannot abide me,” Lady Willow said. “Not even long enough to quickly marry.” She set her empty cup on the desk before them.

  “No,” Cassin said, “I do not know you.”

  This was true, although he found it surprisingly difficult to say. He knew her hair was the color of an ash leaf in November. He knew her skin was as smooth and pale as cream. He knew her voice was husky, that it washed over him like hot water on a cold night. He knew her arguments, no matter how unacceptable, had made his pulse pound and his brain misfire.

  Cassin enjoyed the distraction of a pretty girl as much as the next man, but he also toiled daily beneath the yoke of obligation, an effort that left him too mired down to notice autumn hair or cream skin or a dusky voice.

  But he had noticed today. Inconveniently. Uselessly.

  He noticed her like he would notice a beautiful sunset when what he really needed was ten more minutes of daylight.

  He glanced at her. She appeared to be winding up to explain how it would not matter that they were not acquainted. He found himself suddenly, urgently, wanting to hear it. But there was a soft knock at the door.

  “Begging your pardon, my lady,” said her manservant.

  Lady Willow rose. “What’s happened?”

  “The countess. She’s returned, I’m afraid. Tom can just see them cresting the hill behind the paddock.”

  “The hill already?” Lady Willow spun to the window.

  “Might I suggest that you and his lordship conclude your interview in the garden?” he said. “I can have his lordship’s horse and coat brought ’round.”

  “The garden. Yes, thank you, Mr. Fisk. Excellent idea, as always.” She scanned the room. “Will you tell Abbott to clear the tea? Wait—no, he will make more of the request than necessary. Send Perry, if you please. It is not her job, but she will do it for me. Thank you.”

  When she looked to Cassin, her face was young and flushed and determined. “I’m afraid I must ask you to join me outside the house. My mother is . . . complicated.”

  “She knows nothing, does she?” Cassin asked. “You’ve done this entirely on your own.”

  Lady Willow nodded. “Yes.” She leaned toward the desk and swept up the parchment, pen, and ink pot. “She knows nothing. This way, if you please, my lord.”

  She filed into the corridor.

  Just five minutes more, Cassin thought as he followed her out the door.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The risk of discovery by Lady Lytton was a welcome new source of panic, but Willow was too preoccupied to really care about her mother. Against all odds, the Earl of Cassin held great potential. His reserve. His caution. His willingness to flee the house. Very great potential, indeed.

  And flee they did, down the corridor, through the ballroom, and out onto the terrace that led to the garden. They did not run, precisely, but they were hardly strolling.

  The new location meant there would be less time for everything, of course; no more beating around the bush. He would have to declare himself, yea or nay. But perhaps this, too, was preferred. In Willow’s view, she’d already said enough. All the while, he’d said—well, what had he said? He’d done little more than challenge her.

  But he did not go, she thought.

  Even now, he did not go.

  She cast a glance over her shoulder. He took one long step to her two, but he was not far behind.

  “This way, if you please,” she said lightly, descending the great stone steps that led to the garden. She would lead him down the gravel path, beyond the fountain, and skirt the labyrinth. There, obscured by a thick yew hedge, was a stone bench and bowling green. It was secluded but not intimate, the perfect spot to conclude the interview.

  “The grounds of your home are beautiful,” the earl said. His voice was not winded. He did not sound the slightest bit appalled.

  Please, please keep Mother away, she prayed. She said, “The garden is Mr. Fisk’s handiwork. My mother will struggle to replace him when we relocate to London, I’m afraid.”

  “You will move to London with a gardener?”

  “Mr. Fisk is not a gardener,” she said. “He is my personal servant, a steward, if you will. Previously, he served as my late father’s valet. When my father passed on, the terms of his will provided a salary and pension for Mr. Fisk under my employ. In many ways, Mr. Fisk has been looking after me since I was a girl. My father and I were not close, but he showed his regard for us both when he arranged for Mr. Fisk’s future with me.”

  Finally, she reached the corner of the concealing hedge. She cast a searching look in the direction of the stables and saw no movement, thank God. Her mother would be cooling down the animals for another half hour. She motioned to the earl and slipped around the wall of green.

  This is reasonable, she told herself, looking around the secluded bench and stately oak tree. She dropped onto the bench. With hands that shook, she arranged the ink pot and pen and straightened the parchment.

  “Now,” she began, looking up.

  The earl stared down at her. “You are so convinced that you will go to London?”

  “Oh, quite convinced,” she lied. “But I’m afraid we’ve no longer the luxury of discussing how I’ll get there, or why, or with whose permission.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve said enough—surely we can agree on that—while you have committed to virtually nothing. In the interest of time, may I implore you to, er, contribute?”

  “Contribute?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “If nothing else, I should like to learn the nature of your venture. Only then will we know if our ambitions align.”

  The earl walked a slow circle around the bench, staring up at the dappled golden light filtering through the canopy of the oak. He ran a hand through his hair.

  Willow gritted her teeth and calculated the number of minutes at their disposal. She brushed the feathered end of her pen against her chin. She waited. Finally, she said, “But perhaps you have no venture to speak of? Is that it? Or your business is illegal?” She turned to face him. “Please tell me the venture is not supported by the slave trade? But perhaps this is why you dodge the question. If this is the case, then you have been correct to conceal it. I’m afraid we have nothing more to discuss.”

  “On the contrary,” he said levelly. “We have been very careful to pursue only opportunities that are not supported by slave labor.”

  She gave a satisfied nod. “On this, we are in agreement.”

  “It did not occur to me that you would consider this.”

  “It was our first concern, actually. But if you cannot find words to articulate the industry into which I will contribute £60,000, then lack of consideration may be better applied to you than me. I urge you to try.”

  “A final question for you . . . ”

  “No. Absolutely no more questions.”

  “Mining and farming,” he said, dropping onto the bench. “There, I’ve said it. In general, simple terms.”

  “Less general than that, if you please. Do you not know? Am I meant to guess?”

  ***

  Years later, Cassin would look back on this moment and marvel that his life had descended from earldom and castle to here. In a garden, hiding from someone’s mother, being forced by a young woman to justify the great potential and bright future of . . .

  “Guano,” he said
.

  Silence.

  A loon sang in the distance. A breeze fluttered the leaves of the tree. Lady Willow stared, unblinking.

  Cassin indulged the vain, fleeting hope that one word would do it, that she would drop this nonsense of a dowry and proposal and . . . and force him to go.

  After a long moment, she said, “I beg your pardon?”

  Cassin cleared his throat. “Guano.” And then, because, why bloody not, he asked her, “Do you know it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Guano is a . . . natural resource,” he said. “Found on tropical islands.”

  She bent immediately over her paper and began to scribble. “Go on,” she said.

  Cassin stared at the top of her head, her small shoulders, her delicate hands. “The guano, as I’ve—”

  “Forgive me, my lord, but would you be so kind as to spell this word?” She looked at him, her pen lifted eagerly from the page, her blue-green eyes both interested and, if he was not mistaken, a little bit excited. He felt his heartbeat kick up.

  “G-u-a-n-o,” he said, watching her write. Her auburn hair fell around her shoulders, and one particularly perfect spiral spilled deep orange on the page. She whisked it away.

  “A Spanish word, is it?” She looked up.

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly.

  “Possibly Spanish,” she said aloud as she made another notation. “We shall look it up. Go on.”

  Cassin opened his mouth to tell her, We will not look it up, but instead he said, “The guano is mined, in a manner. After we have it in barrels, it can be imported to farm-rich countries and sold. As fertilizer.”

  “Fertilizer?” she repeated, looking up again.

  “It’s mixed with a farmer’s soil to introduce vital nutrients. It transforms the very nature of the earth for the better. When it’s tilled in before a planting, vegetation will thrive, despite the quality of the soil or how frequently it has been farmed.”

  Lady Willow looked into the distance, speculating. “But this is the effect of any fertilizer, as any girl raised in the country knows. I also know the most common source of fertilizer. Are you suggesting that this . . . ”

  “Guano,” he provided.

  “Yes, thank you, this guano is something far and away different from what English farmers find in plentiful supply on the ground of any livestock pen? But you mentioned mining. Perhaps this guano is a mineral?”

  “Guano is a naturally occurring . . . compound,” Cassin said, marveling at her persistence. “It builds up over time on small islands and hardens in the tropical sun. After that, it can be mined by hand, using something like a pickax.”

  Lady Willow considered this. She scribbled more notes. Cassin held his breath as he watched her. She wrote faster and with more determination than ever he’d seen a woman write. His sisters devoted a full day to a leisurely one-page letter to their cousin.

  “It’s bird excrement,” he heard himself say. He eyed her, waiting for the incredulity, the giggling, the blushes.

  “It’s what?” she called. Her pen hovered just above the parchment; then she skipped down a space and wrote on.

  “Bird excrement,” he repeated. “Also bat. And occasionally . . . seal. But excrement—all of it, the lot. It petrifies to rock hardness in the sun and becomes flaky. The hardened heaps of it form mounds. In many cases, these are as tall as a bluff or hill and can be scaled by men, like the face of a cliff. It’s mined by chipping away at the great bloody pile of it, and then it’s funneled into barrels. After that, it’s moved to the buyer’s market by sea. In our case, in the hold of my partner’s brig.”

  Cassin rolled from the bench, crossing his arms over his chest. “Guano,” he repeated. “Bird excrement. Imported and sold to the farmers of England. This is my venture—well, our venture.”

  “And you need my dowry to . . . purchase the excrement?”

  “That’s the beauty of it.” He began to pace. “My partners and I have come into ownership of an island in the Caribbean Sea that’s heaped with it. We don’t have to buy it; we own it. We need an investor to finance the mining, the shipping, and then the selling of it in England.”

  Now she looked up. “Come into ownership? Did you purchase this island?”

  “No. The island was . . . transferred to us. Some time ago. Land and natural resources, all ours.” He paused and glanced at her. “We won it in a game of cards. The island is twenty miles off the coast of Barbadoes.”

  The questions came quickly after that, far more thoughtful and serious than any questions from the other investors Cassin had approached.

  “How will you procure laborers to do the actual mining?” she asked. “What of the native inhabitants of the island? When do you hope to begin and end the work? Do you anticipate a great many risks? To whom would you sell the . . . guano? What are the costs involved in mining? And what of your plans for the island after the guano has been depleted?”

  Cassin rattled off answers, oddly gratified that someone, finally, cared to ask. She hung on his every word. He watched her nod, and chew on her lip, and scribble notes. He could have watched her for hours, he thought, but with every new answer, he was certain she would tell him to go.

  “I shall ask Mr. Fisk what he knows of this guano,” she said thoughtfully. “His experience as a gardener will be a useful resource.”

  And now the servants will have a say, thought Cassin.

  “This,” said Willow, dabbing her pen into the ink, “has been so informative. And was it so terrible? Revealing it?” She stood and gestured to the garden. “I cannot say that this is how I planned to consider applicants or ventures, but the afternoon has not been complete folly.”

  Folly is precisely what the afternoon has been, he thought, standing beside her. Indulgent, distracted, mad folly. Underlying it all was his persistent, thudding reaction to her.

  “However,” she went on, “I think we’ve said enough for one day. When my mother returns to the manor house, I cannot guarantee our . . . privacy. In the meantime, allow me to dispense with formalities. I am highly interested in sponsoring your venture.”

  He stared down, marveling at her boldness. Even as he evaded her. Even after he explained about the bird shite. Even as . . .

  The relative quiet of the bench was broken by a chorus of barking, and Lady Willow moaned. The thud of running feet followed, along with panting and someone hissing “Shh!” There was a squeal and then—

  “My lady!” Her maid flung herself around the hedge with dogs spilling at her feet.

  “She’s come, she’s come, she’s come, she’s come!” The maid jabbed her index finger back and forth in the direction of the house. “Mr. Fisk will bring the earl’s horse. He’s said, meet him by the pond.” The maid wadded her apron in her hands.

  “Thank you,” said Lady Willow tightly, wading through dogs. To Cassin, she said, “I feared this might happen. This way, if you will, my lord. How lucky for you; now you shall see the pond.” She took his hand.

  “Lady Willow,” he said, staring down at their joined hands.

  “The pond is just ahead.”

  “Lady Willow,” he repeated and stopped walking. She endeavored to trudge forward, but he pulled her back. She stopped herself just short of colliding with his chest and turned her face up. Her eyes were large and earnest and the most captivating shade of blue-green. Her pink mouth was parted with exertion. The breeze whipped her hair across her face. A scramble of thoughts raced through his head.

  I’m sorry our goals do not align.

  Take care posting solicitations for strange men.

  How old are you?

  Why are you not married already?

  Instead, he said, “Your ingenuity and determination do you credit, but please . . . understand. I am not prepared to marry for the money.”

  She blinked again and bit her lip, drawing his attention to her mouth. “Why not?”

  He let out a noise of frustration. “Do you know, I have thr
ee sisters and a mother, and they come part and parcel with a crowd of female friends and relations—literally dozens of women of every age—and I have never met one of them as bold or demanding as you.”

  “I am not bold and demanding, sir. I am desperate. Why? Why won’t you marry for money?”

  “Oh.” He blew out a breath. “I don’t know. There is the small consideration of my pride. And the fact that we have only just met. Also, my very few years as earl have been riddled with what some might term ‘misguided leadership,’ and I am loath to add ‘married a stranger from a dockside advertisement’ to the list. Believe me, my lady, the answer to your question is long and complicated and unnecessary.”

  She scoffed, “More evasiveness.”

  “But I owe you nothing.”

  “Why, then, are you still here?”

  He opened his mouth to answer but closed it. He tried again. “I cannot think of any man in my acquaintance who would agree to your offer.”

  Her eyes grew larger. “You’re speaking of your partners.”

  “No. I speak of any gentleman.”

  “I have two friends,” she said, forging on, “and our plan has always been to relocate to London together. If your partners are unmarried, my friends may extend the same arrangement to them . . . assuming the gentlemen are similar—that is, if the gentlemen are correct.”

  “No gentleman is correct for this scheme. The scheme is not correct.”

  “Ask them,” she insisted, and he laughed again. So persistent, so . . . beautiful and persistent.

  “I will prepare my mother for ‘callers,’ ” she assured him. “If you call again, you may expect no hiding or dashing about. Come tomorrow, if it suits you.”

  “More boldness.”

  The jingle of tack and a whinny rose behind them. His horse. Her Mr. Fisk. His five minutes were up.

  “There are worse things than bold and demanding.” She took a step back.

  “On this, we are agreed.” Cassin sighed. He thought of his castle and family and tenants, of the rapidly approaching winter.

  She took another step back. Mr. Fisk could be heard talking softly to the horse. Cassin thanked the man and mounted.