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 tospellthis 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 ofanyfertilizer, 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 thisguanois 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.Thisis my venture—well,ourventure.”
“And you need my dowry to . . .purchasethe 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; weownit. 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 thisguano,” 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.”
