“After.” She shook her head. “Tell me the rest.”
“Did I mention the louts had shoved my hulking, adolescent limbs into a woman’s dress, painted my face, and put ribbons in my hair?”
“Of course they did.” She sighed.
“I’ve only the vaguest, panicked memory of this, because the poison put me entirely out of my head. And so there I was, barely able to stand, dressed like a fool, losing my dinner down my dress, crying out in frustration.
“In the minds of most boys, I suppose it was the perfect comeuppance for the earl’s son who was always first to class, the longest report in hand; the boy who practiced the hardest and sang the loudest. And the crescendo of this sad tale”—he sighed—“is that one of my erstwhile roommates gave me a shove as I careened toward the fountain, and I landed, face down, in the water. I was entirely unconscious by this point, and I believe I would have sunk to the bottom and drowned if it had not been for Joseph Chance and Jon Stoker. They happened along, fought their way to the fountain’s ledge, yanked me out, and beat on my chest until I spat up half the fountain.
“And then, as I choked and sputtered on all fours, they gave my roommates a beating that they likely remember to this day.”
“Because Joseph and Stoker were so outraged on your behalf?” Willow surmised.
Cassin shrugged. “Honestly, I think they were simply glad for the opportunity to fight. They are prodigious scrappers, both of them, and to this day they relish a good row. Certainly they have taught me everything I know about fighting.”
“But after that, you became friends?”
“Yes, Willow,” he said. “Then we became friends. How could we not? They carried me back to the dormitory, cleaned me up, put me to bed, and regaled me with all the horrid details in the morning. I will be forever grateful to them—for fishing me from the fountain and all the days of friendship that have followed. Even so, they have never viewed it as a debt, God love them.”
“And now you are partners.”
“Yes. And now, for better or for worse, I have financed our grow-rich-through-bird-shite partnership by marrying us off to women we do not know.” He took both of her hands and yanked her to him, tipping her into his chest. She laughed and fell.
“You really don’t seem obnoxious to me.” She pushed up. “At least, not anymore.”
“Well, thank you very much, madam,” he said. He gathered her into his arms and rested his face against the cinnamon silk of her hair. “How can I be obnoxious when I have impoverished so many families and made myself the self-styled Guano King of an island nobody’s ever heard of?”
“And you acquired a wife from a London advert,” she recited against his chest.
For a long moment, he did not answer. He’d never regarded his marriage to Willow as a struggle.
She pushed off his chest. “It’s true.” She laughed. “This is why you’ve resisted the marriage for so long. It was another humility?”
He shook his head and bent down to level his gaze with hers, eye to eye. “You were never part of my struggle, Willow. You were the only true win I’ve had since my father died. And I only resisted marrying you for two days. Two days. Very telling, indeed.”
She arched an eyebrow. “What does it tell?”
“It tells that I have wanted you from the start, and two days was the outer limit of my self-control. And I should warn you.” He eyed the door and gathered her closer still. “I feel myself pushing up against that same limit, even now. What do you say? Have we given this party its due?”
“I believe we may have done,” she said. “Certainly we are the only garden-party guests who availed themselves of the garden.”
“Then let us go,” he said, sweeping her up, “before I avail us both of this garden in a way that Lady Landfair never, ever intended.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
Willow laughed when Cassin asked her if she was able to make the journey to Yorkshire on horseback.
“I may not obsess over horses the way my parents always have,” she told him, “but I was raised in the shadow of a great stable, and I was taught to ride properly almost before I could walk. Of course we shall ride. As long as my trunk may follow by coach. I do like to have my pretty things, as you may have noticed.”
“ ’Tis true, my lord,” said Mr. Fisk, fastening the locks on her trunk. “You’ll be lucky to keep up with her. It’s honestly a relief to my nerves that she will be your problem now.”
Willow had hugged the old man and assured him she would take care, write often, and return when she could. Behind them, Perry sobbed.
Willow surprised herself by crying a little too, although not until the loyal servants and her friends had gone. Cassin took her into his arms, one of a seemingly endless whirl of embraces and kisses, so many more than she’d ever dreamed that a husband and wife could share. Her parents had always seemed perfectly contented, but she could never remember them actually touching each other. How quickly she could be accustomed to the attention and affection, the intimacy of mornings in bed, of dressing in the same room, of undressing . . .
And now they would ride together, side by side, traveling together to address a family problem together, like partners in the truest sense of the word.
They swept from London at dawn, riding full-out, and Willow smiled into the cold April air. Their pace was not conducive to talking, but they shouted to each other about this or that landmark as they passed. The manicured parkland surrounding Hardwick Corridor near Chesterfield. The slow-moving River Aire. The ruins of Roche Abbey.
