Page 45 of A Lady's Heart Deceived
Chapter Twenty-Eight
He had been disappointed to wake alone in the sitting room and find Maggie gone. Piers had initially assumed she had retired to bed, but upon passing her bedroom, he saw that the door was open, and she was nowhere to be seen. Worried, he had searched the house, looking for her.
Only when he finally spied her out of a ground-floor window, standing in the garden and staring up at the nearby church, had his racing heart calmed.
Piers had thought to share a late-night cup of tea and a social chat, but it was clear Maggie was in the mood to talk about more personal matters. When she asked about Lady Dinah, there was a definite spark of life about her.
Explaining the truth about his broken betrothal wasn’t, however, going to be easy.
She was honest with you. Perhaps now it is time to tell her some of the truth. Let her decide what she makes of it.
He cleared his throat, and plunged in. “Lady Dinah and I have known one another since we were children. Our parents had arranged our betrothal many years ago. I grew up assuming I would marry her.”
They had met occasionally over the years and been on friendly enough terms. Neither found the other repulsive enough to call things off. Though love matches were on the increase, arranged marriages were still very much the norm amongst the English noble class.
“After I got back from Europe and the war was over, Lady Dinah’s family pressed to go ahead with the wedding. We officially announced our engagement last year, but a number of things happened, and we kept putting it off.”
Maggie met his gaze. “What sort of things?”
Deuce, how do I explain this?
“Well, for a start, I was still in the army. Lady Dinah wasn’t happy with that and demanded that I resign my commission before we were wed.”
That had been the first real sign of trouble between him and his former fiancée. Dinah was firmly against marrying Piers while he remained in the military. She had made it plain that she was to marry a future viscount, not a captain.
“Her family came to Denford Park earlier this year for a week-long stay. The idea was that settlements would be finalized and a date for the wedding set.” He gulped down a large mouthful of the rapidly cooling tea, shuddering as it went down.
Maggie remained silent.
There was nothing else to do but for him to press on. “During that week, Lady Dinah and I spent some time together. The two of us walked around the house gardens at Denford Park.”
His hopes had been that Dinah would begin to envisage a happy future at the Denford family estate. Picture herself settled and raising a brood of children with him.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
She’d refused his offer to go tramping in the woods and pick bluebells. Nor had she shown the slightest of interest in the bubbling brook he had planned for them to picnic beside. That was where Piers had thought they would share their first real kiss.
Then he had asked if she would like to go out into the field and do a spot of late-night stargazing. The summer evenings were warm enough that a light coat would do. Again, it was the perfect place for a young, betrothed couple to spend some time alone.
Lady Dinah had turned him down flat on that suggestion. She didn’t want to go anywhere with him.
“Suffice to say, Lady Dinah and I quickly concluded that there were major points of difference between us. We agreed that we didn’t suit.”
Piers wasn’t going to make mention that Lady Dinah had made it patently clear that their union was going to be very much based on him toeing the line. Her family was far wealthier than his, her father, an earl. She considered her future husband to be beneath her.
The only saving grace had been the fact that both his and Lady Dinah’s mother had also come to the same conclusion. They’d jointly voiced their concerns about the union and the engagement was finally put to an end.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out between the two of you. But that doesn’t explain why you have kept up the pretense of still being betrothed,” replied Maggie.
He knew all her darkest secrets, her pain—it was only fair that he shared something of his own troubles. If he wanted to be her friend, he had to learn to confide in Maggie.
Where to begin?
“Firstly, let me address the issue of why I am still in the army. I haven’t stayed because I enjoy dealing with mountains of paperwork. Believe me—I hate it. The best I can say is that there is some unfinished business which resulted from my time serving with the Prince of Orange. Until that is cleared up, I cannot resign my commission.”
He pulled at the cuffs of his coat, growing uneasy at having to give voice to his problems. Apart from Jonathan and his parents, few people had any real understanding of his difficult predicament. Maggie was the last person he wanted to drag into his nightmare.
“Lady Dinah is aware that there is an issue. And that little progress has been made over the past year to resolve it. We agreed to keep the end of our betrothal a secret so as not to make other people think that she had passed judgment on me.”
