Any Groom Will Do

by Charis Michaels

  Think, think, think, he ordered himself. His brain must get around the grief of Felix and the rage at Archibald and control the situation.

  Blowing out a puff of air, he turned to face his weeping mother, his wide-eyed sisters, and sad, unflappable Ruth. And then, dear God, Willow, still starkly white, her beautiful face lined with worry.

  “No one panic,” he said calmly, reaching for the closest sister, Marietta, and pulling her to his side. The other girls fell like blocks against him. “We’ve informed Archibald of his thwarted plans for any new mines, and no one should be surprised by the result. I’m sorry you had to witness his lunatic rages and threats, but I am too weary to forcibly remove him—yet. That moment will come, never fear. If you’ll remember, we have always known this to be his way—Father used to joke about it, in fact. He’ll be toppled far more easily if he’s puffed himself up, drunk on his own perceived power.”

  He took another breath. “In the meantime, rest assured that you are quite safe—all of you—and I will not leave Yorkshire until he is gone for good. After that, I’m afraid he is correct. I must go back.”

  The women raised a collective cry of protest.

  “You know me well enough,” Cassin said, “to know that I must finish what I have started. But I will put measures in place to keep Archibald and his family out.

  “Despite that,” he went on, “you are all strong and self-sufficient, regardless of how low you may feel at the moment. And you live in a bloody castle. You are surrounded by tenants who would give their lives to protect you.”

  They sniffed and wiped their eyes. A few of them nodded. Cassin smiled. “I cannot say the tenants feel the same way about me at the moment, but their devotion and loyalty to you is unceasing. You are safe, and you should be gratified to know that we are all on our way to being very rich, indeed. Richer than small-scale merchants of coal, to be certain. Archibald may paint my business in Barbadoes as a foolhardy lark, but I assure you that my friends and I are accomplishing all we set out to do. Everyone here will be provided for in the manner befitting an earl and his family. The girls shall have seasons in London, if they desire, and this castle shall be our home for as long as we desire.”

  The end of his speech was met with silence, and he squeezed his sisters more tightly. “We are Caulders, after all. Proud, resourceful, courageous. And takers of great risks. Let us carry on in a manner that would make Father and Felix proud.”

  This was met with first a snicker, and then a laugh, and then full-on laughter. Felix had been acerbic and cynical, an academic through and through. He would have had little time or care about family pride or enduring spirits. He would have endured Cassin’s attempt with a raised brow, a sarcastic comment, and an expeditious retreat.

  When their laughter turned, inevitably, to tears, Cassin disentangled himself from his sisters and left them to comfort each other, for better or for worse. He sought out Willow’s gaze and gestured to the vestibule.

  “Are you alright?” he asked, when she met him near the door.

  “Me? Oh. Yes. Your family is lovely, Cassin. I’m so sorry for what we have discovered. Your brother . . . . ”

  Cassin nodded. He wanted desperately to grab her up and bury his face in her hair, but time was suddenly, urgently, of the essence. If he intended to make good on his promises to his family, to arrange protection for them, to save the whole bloody place from his uncle’s crazed threats, he would have to think cunningly and move quickly.

  “Can I leave you here with my mother while I see to estate business?”

  She nodded immediately, perhaps a little too immediately, and he saw tears shining in her eyes. Her grief touched him, and he reached down to scrape a kiss on her neck. She made a whimpering noise, and he breathed in the scent of her. “Thank you,” he whispered against her skin.

  And then he kissed her mouth and strode out the door. He whistled for a horse and rode out to pay his respects at his brother’s grave.

  After that, he would call on the tenants, one by one.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The master suite of Brent’s castle was more opulently turned out than any room on the property. The rugs were not threadbare; the drapes were fresh velvet. The bedclothes were new and expensive.

  Ruth had given Willow a tour of the castle’s family wing before dinner, and although Willow had been too anxiety-stricken to pay close attention, it was impossible for her designer’s eye not to see that the castle, albeit a historical marvel, was in desperate need of new . . . everything. And more of most things. It needed better-crafted pieces of furniture and more thoughtful placement. It needed new window dressings. Fresh paint. The list went on and on.

  Despite this, the design of the dwelling was not in the forefront of her mind. Instead, Archibald Caulder’s threats followed her from room to room, echoing in her mind. She’d gone miserably along until Ruth led her to Cassin’s bedchamber, the only truly beautiful room.

  And now, she waited.

  She wondered idly if Lady Cassin had arranged for the thoughtful attention to the earl’s suite, or whether Cassin himself had arranged them. It was a shame, either way, because the room had sat empty most of this year and the last.

  Future years? Willow could not say. She would not be a part of Cassin’s future, and it made her physically ill to look at the massive four-poster bed and think of her husband taking another woman . . . a young, fertile woman . . . into it, while she—

  Well, she had not been able to think her way through what she would do. Hopefully, they would be able to annul the marriage, so she would not be forced to endure the stigma and ostracism of divorce. If the marriage was annulled, she could likely return to Aunt Mary’s and Uncle Arthur’s, to carry on as their apprentice and perhaps eventually take on design clients of her own. That had been her plan all along, hadn’t it? To live with Sabine and Tessa in London and create beautiful places for distinguished people?

  Cassin and her love for him had been a new dream, a dream in which she should have never allowed herself to indulge. She had been selfish to even consider it, and now she would pay the price in heartbreak.

  And his family, his lovely family, would pay the price in confusion and alarm and, likely, outrage.

  Cassin himself?

  Well, likely he would be upset for a time (another cause for guilt). But he would recover. He was a wealthy man, an earl with a bloody castle; he would have his pick of women throughout Yorkshire and beyond.

  Willow sighed and fell back into the cushioned window seat of Cassin’s bedchamber. It was a beautiful spot, perched against a window with gill-shaped panes, both transparent and stained glass. She could see the stars twinkling over Yorkshire, magical and serene. She saw his mother’s garden, silver-green in the moonlight. She saw the long, winding road that would take her away from this place, possibly very soon. Possibly tomorrow. The sooner the better, really. The longer she remained, the more painful her heartbreak would become.

  Idly, she played with the wedding ring Cassin had given her, turning it on her finger, gazing at the green stone. Would it be too painful to keep it, she wondered. Would the sight of it, or even the knowledge of it locked away in a drawer, prevent the shattered pieces of her heart from eventually fusing awkwardly back together?

  She tugged on the gold band, testing its give. She was hit with a wave of misery so complete she nearly toppled from the window seat. She squeezed her hand into a fist.

  No, she could not remove it. Not yet. There was too much love and hope and unadulterated joy imbued in the hard, warm metal of the band and the multifaceted twinkle of the stone. And now the tears began to fall, more tears than she ever thought possible, and she held her closed hand to her heart, rested her face on her knees, and sobbed.

  The crying, perhaps, prevented her from hearing the heavy chamber door open and close. Or perhaps it was the numb, floating detachment with which she now regarded the world beyond her anguish.

  “Willow,” sighed a fa
miliar voice.

  She looked up.

  Cassin stood in the center of the room, his hair wild, his eyes bloodshot, his waistcoat dragging from his hand.

  “Willow,” he repeated, his voice raw. His expression called to her.

  Willow’s heart squeezed so tightly she thought she would never again draw breath. Fresh tears shot to her eyes, and she bit her lip, willing herself to be strong. She scuttled back into the corner of the window.

  “Ruth led me to this room,” she said formally. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  He bent his head, looking at her with tired confusion. He dropped his waistcoat on the floor.

  “Willow, please,” he said. His voice sounded so very tired.

  An unspecified entreaty was not what she expected, and she did not answer. She listened, trying to hear over the pounding of her heart.

  He trudged to a chair before the fire. “Will you help me pull my boots?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, pushing farther back. The blue velvet curtains nearly swallowed her.

  “Why not?” He collapsed into the chair and leaned his head back, staring at the beams of the ceiling.

  “I think it is better that we not touch.”

  He looked like a man who had gone ten rounds in a boxing match. She held fast to the cushion of the seat to prevent herself from going to him.

  “Now, why, I wonder,” he said flatly, speaking to the ceiling, “would it be better, on the day I learn of my brother’s death, and the day I go toe to toe with an uncle who would like to see me dead, and on a day I’ve been shouted at, and complained to, and challenged by desperate families in my care—why, at the end of that day, would I be better off not being touched by my wife? I ask you. Please tell me. Because the prospect of touching you, honestly, Willow, has been the only thing that has seen me through this day.”

  Tiredly, he raised his head and looked at her.

  She shrank back. “Make me out to be cold and heartless if you must, Cassin, but—”

  “Call me Brent, for God’s sake,” he said, dropping his head back.

  “I will not call you Brent,” she said, coming out from the curtain. She edged to the lip of the window seat. The malaise and self-pity of the day transformed, somehow, into angry energy. “I will not pull your boots. I will not be your source of comfort, Cassin, on this terrible day when you so desperately need it—when I so desperately need it—because it will only make matters worse, more wrenching.”

  “Forgive me if I cannot see how things could become worse than they are.” He sat up and began to work off his boots. “I suppose if Stoker’s brig sunk, and we lost our payload. That would be worse. But let us not invent challenges. We have enough actual problems at the moment.”

  “True,” Willow said, carefully stepping from the window. She did not trust herself not to go to him. “Which is why I will not prolong the intimacy that we have shared as husband and wife. The longer we are intimate, the more difficult it will be to separate. At least for me. As I said, I’ve only remained in your room because I didn’t know where else to g—”

  Cassin was out of his chair and across the room before she could finish. He took her up by the arm, bringing his face within inches of hers. “Do not even pretend,” he growled, “that we will end this marriage, madam. Do not.”

  Willow pulled on her arm, but he would not let her go. “I’m not pretending,” she said, unable to stop a rush of tears. “I won’t remain married to you when I cannot provide you with an heir.”

  She jerked her arm again, and he released her. She staggered back and then skittered to the other side of the bed.

  He stalked her. “You believe me to care more about an heir than my wife? I don’t even care about my uncle, if it comes to this!”

  “Comes to what?” she cried. “You have a home and a family that you love. Now that you have shown it to me”—she gestured frantically around her—“I can see why. You have a responsibility to the families on your land, and you take this seriously, as you should.

  “Likewise,” she went on, “you require a wife who can bear you healthy sons who will keep Caldera from the hands of your uncle. I will not be the reason that you cannot prevent his aggression—not when literally any other woman in the world could bear children for you. In time, you could come to love another woman.” Willow’s throat burned around the words.

  “Explain to me what you intend,” he said cruelly. “You would divorce me?”

  He rounded the bed and reached for her, but she dove. She landed in the center of the bed and skittered across it.

  “No, an annulment,” she said, panting with the exertion, “I had hoped you would annul the marriage. If you tell the judge that you’ve only just learned I am barren, he will grant—”

  Cassin caught her by the ankle and pulled, dragging her back across the bed. She closed her eyes and let herself be dragged. His strength exceeded hers. He was so angrily opposed to her suggestion—so much more opposed than she had predicted—and in the pit of her stomach, deep down below the knot of fear and hurt and the thousands of sharp, heavy pieces of her broken heart, a very tiny spark of hope had begun to flicker. And the stronger, and bigger, and angrier he became, the brighter it shined.

  “Listen to me, madam,” he said harshly, flipping her over, “and listen very well, because I’m already bone tired and emotionally spent, and I haven’t the power for another battle today. A battle with you, of all people. There will be no annulment; there will be no divorce. You are my wife, despite the known fact—known within a day of making your acquaintance—that you will never bear children.”

  “But Cassin,” she cried.

  “Brent,” he growled.

  “But your lordship,” she corrected, the flicker growing into an earnest flame, hotter and hotter.

  Cassin growled again and reached for her right foot, drawing her leg up. She’d been dressed for dinner, and she’d wore silk slippers beneath a pink gown. He ripped the left slipper from her foot and threw it across the room.

  “You will spend your life building Caldera to be the estate and castle that you want it to be,” Willow cried. “Safe for your tenants. Home to your mother and sisters for as long as they like, just as you said today. And for what? So that your cousins will take it over and boot them all out when you die? I won’t do it,” she said, kicking him in the shoulder with her bare foot. “I won’t do it.”

  “And what care have I,” he shouted, taking up her other foot and ripping off the slipper, “for what happens after I’m dead, if I’ve been forced to live my life without you? What could I possibly care, Willow?”

  He dropped her legs back to the bed and fell over her, holding himself off her with his arms on either side of his head. She stared up and saw that his eyes had filled with tears.

  “What life would that be, Willow?” he asked harshly. “Without you? No life at all—that’s what. A life I cannot even fathom. I love you, Willow. And my love for you is greater than my love of this castle or my fear about my uncle and his bloody reptilian sons.”

  She blinked up at him, trying to see him clearly through the tears in her eyes. Quickly, before she lost heart, she allowed herself to swipe out a hand and grab the front of his shirt and to hang on, holding him there.

  “We’ll sort something out,” he said. “My God, I’ve married a woman I didn’t even know for £60,000 and then spent five months pulverizing bird droppings—all in an effort to bloody, sort something out. Does this not prove my willingness to be creative and resourceful?”

  “But . . . ” Willow began, the hope in her chest now burning like a bonfire, tears streaming down her face and into her ears, “but there is no way around not being a father, Brent. It’s so very final. Such a sacrifice.”

  “And what of your sacrifice? I’ve not even had the time or, honestly, the bloody nerve to ask you how you feel about this moldering castle. But there is little help for whether you like it or not. You’ve married me, and Caldera w
ill be your home, at least some part of every year. Perhaps we can spend some time in London, but your dream of living there? Of designing the new homes in Belgravia? That dream, precisely as you saw it, will not be—not if you are married to me.”

  He dropped to his knees, laying his body across her, dipping his face just an inch from hers. “And you are married to me, Willow Caulder, Countess of Cassin. Irrevocably, you are married to me. Can you sacrifice your dream of living in London?” he whispered.

  “It’s not the same,” she whispered. “My not designing the interiors of homes is not the same as your never becoming a father. No nobleman in England would consider it to be the same. No nobleman in England would knowingly remain wed to a woman who cannot procreate.”

  Cassin growled with frustration. “You speak of this circumstance with your body as if it is your fault, Willow, and it’s not. Barrenness is not a . . . a character flaw for which you must apologize. It simply is. Like your beautiful red hair. Or your clever blue-green eyes. I don’t care what other noblemen might or might not do. I refuse to hold this circumstance against you—as if it’s some deficit we should all feel mournful about. I’m not mournful about it. All I feel is love. For you. Great love. Love that cannot be annulled or divorced away. No matter what you think.” He dipped his head and nudged her nose with his, once, twice.

  Willow closed her eyes. “I love you, Brent. I love you enough to let you go.”

  He growled again and swept his arms beneath her, gathering her up. “Stop saying that. Please, good lord, have mercy on me. I’ve dealt with enough agony and wretched news today.” He buried his face in her hair. “Of all the times to come at me with this, Willow, bloody hell. I’ve only survived till this moment because I knew I would eventually get to climb up to this room to you.”

  Willow released his shirt and wrapped both of her arms around his neck, clinging to him.

  “You said every correct thing,” she said, kissing the side of face again and again. “You said everything exactly, perfectly correct. Everything about you has always been exactly, perfectly correct.”