Any Groom Will Do

by Charis Michaels

  “Oh, please do. I’ve been so delighted since I learned of your interest in my party—both of you.” She beamed at Willow. “Of course the baron knew your late father quite well, Lady Cassin, being a horseman at heart.”

  “Oh yes, well, he has plenty of company, I should say,” said Willow smoothly. “Thank you for receiving us.”

  “But the honor is mine,” said the baroness. “Imagine my shock when I finally made the connection between the Earl and Countess of Cassin and the design service of Arthur and Mary Boyd. Hiring a countess to design my home had not even crossed my mind.”

  “I am only making the leap myself, my lady,” said Willow. “But I am a lifelong student of design, and I feel very fortunate that Aunt Mary and Uncle Arthur have permitted me to contribute to their work. However, I am more of an apprentice than a countess when I step into that role.”

  The baroness scrunched up her face, unsure how to respond.

  Cassin said, “Lady Cassin has the rare opportunity to be both countess and artist, but she is careful not to allow one to distract from the other.”

  “Oh,” said the baroness, mentally dissecting this statement, “I see. But how will she—”

  By luck, another couple crowded into the vestibule, and Cassin suggested that they not monopolize the hostess. Willow took two deep breaths and allowed Cassin to shuffle her along. The baroness’s half-spoken questions hung between them in the air. But how will she—?

  How, indeed? Cassin wondered the very same thing. How would his wife carry on with her passion in London when he returned from Barbadoes? And after Barbadoes, he had no option but to take up his rightful place in Yorkshire. The answers eluded him, and he was loath to disrupt his brief time with her to pursue it.

  “What can you tell me about the house?” he asked, weaving her through mingling guests to a drinks trolley. “Am I wrong, or is there a predominance of orange?” He poured goblets of champagne.

  Willow chuckled, glancing around. “You are not wrong. You can’t see from this position but”—she took his hand and led him to the drawing room—“this is meant to be the centerpiece of the design for this house.”

  Cassin stared up at larger-than-life oil rendering of the baroness, depicted in a citron-and-lime-colored gown with orange accents. He squinted on reflex.

  “Indeed,” said Willow. “My aunt believed the best course was to tease out the orange tones, rather than the chartreuse.”

  “I suppose the suggestion that the portrait hang in the cellar would be unwelcome.”

  “More like forbidden. And that, I have learned, is the most challenging part of designing interiors.”

  “Horrible portraits?”

  “Preconceived notions of what represents beauty and good taste. I’ve yet to work on a project that does not come with some preexisting family artifact, treasured souvenir, or ill-advised piece of fine art that must be integrated into the design, generally with great prominence.”

  “Like the piano and harp in your music room.”

  Willow toasted him with her drink. “That house comes with rare good fortune, actually. On the scale of strange to ghastly, musical instruments rank very low. But I know of another house that must make room for a meticulously preserved evening gown, reticule, and boots that belonged to the owner’s mother. All of it has been stuffed with paper, as if embodied by the woman’s ghost, and encased in glass. Candles illuminated it day and night. Still another client insists on the marble statue of a human foot.”

  “Surely you mean an Athenian sprinter or a cherub with no shoes.”

  “No, I mean a foot. And we have no choice but to dress the houses around these items.”

  He laughed, hiding his smile behind the goblet of champagne. She was clever, so very clever. He marveled at the months they’d kept each other at bay when they could have been laughing. Laughing and making love. He smiled down at her, and she grinned back, her turquoise eyes flashing. Desire pinioned through him, a jolt so strong, he almost choked on his drink.

  “Laugh if you must,” Willow scolded, “but there is no end to the horribleness we are asked to accommodate. Honestly, I don’t mind the challenge, but my aunt cannot abide it. Over time, she has honed her ability to hide how incredibly appalled she is at these items, but she rails the moment we are behind closed doors.”

  Cassin continued to chuckle, swallowing his laugh only when a middle-aged couple approached, asking to make their acquaintance. They were friends of his late father and delighted to see Cassin and be introduced to the new Countess of Cassin. Willow was cordial and polished, making polite conversation before crediting her aunt and uncle with the beauty of their surroundings, while gently inquiring about their home.

  Pride mingled with possessiveness and desire, as guest after guest ventured to meet them, and Willow smoothly offered insight on the art or appointments of the house. By the time footmen appeared with trays of food, they’d spoken to nearly every guest in the room.

  Cassin took up another drink. “But what of the garden in this garden party? So far I’ve seen only the orange room, the black-and-white room, and the room filled with guns.”

  “That would be the gun room.” Willow sighed, rubbing her neck.

  “You’re tired,” he said. He knew better than anyone that the last two nights had afforded her little sleep.

  “Perhaps a little,” she said, smiling shyly, “but I do wonder about the garden. Shall we make at least one turn around it? I never called on this job site when the gardeners were not also here. The plants will not be established, but it’s meant to be quite an Eden, I believe.”

  She led him down the main corridor, pointing out the distinctions of each room as they went, and finally stepped through glass-paned doors and down stone steps into an oasis of green.

  “Oh, but my mother would adore this.” Cassin sighed. “She is an avid gardener.”

  The garden was not large, but it had been filled with plants, a lush patchwork of leafy textures and tendrils and every known shade of green. The sound of a gurgling fountain rose from behind a yew hedge.

  “Yes, it did turn out quite nicely,” mused Willow, following a gravel path to a stone bench. “What a shame the party has not moved in this direction.”

  “In my experience, the party moves only in proximity to where the wine is being poured.” He sat down beside her. For a moment, he allowed himself to enjoy the dazed quiet of leaning against her. Her arm was warm against his sleeve, her skirts brushed his leg. He could feel the tickle of her hair on his neck.

  After a long moment, he said, “I should bring my mother to London as soon as I am able. My sisters too. They’ve been very stoic about biding their time in Yorkshire, waiting for me to redeliver us into financial solvency.”

  Willow chuckled. “Oh, only that small task.”

  The sound of the fountain drowned out the distant din of the party.

  “I remember in your letter,” Willow said, “you recounted visits to London when you were a boy and in school. But these people do not seem to know you, not as a grown man. Did you not venture out when you were in London to raise money for the Barbadoes expedition? Before you came to Surrey?”

  “Ah, yes, before Surrey.” He leaned back on the bench. “I did not venture out, no. When we were not mounting our plan for the guano, I approached financiers about money, but nothing more. And you know what became of that.”

  “Surrey.” She laughed.

  He looked at her, trying to memorize the sound of her laughter. “Yes. Surrey.” He looked away. “I have not socialized in London since my father died.”

  “But have you ever enjoyed the city?”

  “I enjoy London very much. I simply haven’t had the time or the resources to go about as earl, not as we did when my father was alive.” He took up her hand. Was there a limit to the number of times he could thank her for the gift of her dowry? “Until today, I suppose.”

  She smiled, causing the freckles on the apples of her cheek to stret
ch. He reached out to rub a thumb across the side of her face. No amount of touching her was enough.

  “Even if there was money, I have been too preoccupied with the bleak state of Caldera to spare London visits. The responsibility of the earldom . . . ” He let out a harsh breath and released her face. He propped his elbows on his knees, dropping his head. “It is colossal.”

  “I cannot believe that you were an idle aristocrat’s son before you became earl,” she said.

  He shook his head. “The irony is that I believed myself to be so ready. I wasn’t idle, but I had very few proper obligations until this bloody business with the mines. Instead, I occupied myself with the relentless pursuit of one meaningless accomplishment or another. Marksmanship, riding, studies, languages—on and on it went. From boyhood, I was an inexhaustible little bugger, you might say.”

  “A competitor,” she offered.

  He shrugged again. “I was the future earl. While some boys might have seen this as license to relax and await the rising tide of privilege, I held the opposite view. I was determined to succeed at every endeavor.”

  “I’ve seen this with my own brother,” Willow said. “My parents expected so much from Phillip.”

  “Well, my parents expected me to be a decent person, and they would not tolerate idleness, but they did not compel me to strive the way I did. The diligence came entirely from my own desire to win. At everything. I was to be the eternal champion. I craved deadlines, even before I inherited the responsibility of earl. I held myself to the highest marks, the rank of first. It was annoying, actually. Have I ever told you how I met Stoker and Joseph?”

  Willow smiled and shook her head.

  “We were at university together, as I’ve said. Norwood, it was called, not far from my home in Yorkshire.”

  “No Oxford or Cambridge for the fiercely competitive future earl?” she teased.

  He made a noise of frustration. “One would assume, but no. I claimed some fealty to the land and schools of Yorkshire and refused to travel farther than Norwood. In truth, I was afraid to take my diligently honed skills so far afield. How would I measure up, going against the sons of other noblemen? I was competitive, but only in a very controlled setting, you see.” He winked at her.

  “I am impressed that you admit so much about yourself,” she said. “Few men can look back and be so critical.”

  “I need only to look at my uncle to see what becomes of a man who cannot be critical of himself.”

  “And so Joseph and Stoker were your friends at school?” she prompted.

  “Not at first. At first I had very few friends, actually. Norwood, although academically rigorous, is unique in that it welcomes students from all classes and stations. This is why Joseph, a former servant, and Stoker, a former street urchin and petty criminal, made their way to its hallowed halls. Good-hearted sponsors prepared them for university and paid their tuition. Young men from all walks may be accepted, from the sons of wealthy tradesmen, to country squires, to clergymen’s sons. And every year or so, a young lordling like myself.”

  She laughed again. “I cannot and will not regard you as a ‘lordling.’ ”

  “Quite so. Please forget immediately that I’ve said it.” He cocked an eyebrow, hoping to look nothing like a lordling. With a cool finger, she reached out and touched his arched brow. Her fingertip was gentle. He captured her hand and held it to his lips.

  “Finish, please,” she said, curling her hand against his mouth. “I must know.”

  “Right,” he said, kissing her hand again and then resting it on his leg. “As you can imagine, my fierce competitiveness and insistence on winning, not to mention my station as one of the few students of rank, caused me to come off as rather . . . insufferable.

  “It’s so clear now, why I refused Oxford,” he said. “Why venture into a large pond that teems with other large fish when I could comfortably glide through a very small pond populated by minnows?”

  “You were afraid of not measuring up? At Oxford?”

  “Afraid? Perhaps, but it was more a matter of why risk it, if I have my own castle and future earldom in Yorkshire, with no plans ever to leave? It was so very safe and guaranteed, don’t you see?”

  “So ironic,” she said, “because the small pond of my girlhood nearly drowned me. I could not wait to escape it. While you reveled in it.”

  “Yes, and revel I did. I reveled until I was so obnoxious, no other student wished to have me in his room.”

  “Stop,” she said. “You weren’t so bad, surely. I adore having you in my room.”

  Cassin blinked at a fresh wave of desire. She smiled and slid her hand farther up on his leg.

  “Minx,” he whispered, stealing another kiss.

  She ducked away and gestured for him to go on.

  “In all honesty, I cannot believe I was so terrible. All of us were too smart, and too young, and too fit for our own good; arrogant young men at an expensive school, with our whole lives ahead of us. The two students who dumped me at the feet of Joseph and Stoker were far more terrible than I was.”

  “You were dumped upon Joseph and Jon Stoker?”

  Cassin nodded. “What happened is this: I was assigned to a room with two other boys, and they were unhappy about the match. Chronic rule breakers, those two—victimizers of weak first-year boys; thieves of unlocked trunks; debauchers of village girls. In addition to my fiercely competitive champion’s heart, I was a natural rule follower. Repeatedly, I foiled their cruelest schemes. And so one night, I suppose they’d had enough. God knows what I had done to irritate them. They vowed to be rid of my sanctimonious, princely behavior, or at least rid of it in their room. So they slipped some kind of poisoned, mind-addling tincture in my food at dinner. When the drug—to this day, I cannot say what it was—took effect, they dragged my addled, staggering, incontinent form into the courtyard.”

  Willow crinkled nose and shook her head.

  “I’ve no idea why I’m telling you this,” he said.

  “I’ve asked you; that’s why.”

  “Should we not return to the party?”

  “After.” She shook her head. “Tell me the rest.”

  “Did I mention the louts had shoved my hulking, adolescent limbs into a woman’s dress, painted my face, and put ribbons in my hair?”

  “Of course they did.” She sighed.

  “I’ve only the vaguest, panicked memory of this, because the poison put me entirely out of my head. And so there I was, barely able to stand, dressed like a fool, losing my dinner down my dress, crying out in frustration.

  “In the minds of most boys, I suppose it was the perfect comeuppance for the earl’s son who was always first to class, the longest report in hand; the boy who practiced the hardest and sang the loudest. And the crescendo of this sad tale”—he sighed—“is that one of my erstwhile roommates gave me a shove as I careened toward the fountain, and I landed, face down, in the water. I was entirely unconscious by this point, and I believe I would have sunk to the bottom and drowned if it had not been for Joseph Chance and Jon Stoker. They happened along, fought their way to the fountain’s ledge, yanked me out, and beat on my chest until I spat up half the fountain.

  “And then, as I choked and sputtered on all fours, they gave my roommates a beating that they likely remember to this day.”

  “Because Joseph and Stoker were so outraged on your behalf?” Willow surmised.

  Cassin shrugged. “Honestly, I think they were simply glad for the opportunity to fight. They are prodigious scrappers, both of them, and to this day they relish a good row. Certainly they have taught me everything I know about fighting.”

  “But after that, you became friends?”

  “Yes, Willow,” he said. “Then we became friends. How could we not? They carried me back to the dormitory, cleaned me up, put me to bed, and regaled me with all the horrid details in the morning. I will be forever grateful to them—for fishing me from the fountain and all the days of friendship that h
ave followed. Even so, they have never viewed it as a debt, God love them.”

  “And now you are partners.”

  “Yes. And now, for better or for worse, I have financed our grow-rich-through-bird-shite partnership by marrying us off to women we do not know.” He took both of her hands and yanked her to him, tipping her into his chest. She laughed and fell.

  “You really don’t seem obnoxious to me.” She pushed up. “At least, not anymore.”

  “Well, thank you very much, madam,” he said. He gathered her into his arms and rested his face against the cinnamon silk of her hair. “How can I be obnoxious when I have impoverished so many families and made myself the self-styled Guano King of an island nobody’s ever heard of?”

  “And you acquired a wife from a London advert,” she recited against his chest.

  For a long moment, he did not answer. He’d never regarded his marriage to Willow as a struggle.

  She pushed off his chest. “It’s true.” She laughed. “This is why you’ve resisted the marriage for so long. It was another humility?”

  He shook his head and bent down to level his gaze with hers, eye to eye. “You were never part of my struggle, Willow. You were the only true win I’ve had since my father died. And I only resisted marrying you for two days. Two days. Very telling, indeed.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “What does it tell?”

  “It tells that I have wanted you from the start, and two days was the outer limit of my self-control. And I should warn you.” He eyed the door and gathered her closer still. “I feel myself pushing up against that same limit, even now. What do you say? Have we given this party its due?”

  “I believe we may have done,” she said. “Certainly we are the only garden-party guests who availed themselves of the garden.”

  “Then let us go,” he said, sweeping her up, “before I avail us both of this garden in a way that Lady Landfair never, ever intended.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Willow laughed when Cassin asked her if she was able to make the journey to Yorkshire on horseback.