“His threats to Caldera persist,” Cassin added. “In fact, they are mounting.”
“He would endeavor to take the earldom from you?”
Cassin shrugged. “If he knew a way, I’m sure he would.”
“So he wants . . . ” The question trailed off.
“Coal. Always coal. At any cost, even the safety of the men who descend into the earth to pound it out. He seems to have accepted the fact that I will not open the existing mines, but now he hounds me to excavate newer, deeper mines on the land—deep-shaft mines, they are called.”
“But Caldera and its mines, new or old, are not his to decide,” she said.
“One would assume. But he seems to believe that I can be convinced by a chorus of his like-minded coal hounds in London. He’s drawn up a proposal to form a joint-stock company to finance a deep-shaft mine on my land. He’s gone so far as to rally six or seven investors and counting. As if his lot of coal-rich bourgeoisie could sway me.”
She made a snorting noise, and he looked at her. “What?”
“You do see the irony?”
“That virtually anyone will invest in a death-trap coal mine, but the only person willing to invest in the guano was you?”
“Yes, that,” she said softly. She gave a little shrug. He was overwhelmed with the urge to take her up and kiss her again. He forced himself to turn away.
“It’s a wretched combination,” he said, “of my uncle’s boundless ambition and his refusal to take me seriously. I lie awake at night, worrying about his lust for Caldera. It’s his boyhood home; he had already begun to salivate over it at the end of my father’s life. So avaricious, despite the mines he already owns throughout all of bloody England. His greed burns brightest for Yorkshire. It tortures him that I’ve closed the mines.”
“Can I help you deter him when I am in London? I should like to do more,” Willow said.
He laughed again. “You’ve done so much. Your dowry may very well save the earldom from ruin. Looking back, I cannot believe I resisted you for so long.”I cannot believe I resisted you for even five minutes, he thought.I cannot believe I am resisting you now.
She shrugged and glanced at the open door. “You were being responsible,” she said, “when you resisted.”
I’m so weary of being responsible, he thought.
Willow added, “That is why we are not consummating the marriage. We are too responsible.”
Cassin laughed. “I am not that responsible.” He raised an eyebrow.
She blushed more deeply and took a step closer, studying his face. It was a look he knew well, one he dreaded as much as he adored, because it gave him little choice but to stare heatedly back.
Mercy, please, God,he wanted to say.Aquamarine eyes, auburn lashes, porcelain skin. I see it. I see it all, and what good does it, except to stop my heart?
If he wanted to kiss her again, she would allow it—of this, he was certain. But where would one kiss lead? He was not in a position to make promises, and she would accept nothing less. And rightly so. Never did he think her unreasonable; simply that she was not what he had planned for this moment in time.
He sighed and turned away, clearing his throat. “I have prepared a dossier for you, Willow, and I have left it in the care of your aunt and uncle in London. Please look it over when you’ve reached Belgravia. It lists the names of my solicitors and banker, my mother and brother and sisters and their direction at Caldera. They know of you and are curious, naturally. I would not put it beyond my mother to write you and venture some introduction—that is, through the post. You may decide if you care to reply. But be careful; she can be an aggressive correspondent.”
He glanced at her. It was a huge confidence, giving her leave to write his mother, but he trusted her to be contained, and respectful, and to restrict language to well within the bounds of their current agreement.
“The papers in London also include the details of where I will be and how to reach me by post in the Caribbean. The Royal Mail delivers twice a week on the island of Barbadoes—although we can expect five weeks from when you post any letter for it to reach us.”
He forced himself to stop just shy of asking her to write to him. Her face was unreadable, and he could only imagine that his own expression held something akin to tired misery. He was so very tired, exhausted from mustering inhuman self-control and miserable from wanting her.
He finished, “I’ve explained these details to your aunt and uncle as well. London is so very different from Surrey, but they will help you make your way. I would not have abandoned you to them if they had not convinced me of this.”
She nodded once, raising her eyebrows, another unreadable gesture. It occurred to him that she now suffered through yet another moment of being the last to know.
“This is a lot of information in a short amount of time, I am aware,” he said. “I thought a dossier would be the most succinct way, considering my rushed departure. I . . . I hope you can allow for all of it.”
“I don’t see how I have a choice,” she said.
He sighed. “I see your point about being apprised of things at the last minute, Willow. But honestly, I’m only discovering how to manage our very odd relationship myself. It’s not that I—” He paused, searching for the correct word. “It has never been my intent to subjugate you. On top of everything else.”
