Any Groom Will Do Page 7

  “It does not distress you to join an aunt whom your parents have disowned?”

  “Well, I have not disowned her. Aunt Mary was dear to me as a child. She alone saw that I would not have motherhood to occupy me, and she set me on the path to find satisfaction in another way. I owe her so much. We correspond weekly. When she wrote to say she could make a place for me in their new commissions in Belgravia, I could not help but conceive of some method or means to get myself there.”

  “Why was this aunt disowned?” he asked.

  “Reasons entirely unfounded.” She waved her hand, sweeping away the insignificance. “She married a penniless man of no distinction. He is lovely, of course, and completely devoted to her. She viewed him as an artist—he designs furniture, you see—but the family saw him only as a yeoman laborer, toiling away with his hands. Now the two of them create furniture and design the interior of homes. They are quite renowned in London, really. Certainly he is penniless no more. They’ve made a name for themselves and are sought after by the finest families.” She shrugged. “But none of this matters, does it, when she was the daughter of a rich baron, and he was the son of nobody-knows-who.” She smiled at him.

  “So you would live in the care of this disgraced London aunt. But where? In their . . . flat?”

  She laughed. “Oh no! They live in one of the first townhomes built in Belgravia. Aunt Mary has promised me ground-floor apartments—large enough for me and my man, Mr. Fisk, and my maid, Perry. And if my friends are able to find arrangements for their dowries, they may come too. The accommodations could not be more perfect, really.”

  She beamed as she said it, looking off as if to imagine the perfection of this collective life with her two bosom friends and a fallen aunt and her carpenter husband.

  “Your own apartments,” Cassin repeated. “And your hus—” He swallowed what he almost said, what he had come here specifically not to say, and corrected himself. “The man you marry is meant to pay no mind to an arrangement that your mother will not allow?”

  Her smile fell just a little. Her eyes darted left. “The man I marry will receive a large sum of money to pay me no mind whatsoever. Won’t he?” She looked back.

  “That would depend on what you would be doing and where you would be going, in and out of your private entrance.”

  And there it was, the question he’d wanted to know most of all. His primary question. He raised an eyebrow.

  She laughed again, although it was an uneasy, cautious laugh. “I will be making my dreams come true. Designing the interiors of these beautiful homes.”

  He considered this. An answer that was really no answer at all. He wanted to ask again, to press her and make her define the life she intended to lead as a married woman with an absent husband, but . . . but . . .

  But he was not to be that absent husband, so what could it matter?

  She returned to the sofa and leaned to him, as if intimating a secret. “Look, Cassin, I know the scheme is outrageous and unorthodox. And if it was only me and my dream, I probably would have already given up on the idea. It is exactly the life I have always wanted, an alternative to the family I cannot have. Is it worth deceiving my mother and marrying a stranger under false pretenses? Probably not. But it’s not only me and my dream, is it? When the lives of my friends became complicated in such a way that they, too, could benefit from a fresh start in London, I thought, I can do something about this for all of us.”

  She sat up and waited. She added, “I could but act.”

  Cassin could think of no answer to this, only more questions, and he’d already appeared too interested and too conspiratorial. It was almost as if his time to tell her had come and gone. He sighed and ran a finger through his hair.

  He was just about to ask her about the urgency of her friends’ flight from Surrey when they were interrupted by a fresh wave of barking.

  She laughed. “My mother’s dogs again. She allows them free rein of the house, I’m afraid. I’m sorry for the barking yesterday—and today. They are impossible to contain.”

  “Your mother . . . ” he said, seizing on a topic that neither committed him nor encouraged her.

  “Oh yes, I understand that you have met. Thank you for not . . . er, thank you for playing along.”

  But perhaps her mother was not a safe topic. Before he could stop himself, Cassin asked, “She will consent to your marriage to a perfect stranger?”

  “My mother is only marginally interested in my carryings on, as I’ve said.” She smiled a sad smile. “Her great love is horses, followed by these dogs, followed by my late father. If I tell her I’ve grown fond of an ea—that is, if I tell her I’ve grown fond of a remotely suitable man, she will agree to the marriage without much further thought. After that, her obligation to me will be complete. She is acutely adherent to propriety, and she holds me accountable in the same way, but she will be perfectly happy to have me taken off her hands. If I go to my aunt as a married woman, well—she did her best, didn’t she?”

  “How can you be so sure?” Cassin’s sisters endured unrelenting interest from their mother.

  “Beg your pardon, my lord? Wilhelmina?” sang a voice from the doorway.

  Cassin and Lady Willow spun to see Lady Lytton. She had secured a scarf tightly around her head, and a servant hovered behind her with an open coat. Cassin shoved himself to his feet.

  “I cannot be kept from the morning exercises any longer, I’m afraid,” the countess said. “May I trust that your visit will draw to its natural conclusion very soon? I shan’t wait, but Abbott can show the earl out when you’ve said your good-byes. It was a pleasure to meet you, my lord. If you are available, I host a dinner every Thursday—the local racing community mostly, but I should be delighted to have you as my guest—”

  “I am unsure of the length of my stay in Surrey, my lady,” he said. “If . . . er, business keeps me in the country, I should be delighted to attend.” He cleared his throat.

  “Lovely,” said the countess. “It’s all settled, then.” And then she was gone, trailed by a line of dogs.

  When the front door could be heard opening and shutting, Lady Willow rose. “My mother will believe what she wishes to believe,” she said.

  He looked down at her. She stood so close their arms brushed. He saw the blues and greens of her eyes. He counted three freckles beside her mouth. Her coiffure had begun to drop curls onto her shoulders. She rubbed her open palm on her skirt, smiling a brilliant smile.

  “Dinner on Thursday is not a requirement,” she said. “Truly, fewer betrothals could be less of a bother than the one I offer. You may ask her for my hand, the lawyers will draw up the settlement contract, the ceremony will be small and brief. And it will be done.”

  It was those words that did it.

  Willow Hunnicut was pretty and clever and . . . something more—something he could not quite put his finger on—but this hardly meant he should marry her. He did not want a wife. Moreover, he did not want a wife he hardly knew and would never know, apparently. He had misled her and indulged himself long enough.

  “I cannot,” he blurted.

  “Cannot do . . . which?” She reversed one small step.

  “I cannot—will not marry you,” he said. “As I said yesterday. Not for any amount of money. It is out of the question.”

  She took another step back. Then another. “But . . . ”

  “It’s why I came.”

  “It’s why you came?” she repeated. “But . . . but was it . . . Have I . . . ”

  “It’s nothing that you’ve said or done,” he said. Irritation punctuated his words. He was angry with himself for saying too little too late. She took another step back.

  “The arrangement you offer is not viable,” he said.

  “But if you knew this, why did you . . . ” Her voice had gone high and airy. “I’ve gone on and on. You allowed me to—”

  “It was a mistake not to reveal my intentions when I arrived. I apologize.”
>
  Another step back, another. She collided with the sofa and tipped backward until she sat. “A mistake? A mistake?”

  She popped up on a quick intake of breath. The lone, remaining dog jumped and barked at her feet. “You sat quietly and listened to me prattle on and on about my talents and ambitions and my . . . health—even while you knew all along. I told you—” She spoke in profile. “I told you things that I never reveal to anyone.”

  He held out his hands as if to explain, but he couldn’t think of a useful thing to say.

  “Good-bye,” she said, and she moved to the farthest end of the sofa. “My mother was correct about Abbott. He will show you to the door.”

  “No, you—”

  “Please go.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “I beg your pardon?” said Lord Cassin.

  “I would ask you”—she paused, determined that her voice would not break—“to leave, my lord. We have no more business.”

  You knew better, she told herself. You knew all along.

  “But I . . . ” he began. “It was never my intention to—”

  “Excuses are unnecessary.”

  His expression had taken on a stricken sort of shock; he actually looked a little afraid of her. It was appropriate. She was a little afraid of herself, teetering on the terrible edge where anger and embarrassment collide.

  He had deliberately misled her; he’d sat idly by as she revealed things known to only a handful of people in the world. He’d provoked her with questions, and she’d allowed him to do so, going on and on about her future and her past, the whys and wherefores of it all.

  Meanwhile, he’d known all along.

  I will not marry you for any amount of money.

  He’d known, and she’d known. He was an earl, and she was barren and, well, men simply did not regard her in the wifely way. Even men who would marry her and not know her as a wife at all.

  But now she’d revealed the history of her health and every dream she’d held dear since girlhood, and he was pretending to feel remorse while she was pretending not to be mortified.

  But the pretense ended now. Her vision swam as she strode to the door, and she walked faster. A traitorous tear slid down her cheek, and she looked right as she turned left to hide her hands swiping it away.

  Inexplicably, she heard his footsteps behind her. They were determined, hurried on the marble floor. The remaining dog yipped and jumped at his boots. She walked faster.

  “Abbott?” she called over her shoulder, invoking every known rudeness to actually shout the butler’s name.

  “Lady Willow, stop,” Cassin called. “Please wait. I should like to explain.”

  And I should like to disappear. She cut left down the side corridor that ran the length of the ballroom.

  At the far end of the corridor, her most current project—a small circular vestibule—glowed from the light of its many windows. It was a reading nook, or it would be when she’d finished. He would not follow her there. She was in shock, actually, that he’d followed her out of the blue room. Even her mother’s little dog had not kept pace. At any moment, Abbott would intercept the earl and—

  “Lady Willow, I beg you,” Lord Cassin said behind her. “Please wait.”

  His footsteps were faster now. He made the corner.

  I will not marry you for any amount of money. The words resounded in her head, chasing her, mocking her, and before she knew what she intended, she spun around. “What?” she demanded.

  He nearly collided with her. “Forgive me, I merely . . . it’s just that I—”

  “That you what?”

  Mutely, he shook his head. He held out his hands as if to say, There are no words.

  Yes, she wanted to shout, you’ve made me bloody . . . cry! And Yes, there are no words!

  Pride bade her take a deep breath and school her expression into calm indifference. Mildly, she asked, “What more could possibly be said?”

  “Well,” he began, “I . . . I wasn’t aware that your heart was quite so set on, er, me.”

  Finally, thank God, anger darted ahead of hurt. She welcomed the hot, pointed spike of it. “Don’t flatter yourself, Cassin. My heart is set on leaving Surrey and moving to London. You were a means to an end. Someone else will do just as well.”

  “You’re joking. You cannot mean to continue these . . . solicitations?”

  She spun on her heel and resumed her march down the corridor. “I can, and I shall.”

  “I hope you know that you’re bloody lucky that I was the one who got caught up in your little trap.” He was following her. “I’m a gentleman, but the same cannot be said of nearly any other man you’d care to meet on the London docks. You invite every manner of pirate and charlatan to your door, or worse. It’s a dangerous game you’re playing—to offer tens of thousands of pounds to any reprobate who can read a placard in Redmond Street.”

  She stopped but did not turn. “No one was invited to my door. Not even you—particularly you. Applicants were meant to apply by letter. Everyone has followed the directive, except for you.”

  “Yes, except for me.” He stepped in front of her. “And did you send me away? No, you proposed marriage. Can you conceive, Miss W. J. Hunnicut, of the assumptions I could make about your character, based on this circumstance alone?”

  “You would malign my character when you’ve just interrogated me about my dreams and plans and the state of my health simply because you wanted to know? Or . . . or . . . ” She threw up her hands. “God only knows why you did it. Who can guess your motives? I have been open and honest with you from the start, yet you question my character?”

  His green eyes narrowed. “You are a woman who endeavors to construct her own marriage to a perfect stranger. Not to mention conceal the true nature of the union from her own family and then banish her new husband to the far corners of the globe. I hardly think a return visit for a few unanswered questions was too much to ask.”

  This would have been true, she conceded, if he had not been so unequivocal with his rejection of her. He hadn’t come to weigh unanswered questions, oh no.

  I will not marry you for any amount of money.

  “Are you suggesting that you did not come here with the express purpose of rejecting the arrangement?”

  “I . . . wanted to know more about you,” he said, throwing his hands out.

  They were both winded by the argument. She heard him suck in a breath and hold it. He glared down at her. She raised one eyebrow. His gaze slid from her eyes to her mouth.

  “Know more—why?” she demanded. “If there’s no amount of money that could compel you to marry me?”

  “Because,” he said, “I find you . . . you . . . ”

  She laughed bitterly. “If you are trying to sugarcoat your distaste for me, you are failing. If you are deliberately—”

  “Distaste?” he cut in; now he was laughing. “Distaste is the opposite of my reaction to you, W. J. Hunnicut, and you may be certain that I’m not pleased about it.”

  She opened her mouth to retort, but nothing came out except, “What?” She took one small step back.

  He closed up the step. “You are madder than I thought if you believe I find you the least bit distasteful. But the offer was not to admit that you are a beautiful woman, was it?” Another step. “The offer was to bloody marry you. In fact, if I understood correctly, any attraction I may feel would be an unwelcome waste of time, as your future groom is expected to leave the country. I may be desperate for money, but I’m not that desperate.”

  Willow glared at him. “Desperate, are you? Forgive my skepticism, considering you are an earl.”

  He did not answer, no great shock, and Willow shook her head and stepped around him, resuming her march toward the vestibule at the end of the corridor.

  He swore and said, “Where are you going?”

  “To work,” she shot back. She strode into the vestibule, winding her way around strewn paintbrushes and draped furniture. Go awa
y, go away, go away, she thought, even while she listened for his footsteps.

  Distaste is the opposite of my reaction to you.

  She heard him stop in the doorway behind her. After a beat, he said, “Oh.”

  For some reason entirely unknown, her stomach reacted with a traitorous little flip. He sounded as if he’d come upon an unexpected surprise. She stole a glance over her shoulder. He was looking around the octagonal little room with wide, curious eyes.

  “What is it?” He made a circular twirl of one finger at the room.

  “This is where I entertain my pirates and charlatans.”

  “Clever.” He took one step inside. “A solarium?”

  She shook her head. “There are a great many windows but not that many.” She pointed to another doorway. “It’s a retiring room for ballroom revelers. The ballroom connects through there.”

  “Your family hosts a great many balls?”

  She shook her head. “I cannot remember the last time that Leland Park was host to a ball. Not since my father died, certainly. But this is why I’m doing the room over. It’s such a unique, bright space; why should we not set it up for reading or taking tea?”

  She couldn’t recall anyone ever asking about her motivation for redesigning a room before, not even Sabine or Tessa.

  He looked around the circle of windows, examining the half-completed room. The paint on the walls had dried to a sweet, warm blush color, almost indiscernible from white. She’d left the black-and-white floor tiles untouched, and the contrast was eye-blinkingly cheerful. Footmen had delivered the two pieces of furniture that Mr. Simms recovered in the Portuguese velvet. They were draped in sheets, and she yanked them off.

  “Your mother gives you leave to . . . change everything ’round as you see fit?”

  “My mother does not care what I do, as long as I do not trouble her. We’ve been all over this; in fact, we’ve been over everything. I don’t understand why you continue asking. But perhaps I am to blame. I answer without thinking.”