“He won’t be back,” Willow told her maid, Perry, the next morning. “Not this morning. Not ever, in fact.” In the wake of the earl’s departure, reason and reality poured in and Willow’s optimism had dissolved.
She paced a straight line from her bed to the dressing table and back again. Perry sat in the window seat, sewing a button on Willow’s lavender day dress.
“Gone forever,” Willow repeated, pausing to look out the window over Perry’s head. “And I cannot believe I didn’t see it. But I do see you, Perry, and I see that delicate purple dress. Absolutely not. I cannot work in the purple dress.”
Perry shook her head and continued to sew.
“It’s pointless to make a fuss when no one will come,” Willow went on. “I want practical, not fragile, when I work.”
“Practical?” Perry sighed, biting off the thread with her teeth. “Pretty is what matters today.”
“Today is no different from yesterday,” Willow said, cringing at the memory of the plain blue day dress in which she’d received the Earl of Cassin. “And even if he did come—which he will not—my appearance is of little consequence. An arrangement between us could never work. Yesterday I was . . . I was carried away. I did not think. How can I marry an earl?” This had been the first devastating question to come to her. She took a seat at her dressing table and began to work a brush through the wild curls of her hair, more chaotic than usual after a sleepless night.
“ ’Course you can, my lady,” said Perry, standing up and giving the dress a shake. “You’re the daughter of an earl yourself, aren’t you? So clever and pretty. I think you are very well matched to his lordship.”
“It makes no difference if we are matched, Perry. We are not a pair of candlesticks. But don’t you see? An earl will require an heir. All men want an heir, but a nobleman absolutely must have one. It was ridiculous of me to carry on as I did yesterday, considering my unsuitability in this regard. If he returns—which, I feel certain, he will not—he will be sure to leave again as soon as I tell him. Of this I am certain.” She held the brush still, watching herself say the words in the mirror.
“I say he will come.” Perry brought the dress to Willow and began maneuvering it over her head.
“Yes, but you also believe it will snow on Christmas. And be sunny and warm on Easter.” Willow’s words were muffled through the fabric. Her head emerged. “And it never happens, does it?”
For once, Perry was quiet, preoccupied with the fifty tiny lavender buttons running the length of Willow’s spine. Or perhaps Willow had convinced her. Now she needed only to convince herself.
He will not want me, Willow repeated in her head.
She’d said it a hundred times in the night, and she would say it a hundred more. The Earl of Cassin had seemed too perfect because he was too perfect. Even if a nobleman could overcome the outrageous arrangement of the marriage—a very substantial if—he would never get around the fact that she could not give him an heir.
It was cruelly ironic that she had devised a plan to produce an unaccountable non-husband husband—someone desperate enough to overlook her barrenness—yet the first viable applicant had literally been born unable to accept. Even for a marriage of convenience. Even for £60,000.
To Willow’s great frustration, unexpected tears began to close her throat, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Really, what had she expected, given the limitations of her body?
“Oh, don’t cry, my lady!” trilled Perry. She crouched at Willow’s feet and, grabbing hold of the lavender hem, vigorously fanned Willow’s skirts in and out, like a sail in the wind. Willow yelped and grabbed the bedpost.
She reminded herself that this was why she had avoided men her entire life—this useless, tearful spiral of self-pity. She never moped or felt sorry for herself when she was occupied and diligent. Rarely, if ever, did she think about men and how much happier she always was for the distance.
Until now.
Until the one man, literally among hundreds of men she’d ignored and by whom she was likewise ignored, turned up and reminded her why she never bothered. Until now, when suddenly she wanted to bother very much.
A knock at her bedroom door yanked her attention from the bedpost,
“Do you mind, darling?” said her mother’s voice from the corridor. The door swung wide to admit her mother, Lady Lytton. “You won’t believe what’s happened.”
“My lady,” said Willow, taking two steps toward her. The countess rarely, if ever, came to Willow’s bedroom.
“Abbott sent a maid to fetch you,” said the countess, “but I sent her away and came myself. It’s not every day a gentleman calls on my daughter.” She waved a calling card in her right hand.
“I . . . I beg your pardon?” Willow’s voice belonged to someone else.
“ ‘Brent Caulder, the Earl of Cassin,’ ” her mother read. “Honestly, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I thought he’d come about the roan mare, but he made himself very clear. He is here for you, darling. Your father told you that eventually the gentlemen would come. Oh, and you’ve worn the purple. So pretty. I’ll tell him you’ll be right down.”
Willow stared at her mother. Vaguely, she was aware that Perry had begun to bounce up and down behind her.
Her mother frowned. “Whatever is the matter with your maid?”
Willow reached behind her and grabbed Perry’s wrist.
“Cassin . . . Cassin . . . ” mused Lady Lytton, looking at the card again. “I have not heard of this family, but I shall look them up. When he spoke, his accent suggested somewhere north. Yorkshire, perhaps? However did you meet an earl from Yorkshire?”
“Ah . . . ” began Willow. A benefit of repelling most every man she met was never having to embellish them. “He is an acquaintance of Tessa St. Croix,” she lied.
“Ah, yes, of course,” said Lady Lytton. “Their business dealings acquaints the family with a great many gentleman.”
Willow needed to hear her say it again. “Lord Cassin is here? Now?”
Lady Lytton laughed again. “But you are overcome with nerves, aren’t you? How charming. Of course he will find you lovely; do not fret. And remember . . . ” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “No one can prove what the doctors say about your—about you. It’s better left unmentioned, to be sure. Such an awkward, indelicate topic. Mark my words.”
Willow made no answer, and her mother turned away. “I was meant to watch the grooms run a new stallion this morning,” her mother said. “I have him on loan from Enderby, but I shall put it off.”
“W-why?” asked Willow. If the earl really had come, the last thing the situation needed was her mother’s presence.
“Do not fret. I shan’t hover. But I can hardly leave the two of you alone in the house, now can I? I shall read the papers over breakfast while you receive him in the drawing room. How is that? And Wilhelmina?” prompted Lady Lytton. “Pray do not stare at the man like a fish on a plate. If only you could see your expression. You look terrified. Honestly, I would not expect this from the girl who has begged for months to relocate alone to London. How correct I have been to forbid it, if this is how you react to one young man. His mount is lovely, by the way—a Lipizzan stallion.”
“I am not terrified,” Willow said, the only thing she could safely assert, despite its being not entirely true.