“But could they not wait until Sabine and Tessa and I were prepared? It was one thing for me to be caught off guard by your interview, but my friends deserve the advantage of fair warning.”
“You have one day, I believe,” he said, sliding on his gloves. “Stoker and Joseph would like to meet them right away.”
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
Willow traveled to her wedding alone in a carriage, except for her maid, Perry, and Mr. Fisk. It felt oddly fitting, considering Willow’s family’s enduring lack of interest in her, and Perry’s obsessive interest in her hair.
And then there was Mr. Fisk. Dear Mr. Fisk, whose relationship to Willow defied any label. And today he had ridden hard from London through rain and fog to reach her in time for the ceremony.
“Mr. Fisk,” Willow gushed when he poked his head into the parked carriage. Her tight clutch of nerves fell slack at the sight of him.
“Oh no, you mustn’t, Mr. Fisk!” Perry gasped, throwing herself across Willow’s perfectly appointed gown. “Just look at him, my lady! Wet and muddy, and he smells like a lathered horse.”
Mr. Fisk made a face of mock surprise while cold rainwater dripped from the brim of his hat into a basket of the maid’s provisions. Perry squealed and nudged it beneath the carriage seat with her shoe.
“Perry, stop,” Willow admonished with a tsk. “It’s not a real wedding, and we’ve waited days for Mr. Fisk’s return. Climb in, Mr. Fisk, if you can bear your wet clothes an hour longer.”
“ ’Tis a real wedding!” countered Perry, pressing her back against Willow, as if Mr. Fisk’s presence threatened them both.
“I feared I would miss it for certain,” said Mr. Fisk, “when the weather would not clear. But I dare not leave London until I’d answered every query on my list.”
Mr. Fisk had gone to London to prepare for the move; taking into account what Willow could expect to buy and how she should best pack and provision. He surveyed the living quarters and discussed the household with her aunt. He had his own motives too—Willow was sure of it—and so be it. She had long appreciated his watchfulness and forethought. In the last week alone, he’d taken great pains to verify every claim the earl and his partners made about their ship and island, the mining of guano, and the potential of selling it to English farmers.
“You were too thorough, I’m sure,” said Willow. “We do not deserve your diligence. Of course you shall ride with us.”
Perry, who remained in a protective dive across Willow’s lap, made a strangled noise of frustration.
Willow cringed and reached up to feel the braided affair that had taken on sculptural qualities on her head. “Don’t be silly. Perry, you may inflict yourself on my hair with Mr. Fisk inside the carriage, the same as you would do if he was out. And I want himin.” She gave the maid a gentle shove. “In you come, Mr. Fisk.”
Mr. Fisk chuckled and climbed into the carriage. The smell of horse, and rainwater, and cold wind permeated the vehicle, and Perry set about lowering windows.
“Real or not,” said Mr. Fisk, “I would not miss my lady’s wedding.” He winked again and tapped the roof of the carriage, signaling the coachman to drive on.
“Oh, ’tis a real wedding, Mr. Fisk,” insisted Perry, turning from the windows and rummaging through her basket. She came up with a loose end of wine-colored ribbon and began to unspool it, length by length. “The church is real, the vicar is real, the vows will be real, and the groom is a handsome earl who is very real, I assure you.”
With each new reality, Perry unfurled another length of ribbon into a tangle on the carriage seat.
“Yes, well, thehandsome earlhasn’t been seen for almost as many days as Mr. Fisk has been away, has he?”
Cassin had taken himself off to London not long after their conversation in her workshop. He’d sent a slapdash note—I’ve business in London but will return in time for the wedding—and then had not been heard from again. Since that time, Willow had vacillated between anger at herself for caring that he’d gone and anger at the earl for sprinting off. In the end, her feelings amounted to very little. Cassin had gone. It was but a small taste of the months and months he would be gone across the ocean. As far as she knew, it was a small taste of the rest of her life.
“ ’Course, I’ve seen the earl, my lady,” said Mr. Fisk, blotting his wet whiskers with a handkerchief. “In London.”
Willow’s steadily beating heart stopped. “You saw Cassin?” Perry loomed close with the floppy end of a ribbon, and Willow waved her away. “But where? Not in Belgravia.”
“Oh, precisely in Belgravia,” said Mr. Fisk, looking not the least bit alarmed. It was Mr. Fisk’s special talent never to appear alarmed. “Standing, he was, proud as you please, on the doorstep of your aunt and uncle’s fine home, two days after I arrived. Your aunt invited him inside. Took tea, they did, and chatted for more than an hour.”
“Tea?”Willow marveled, wincing as Perry knelt on the seat beside her and began to thread the purple ribbon through her elaborately braided hair. “But why?”
Mr. Fisk shrugged. “The earl seemed to want to make the acquaintance of your aunt and uncle. And have a look at the house. Asked questions about the nature of your work and what, exactly, you would be doing when you join their business.”
The nature of my work?Willow thought, shaking her head back and forth in disbelief.
“Hold still, my lady,” sang Perry.
“I was glad to hear the answers myself, to be honest,” said Mr. Fisk, but Willow barely heard him. Cassin had gone snooping around her aunt’s home and livelihood?
Willow had assumed that Cassin had gone to London to collect her dowry. The lawyers had finished haggling, and her mother’s solicitor had called to Leland Park. Cassin would be expected to appear in person.
