Page 6 of A Lady's Heart Deceived
“Why is there a question mark next to the date, Miss Radley?” he asked.
She softly sighed. “I think that was the year Robert was born, but I cannot be completely certain. It’s a little embarrassing to admit that I didn’t know some of the most important personal details of the man I was going to marry.”
Yes, that is odd. I would have thought a young lady of your social standing would find out as much as she could about a chap before accepting his offer of marriage.
She shifted in her seat, and her gaze dropped to the desk. “Ours was a brief courtship. Robert was worried that he would be sent to war without us ever marrying, so he proposed in late April. On the day after we were betrothed, he offered to take me to Coventry to meet his family. His regiment was based in Coventry. He went home to pack, then I received an urgent letter telling me he had been ordered to ship out for Europe that night. HMSVille de Parissailed from Portsmouth, and I never saw him again.”
A cold dread slid down Piers’s back. He had sailed from Portsmouth on board the same ship, but that had not been until mid-May. Before then, the allies had still been discussing the strategy to deal with a resurgent Napoleon. A vastly undermanned British Army hadn’t been in a position to send troops in April.
Something wasn’t quite right about Captain Robert Taylor and his supposed military service.
“And Captain Taylor told you he was serving with the First Regiment of Foot Guards?”
Miss Radley lifted her head. “Yes.”
It was only one word, but it carried a great deal of weight. An unspoken question. Perhaps even an accusation. Was he daring to call her a liar?
Steady your hand. Focus on what you can prove.
“I did read your letters, Miss Radley. And I also spent an entire afternoon in the military records trying to find Captain Taylor. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t locate him.”
A nervous twitch started in her right eye. She blinked rapidly, but it still remained. Piers couldn’t imagine what might be going through her mind. Two years of grieving over someone and yet, the army said they couldn’t find any record of him.
This was either a case of poor record keeping on the part of the army—highly unlikely, but not impossible —or it was something else. Something more sinister. From the evidence before him, Piers would wager it was the latter.
He wanted to help her. To fill in the gaps and give this young woman some much-needed answers. But if his growing suspicions were indeed correct, he had to tread carefully. “Excuse me for a moment, Miss Radley, I just need to check on something.”
Piers quickly left the room and headed for the open doorway of another nearby office. The corporal seated at the small desk shot to his feet and saluted. Piers returned it, with all due respect.
“Corporal Bates, you are from around Coventry, are you not?”
“Yes Captain. Born and bred.”
“Excellent. Then would you know which regiments are based at the barracks in the city, and also if the First Foot Guards were ever there?”
The corporal’s brows furrowed. “There are no regiments at the barracks these days. Hasn’t been for a number of years. It’s used as a stopping place for the various regiments moving up and down the country. They rest in the barracks during their movements. As for the old First Foot, no. Why do you, ask sir?”
Piers’s unease over Captain Robert Eustace Taylor was growing by the minute. “I have an inquiry regarding an officer who was supposed to be in our regiment in Coventry. I can’t find him anywhere in the records. But his widowed fiancée is adamant that that is what he told her.”
“I see. It doesn’t sound right, sir.”
“No, it doesn’t. Thank you, Corporal.”
Back in his own office, Piers closed the door behind him. He took a slow, deep breath. There wasn’t going to be an easy way to deal with this, but he had to try. “Miss Radley, I think we may have a problem. As I explained in my letter, I have checked the records. If your fiancé had been an officer, we would have his details. The muster rolls clearly show birthplaces, dates of death, regiments, and other notes when necessary. No Captain Robert Eustace Taylor appears in any of them.”
After the end of the battle of Waterloo, a great deal of effort had been put into collecting the names of the men who had fallen. While Piers hadn’t been directly involved, he understood it had taken many weeks. Allied army staff and their French counterparts had worked their way through the bloated bodies on the battlefield, taking copious notes and making long lists of names.
A man could, of course, be missed in amongst all that carnage, but if a man hadn’t existed in the first place, finding him would be impossible.
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, Miss Radley, but what else do you know of this man?”
He had a horrible feeling it wasn’t going to be much.
And that she would indeed take his words to heart.
Chapter Five
Perhaps he hadn’t meant to be insulting, but Maggie couldn’t take his accusation as anything but. She didn’t like what Captain Denford was implying—that she had made it all up. Her fiancé hadn’t been a figment of her imagination. Robert had been lovely.
