“If you wish to go to London tonight,” she said, “you shall do it. When you wished to go to London after the proposal, you went.”
The vanity drawers were full, and she removed every article without discrimination, tossing them all into the bag. When she leaned to dig deeper in the drawer, he was treated to a generous view of her straining neckline.
“I sent you a note,” he managed to say.
“Oh yes,” she said, “the thoughtful and informativeone-linenote. Thank you so much.” She dragged the velvet bag, now full, to the trunk and dropped it in. She marched to a small writing desk near the window and flung open the drawer.
“If you wish to call upon my aunt,” she went on, “and interrogate her without my knowledge,you may.”
“I could not leave the country without knowing you would be settled in suitable accommodation, Willow. Safe and provisioned for with the comforts to which you are accustomed here at Leland Park, and that is no small thing.”
She pulled page after page of parchment from the desk drawer, scanned it, and then stacked it into one of two piles. “If you wish to sail Barbadoes and muck around in the bird droppings,” she went on, “you may dothat. My brother has the same freedom. He’s gone to India, and we may not see him again for years. Sir Dryden may beat my friend Sabine until her eyes are black if he wishes.”
“Careful, Willow, I’ll not be put in the same lot as Sir Dryden.”
She continued as if she hadn’t heard. “Even Mr. Fisk comes and goes as he pleases. My late father, may God rest him, still lends his reputation and name to my mother. She relies on these to conduct the business of the stables,and he is dead.”
She tossed the last of the parchment into the first stack and looked at him. “Meanwhile, I must ply, and wheedle, and wait and wait and wait, and pay you £60,000, and promise to take no lovers—ah, but wait! God only knows ifyou and Iwill ever be lovers. It’s out of the realm of possibility to apply some supposition to this.”
One of the ribbons in her hair flipped across her nose. She made a shrill noise of frustration and took it by the end and yanked. This set off an avalanche within her coiffure, capsizing the highest braids. Long, roped plaits tumbled down her back, molting pins as they fell. She squeezed her eyes and pulled the ribbon again, harder this time, letting out an angered cry.
“Willow, wait,” he said, and he crossed to her. “Stop. Allow me.”
He was beside her in three strides, gently tugging the ribbon from her frustrated grip, running his fingers along the silk until he’d located the last tenacious pin. Working swiftly, gently, he removed every other offending pin, massaging as he went. Braids were loosened and released. Heavy, creased locks of hair dropped down to her shoulders. Gently, he scratched her scalp.
Willow let out a soft, breathless sigh. Molten desire, which had hovered oppressively just outside Cassin’s consciousness, hit him with throat-closing force. He was swimming in the scent of her, the heat of her, the closeness of her lips, just a breath away.
“I’m sorry, Willow,” he rasped, his best answer under the circumstances. His brain function was growing dimmer and dimmer. And then, “Turn around.”
By some miracle, she complied. He reached for the braids and pins in the back of her head.
“Yes, you are sorry,” she said softly. “And I am sorry. And we’re all so very sorry. And you are leaving Leland Park tonight—alone.”
“I am trying to give you what you want,” he said. He could barely hear his voice over the rush of blood in his ears. With hands that shook, he sifted through her hair for more pins. “I am trying to get you to London.”
“Yes, I suppose you are, and I should not be selfish. If I wait long enough and accept whateverlast thinganyone deigns to tell me, then I shall eventually get some part of what I want. Lucky me. I should not be bothered that you get what you want, always, in every instance, on your terms, and in your own time.”
He heard himself laugh—a coarse, bitter sound. “Is that what you think?” he growled, leaning down to whisper the words into her ear. “That I have everything that I want?”
She sucked in a breath. The room was bright, and he could see the jumping pulse point in her pale, slender neck. It took every scrap of his weakening self-control not to drop a kiss on the spot, to feel the skin throb beneath his lips.
“If that’s what you believe,” he went on, his voice a rasp, “then you are not paying attention. Or are more innocent than I thought.”
She listed a little, swaying toward him, and let out a little sound of desperation or surrender.
Cassin snapped. In one swift movement, he dropped his hands to her waist and spun her around to face him.
“Because what I want,” he said, “what Ireally,desperatelywant has nothing to do with going to London or Barbadoes or the far side of the moon, and everything to do with picking you up, tossing you on that bed, and making you my wife in earnest.”
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
Willow rarely, if ever, indulged in temper fits.
Fits of temper solved nothing; they were largely illogical, and honestly, who in her life would indulge her? Her parents didn’t care, and Mr. Fisk cared so much that no temper was necessary.
But today? Today, she bumped up against some unforeseen limit and burst through.
Willow was a lifelong planner, a writer of lists, a packer of umbrellas on cloudy days, a tester of three shades of black paint before she committed to the perfect ebony. But how could she plan her life if she was only provided with the most pertinent details in the last moment?
