He pulled the crushed cockade from the wool of his jacket with stiff, jerky movements. “It is a cockade. Most noblemen from the north of England wear some version on their lapels or hats. It represents the white rose of Yorkshire. It is not beyond repair. My sisters will see to it if I send it home. I have others.” He shoved the whorl of white ribbon into his pocket.
“It is important to you,” she asked, “your home, your family?”
He took a deep breath. “More than I can say.”
“Let me help you save them.”
Let me save you from yourself,he thought, and suddenly a question formed in his brain:What is one more person to save?
In all honesty? When added to the scores of tenant miners who unwittingly would have buried themselves alive if he had not intervened?
What was one woman, who he also happened to find wildly attractive and who was trying to force £60,000 in his pocket?
In hindsight, the question was short-sighted and flimsy and barely thought through. But it was enough. It gave him an excuse to say yes. For once, he saidyesto what he really, truly wanted at that one moment in time.
“So this is good-bye?” she asked. She touched a tentative hand to her lips. He nearly choked on a fresh wave of desire.
“I’ll do it,” he said. The words came out low and fast.
She took a step toward him.“Stop.”
“Do not challenge me, Willow,” he said. “You have no idea how difficult it is to go against my own better judgment.”
Her face lit up with a bright smile. She took another step toward him and then paused, uncertain. She slapped her hands over her face, as if she’d just opened a Christmas surprise. Her excitement was palpable; behind her hands, she made small noises of delight.
He wanted to go to her, wanted it more, perhaps, than he had wanted her all morning, but saying the words out loud froze him in a sort ofwhat-have-I-doneramification shock. He needed to think, not launch himself at her. She embodied the opposite of thought. She was impulse.
Go, commanded the self-preserving voice in the back of his head. You’ve said it; you’ve done the precise thing you came herenotto do; now go. Go before . . .
Simply,go.
He felt around behind him and grabbed the knob on the glass door. Not looking away from her, he shoved it open. The first fat, wet raindrops of a storm slapped him in the face, and he ducked his head and hurried down the steps. Stomping through the thick ivy of the garden, he cursed himself, his partners, the bloody island in the Caribbean, and every collapsing coal mine in Yorkshire.
By sheer force of will, he did not look back
CHAPTERELEVEN
Willow stumbled from the vestibule into the long corridor beside the ballroom to discover Mr. Fisk standing sentry at the far end.
“Mr. Fisk,” she said, dazedly stating the obvious.
Mr. Fisk betrayed nothing but the neutral expression of a seasoned servant. “I thought you might wish to know that your mother remains in the stables.”
“Does she?” Willow asked. How reckless she had been to forget about her mother. “Oh, well, that is good news. The stables. I am lucky in this. Good sense and caution does not desert you when I . . . when it deserts me.”
He bowed slightly and chuckled. “We’ll get there, my lady, you’ll see.” He touched two fingers to his brow in mock salute and walked away.
We will, indeed, she thought, but Cassin’s acceptance was too new to discuss. “Thank you,” she called instead, watching him go. His loyalty was a gift she did not deserve, a loyalty he had shown for nearly as long as she could remember.
Alone again, Willow began to drift, walking the beautiful rooms of her home, trying to make sense of the torrent inside her mind. Up the stairs, down the corridors, through the common rooms and servants’ passages, in and out of the kitchen. She’d designed these spaces, meticulously selecting every color, the angle of each chair, the texture of the fabrics. Today, she saw none of it. Today, the journey of her life took precedence over the backdrop.
And what an unexpected journey—Yorkshire, London, coal mines, Aunt Mary, Barbadoes,guanofor God’s sake . . .
She tried to make a guess—a wild, reaching guess—at the possibility that the Earl of Cassin actually meant what he’d said. Regardless, her life would never be the same. He had returned. He had listened. He had shared his story. And he had kissed her. Twice.
It was fruitless to deny or dither or deduce some dual meaning. Her experience with men was practically nonexistent, but she had seen the marked, hungry look in his eye. She’d felt the urgent sweep of his arm when he’d pulled her to him. Nothing about it had been sweet or suave or playful or any of the things that books or, God love her, Tessa led her to believe about kissing men. It had been urgent and fleeting, with an intensity reserved for precious things that had been long lost; for things that had been newly, impossibly found.
And in every way, Willow had concurred.Yes,she’d thought when he’d taken her up.Yes, as his hands roamed her body. In an instant, Willow had released her insecurities about motherhood and her body and the forced distance she imposed on men. It suddenly seemed to matter so very little; it had no obvious relation to this moment at all, and she had simply allowed herself to let go.
