“I’ve seen this with my own brother,” Willow said. “My parents expected so much from Phillip.”
“Well, my parents expected me to be a decent person, and they would not tolerate idleness, but they did not compel me to strive the way I did. The diligence came entirely from my own desire to win. At everything. I was to be the eternal champion. I craved deadlines, even before I inherited the responsibility of earl. I held myself to the highest marks, the rank offirst.It was annoying, actually. Have I ever told you how I met Stoker and Joseph?”
Willow smiled and shook her head.
“We were at university together, as I’ve said. Norwood, it was called, not far from my home in Yorkshire.”
“No Oxford or Cambridge for the fiercely competitive future earl?” she teased.
He made a noise of frustration. “One would assume, but no. I claimed some fealty to the land and schools of Yorkshire and refused to travel farther than Norwood. In truth, I was afraid to take my diligently honed skills so far afield. How would I measure up, going against the sons of other noblemen? I was competitive, but only in a very controlled setting, you see.” He winked at her.
“I am impressed that you admit so much about yourself,” she said. “Few men can look back and be so critical.”
“I need only to look at my uncle to see what becomes of a man who cannot be critical of himself.”
“And so Joseph and Stoker were your friends at school?” she prompted.
“Not at first. At first I had very few friends, actually. Norwood, although academically rigorous, is unique in that it welcomes students from all classes and stations. This is why Joseph, a former servant, and Stoker, a former street urchin and petty criminal, made their way to its hallowed halls. Good-hearted sponsors prepared them for university and paid their tuition. Young men from all walks may be accepted, from the sons of wealthy tradesmen, to country squires, to clergymen’s sons. And every year or so, a young lordling like myself.”
She laughed again. “I cannot and will not regard you as a ‘lordling.’ ”
“Quite so. Please forget immediately that I’ve said it.” He cocked an eyebrow, hoping to look nothing like a lordling. With a cool finger, she reached out and touched his arched brow. Her fingertip was gentle. He captured her hand and held it to his lips.
“Finish, please,” she said, curling her hand against his mouth. “I must know.”
“Right,” he said, kissing her hand again and then resting it on his leg. “As you can imagine, my fierce competitiveness and insistence on winning, not to mention my station as one of the few students of rank, caused me to come off as rather . . . insufferable.
“It’s so clear now, why I refused Oxford,” he said. “Why venture into a large pond that teems with other large fish when I could comfortably glide through a very small pond populated by minnows?”
“You were afraid of not measuring up? At Oxford?”
“Afraid? Perhaps, but it was more a matter of why risk it, if I have my own castle and future earldom in Yorkshire, with no plans ever to leave? It was so very safe and guaranteed, don’t you see?”
“So ironic,” she said, “because the small pond of my girlhood nearly drowned me. I could not wait to escape it. While you reveled in it.”
“Yes, and revel I did. I reveled until I was so obnoxious, no other student wished to have me in his room.”
“Stop,” she said. “You weren’t so bad, surely. I adore having you in my room.”
Cassin blinked at a fresh wave of desire. She smiled and slid her hand farther up on his leg.
“Minx,”he whispered, stealing another kiss.
She ducked away and gestured for him to go on.
“In all honesty, I cannot believe I was so terrible. All of us were too smart, and too young, and too fit for our own good; arrogant young men at an expensive school, with our whole lives ahead of us. The two students who dumped me at the feet of Joseph and Stoker were far more terrible than I was.”
“You weredumpedupon Joseph and Jon Stoker?”
Cassin nodded. “What happened is this: I was assigned to a room with two other boys, and they were unhappy about the match. Chronic rule breakers, those two—victimizers of weak first-year boys; thieves of unlocked trunks; debauchers of village girls. In addition to my fiercely competitive champion’s heart, I was a natural rule follower. Repeatedly, I foiled their cruelest schemes. And so one night, I suppose they’d had enough. God knows what I had done to irritate them. They vowed to be rid of my sanctimonious, princely behavior, or at least rid of it in their room. So they slipped some kind of poisoned, mind-addling tincture in my food at dinner. When the drug—to this day, I cannot say what it was—took effect, they dragged my addled, staggering, incontinent form into the courtyard.”
Willow crinkled nose and shook her head.
“I’ve no idea why I’m telling you this,” he said.
“I’ve asked you; that’s why.”
“Should we not return to the party?”
