Forgotten Fiancée (London Ladies Book 3) Page 14

  Had he been this rash and reckless and filled with prideful anger when he was her age? Even more so, Miles thought with a rueful shake of his head. “I know you do, lamb. I know. But I love you.”

  “Well you certainly have a peculiar way of showing it.”

  He met her accusing stare without flinching. “Just let me say what I have to say. If you still want to go when I am finished, then you can go. I will not stop you.”

  “No, you’ll only take away my dowry,” she said bitterly.

  “Harp…”

  “Oh, go ahead,” she said with a sharp wave of her arm. “Let’s hear it.”

  “I am sorry I left you all alone, Harper. When I left England… When I left England I never stopped to consider what affect my actions would have on those I loved. No, that is not completely true,” he admitted, for what was the point of asking for forgiveness if he did not do so honestly? “I did consider it, and selfishly placed my needs above those around me. Above you. Above Mother. Above Father.”

  Letting go of the armrests, Harper flexed her fingers and sat back, tucking her legs up and leaning the side of her face into an open palm. It was a pose she’d adopted countless times before, when their relationship was well and she never would have dreamed of saying she hated him. “Above Dianna?” she asked, eyes narrowing as she carefully watched for a reaction.

  Finding the sting of rejection still too fresh to comprehend, Miles managed a nod but could not bring himself to speak Dianna’s name. “Yes. Her as well.” Her most of all.

  “Why did you do it, then?” Tiny grooves of bewilderment formed on either side of Harper’s mouth as she frowned. “Why did you leave?”

  Why did you leave?

  It was a question he’d asked himself a thousand times over. A question he hoped he was, at long last, finally ready to answer. “Because I was a selfish bastard not yet ready to face his responsibilities.” He closed his eyes. Opened them. “Bloody hell, I was barely more than a boy being asked to marry a girl I thought of more as a sister than a wife. I wanted to experience the world. I wanted to learn about other places and cultures from traveling there firsthand, not reading about them in the pages of a damn book. I wanted to make my own decisions. To be responsible for my own actions.”

  “You think of Dianna as your sister?” Harper interceded skeptically.

  Had the girl not heard a word of what he’d said? “Thought. I thought of her that way. But that has nothing to do with-”

  “And now?”

  “Now I - what does it matter what I think now?”

  What happened to you?

  You did.

  “I think it matters very much, whether you are willing to admit it or not,” Harper said, straightening in her chair and dropping her feet to the floor. Her heels fell with a quiet thud, bare toes curling under until they vanished beneath the hem of her nightgown. “I understand why you left. I even suppose, because I am a generous, kind-hearted person and the best sister a brother could possibly ask for, that I can even forgive you.”

  Miles exhaled sharply. “Harper, I-”

  “I am not finished. You had your time to speak. Now it is my turn.” Toying with the end of her braid, she fixed him with a steely-eyed stare that took him aback and for the first time since his return forced him to see that Harper was no longer the pig-tailed imp he’d left behind with dirt on her cheeks and an ever-pressing need to follow him wherever he went.

  Sometime during his absence she had grown into a strong-willed, intelligent, opinionated adult. It seemed almost impossible that only four years could bring about such a change, but the evidence of her manifestation from girl to woman could be neither denied nor ignored.

  One thing did remain the same, however.

  He still wasn’t letting her marry until she turned forty.

  “I am happy you decided to come home, Miles. Truly. I wish you never left, but I know what it is like to feel forced into a space that isn’t quite big enough. To feel like you are a puppet, and someone else is pulling the strings.” The fingers combing through her braid abruptly stilled. “I blamed you for father’s death, you know.”

  The admission, so bluntly spoken, caught Miles like a fist to the gut. His throat tightened, vocal chords seizing. “I blame myself,” he managed gruffly when he was able to rein in his emotions enough to speak. “If I had not left-”

  “If you had not left he might have still become sick, or been in a carriage accident, or thrown from his horse. It was wrong of me to blame you, and you shouldn’t blame yourself. People come into the world when they are meant to, and leave just the same.” Harper’s narrow shoulders lifted and fell in an absentminded shrug. “It is not for us to decide who is born and who dies. The only thing we have control over is our own actions.”

  “When did you become such a philosopher?” Miles wondered aloud. And when did you become wiser than me?

  Harper’s mouth quirked. “I do not have anything in common with girls my age. All they talk about is fashion and men and all the latest trends from Paris.” Her eyes rolled. “So instead of going to tea parties and luncheons and shopping expeditions, I spend all of my time reading. I’ve also taken to writing. Silly stories, mostly, but maybe if you would like to read one…” she trailed off, cheeks flushing with color.

  “I would love to read whatever you’ve written,” he said sincerely.

  “You would?”

  The hopefulness in Harper’s voice tore at his heart. For how long had she gone unnoticed in this dark, drafty house? For how long had she been forsaken by a mother who would rather mourn her dead husband and missing son than spend time with her only daughter?

  A young lady Harper’s age should have been out experiencing the world and all it had to offer, not locking herself in a library reading book after book from dawn until dusk.

  “Absolutely,” he said with a firm nod. “Things are going start changing around here, Harp. Beginning this very moment. I want you to go upstairs and get dressed. We are taking a ride into town to get anything you might need before we leave for London. Which we will be doing… tomorrow,” he decided impulsively. The Season would not begin for another two weeks, but families often moved their entire households two months in advance of the social whirlwind that took London by storm every October. He’d been intending to stay in the country as long as possible… for Dianna. Now there was nothing keeping him here, and even though he was still not looking forward to playing the part of chaperone - if only because it meant his presence would be required at every bloody social function known to man - he would do it for Harper, and because it would help take his mind off the one woman he couldn’t stop thinking about.

  “Tomorrow?” Harper said in dawning horror. “But I do not want to go at-”

  “Tomorrow. No arguing.” He held up a hand when her lips parted. Expression mutinous, she crossed her arms and slumped back in her chair. Miles chuckled. “Look at me like that all you want, but you are still going. You should have had your debut last year. I will not allow it to be delayed again.”

  “But why?” she wailed. “I hate balls and dancing.”

  That makes two of us. “You hated me a moment ago,” he reminded her.

  Harper stood up, muttered something under her breath he couldn’t quite hear and marched towards the hall. In the doorway she stopped short, however, and cast him a speculative glance over her shoulder. “I am glad things are changing,” she said after a pause, “but if you don’t fix the mistakes of your past you are bound to repeat them.”

  “I will not leave again,” he said automatically. It was the truth. The very second he stepped foot onto firm British soil, Miles knew his wandering days were behind him. He hadn’t lied to Dianna. He did want a wife, and a family. In short he wanted everything he’d run from before.

  It did not escape Miles that if he had wanted then what he wanted now he would have it. Instead he had nothing, and no one. Except for Harper, he reminded himself as a fierce sense of protectiv
eness came over him. If nothing else, he would see her life brought round to right. Something good had to arise from the charred ashes of his leaving, and if it could not be his own happiness, then he would make it be hers.

  “I will not leave you again,” he repeated. “I swear it, Harper.”

  “That is not the mistake I was referring to,” his sister said cryptically before she disappeared down the hall, leaving a deafening silence in her wake.

  Lowering his head into his hands, Miles closed his eyes... and tried desperately not to think of what could have been.

  “What does a kiss feel like?” Her cornflower blue eyes as wide as he’d ever seen them, Dianna fidgeted anxiously from foot to foot, twisting the bonnet she held in her hands until it was little more than a crumpled scrap of muslin and bent feathers.

  “A kiss?” Miles scoffed even as his heartbeat accelerated inside of his chest. Thump thump. Thump thump. Lifting a long, lanky arm over his head he grabbed hold of a tree branch, calloused fingertips digging into the smooth bark. “Everyone knows what a kiss feels like. I’ve kissed you before, remember?”

  All around them people talked and laughed quietly in groups of twos and threes, enjoying the picnic held on the sprawling back lawn of his family’s country estate. For most of the afternoon he’d managed to avoid his pesky fiancée, but after dessert she’d finally cornered him under the long rustling bows of a willow tree.

  Dianna bit her lip. “I don’t,” she admitted shyly, peering up at him beneath a dusky fringe of golden lashes. “And you kissed me on the cheek. It didn’t count.”

  Miles felt his stomach slowly tighten into one hard knot. Another part of his anatomy was growing hard as well, and he hoped his trousers were loose enough to disguise it. “It feels… good,” he said after a pause, for the truth of the matter was that he’d only experienced four kisses of his own, and none of them had been particularly memorable except for the one he stolen from one of the tavern wenches in town and then only because he’d earned a ringing slap for his trouble. “Do you want to see if there is any chocolate cake left?” he asked in a not-so-subtle attempt to change the subject.

  Kisses were just one of those things a young man did not feel comfortable discussing with a lady, and certainly not a lady like Dianna. She was too… nice. Yes, that was it, Miles decided as he studied her rapidly flushing countenance. And he’d known her too long. Since they were infants, practically. Which made her more of a sister than a fiancée, and any discussions on kissing taboo, even if one day they would be expected to kiss quite a great deal.

  Unfortunately, Dianna did not seem to share his opinion and even though her round cheeks had turned red as tomatoes and her bonnet was irreparably ruined, she persisted with her chosen topic. “How good did it feel?”

  “How good did what feel?” Miles said evasively.

  “The kiss, silly! How good did the kiss feel?”

  “Keep your voice down,” he hissed, his own face taking on a warmer hue as he imagined one of his friends overhearing their discussion. How they would laugh! As if they didn’t laugh enough as it was. As the only fifteen-year-old boy in all of England to already be engaged (at least, that is what it felt like) Miles had endured his fair share of jokes and jests. He certainly didn’t think it was amusing, but if he took offense the jokes simply got worse and so he’d learned early on to laugh with his friends instead of shoving his fist down their throats.

  “I just wanted to know,” Dianna mumbled, shoulders slumping. “I am sorry if I upset you.”

  Miles dragged a hand through his hair. Hell. At moments like these he wished he could simply turn on his heel and walk away, but the pang of guilt he felt for inadvertently hurting Dianna’s tender feelings kept him rooted to the spot. Guilt, and something else. Something else he didn’t yet have a name for. “You didn’t upset me.”

  She lifted her head, blue eyes hopeful. “I didn’t?”

  “No. It’s just… an unusual question.”

  “I do not think so,” she said, taking him by surprise. The epitome of a well-bred English rose, Dianna had never done or said anything in his presence that could ever be considered inappropriate.

  Until right now.

  “We are going to be husband and wife one day, which means-”

  “If,” he interrupted, only to inwardly curse himself when her bottom lip wobbled.

  “If?” she repeated in a tiny little whisper. “What do you mean?”

  Everything Miles desperately wanted to say lingered on the tip of his tongue, but not wanting to hurt Dianna, not wanting to see her beautiful blue eyes shimmer with tears and her mouth do the little quiver that tore at his heart, he swallowed the words back. “Nothing. I meant nothing by it.”

  “Are you certain?” she asked.

  “Yes.” The lie felt heavy in his mouth, but Miles knew it was better than the alternative. How could he tell her what he truly felt? That he didn’t know, not for sure, if given the choice she was the one he would have chosen for himself. That he didn’t even know if he wanted a wife, or all the obligations that would come with being married. “I am.”

  Dianna toyed with a lock of long blonde hair that had come loose from its neat coiffure. “Very well. I only meant to say that when we are husband and wife one day, we will be expected to do… well… you know.”

  “Kiss?” Miles suggested innocently, and couldn’t help but grin when her entire face turned red. “You are the one who started this conversation you know,” he pointed out. A conversation he was now rather enjoying, not that he would ever admit it.

  “Yes.” She gave a heavy sort of sigh. “I suppose I was curious. What if… well…” But her temporary surge of courage seemed to have left her, leaving the question unfinished. “Never mind,” she muttered, turning away. Without thinking, Miles took hold of her forearm, his fingers gently closing around her sun warmed flesh.

  “What if what?” he asked quietly.

  Her eyes were two enormous pools of blue. “What if I am not very good at it? The kissing, I mean. I have never done it before, you know,” she confessed in a voice barely loud enough to be heard.

  Miles had assumed as much, and he was glad to have his assumptions confirmed. He found the idea of Dianna kissing someone else did not sit well with him. It did not sit well with him at all. “We could try it now, I suppose,” he said, doing his best to sound nonchalant even as his heart threatened to gallop out of his chest and his trousers bulged.

  “What if someone sees us?” Dianna gasped.

  His shoulders rose and fell in a careless shrug. “What if they do? We are engaged to be married, after all.” And at long last he felt as though he’d finally found an upside to that particular predicament. “Close your eyes,” he instructed gently.

  Her chest rose and fell as she took a deep breath and did as he asked.

  Staring down at her innocently upturned face, Miles discovered he was as nervous as she. Perhaps even more so. Just do it, he told himself. Just kiss her. It isn’t that hard. You’ve kissed other girls before. But none, he realized, as important to him as Dianna.

  “Maybe we should wait,” he said, shocking himself.

  Her eyes flew open. “Wait?”

  “Yes.” Letting go of her arm, he crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels. “The, ah, first kiss in a courtship is very important.”

  Dianna’s brow furrowed. “It is?”

  “It is. And you only get one, you know. Once the first kiss is done you can’t have another go at it.”

  “I… suppose that is true.” Expression clearing, she suddenly threw her arms around him in an impulsive hug and he felt the tantalizing burn of her lips against his cheek before she jumped back. “Thank you, Miles.”

  Fighting the foolish urge to touch the side of his face where her mouth had just been, he stared at her quizzically. “For what?”

  “For being so kind and thoughtful.” Her smile turned shy. “I couldn’t imagine marrying anyone else,
and I am glad my first kiss will be with you.”

  Humming a happy tune she spun around and skipped off towards a group of girls her age.

  Miles watched her go, a sinking sensation forming in the pit of his stomach, for he knew, even if she did not, that he was neither kind nor thoughtful.

  Chapter Fourteen

  For the past seven years the first ball of the Season had been held at the private residence of Lord and Lady Fancott. This year was no exception. Coveted invitations, strictly limited to precisely three hundred guests, were sent out the week before. Dianna received hers on a rainy Tuesday while having tea with her mother.

  “I do not wish to attend,” she said after only the barest of glances at the thick ivory envelope with its telltale wax insignia boasting a fanciful F sealing the back. Taking a sip of warm tea drizzled with honey, she held the delicate porcelain cup aloft as she gazed out the window. Rain fell in a steady drizzle, soaking the tree lined street and row of tidy brick townhouses on either side of it.

  “Do not be ridiculous.” Tearing into the invitation as though it were the first present on Christmas morning, Martha Foxcroft’s face lit up as she silently mouthed each word. “Oh, this sounds lovely, Dianna. What do you think would be better, your blue gown with the pearl beading or the green with the white lace?”

  “Mother…” Even knowing that any attempts at contradicting her mother were useless, Dianna couldn’t help but try anyways. Given that her current mood perfectly matched the drab weather outside, she had positively no interest in attending a ball where her every move would be scrutinized and her every word speculated upon.

  In her desperation to flee Ashburn, Dianna had failed to consider what other repercussions Miles’ return would bring. Chiefly among them that the flames of gossip she’d been forced to endure following the abrupt end of their engagement four years ago would be ignited anew.