She Fled Her Wedding — Then Found the Duke Escaping on the Same Train
Chapter 3
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Annora let out a small, miserable breath. "I left mine with my maid. She is 19. I told her not to let Papa read it until 11:00, as if making her wait would improve anything."Piers put away his watch. "We must send word from the next station.""Yes."She said it without looking at him. The relief she had imagined on the train had failed to arrive. Instead, she could see the wedding flowers, her sister's carefully altered dress, the girl sitting outside her bedroom with an envelope she would be frightened to deliver."I cannot go through with it," Annora said.He went very still. "I'm not asking you to.""No, but if we go back, everyone will ask. They will say we are frightened. They will tell us people are waiting.""People are waiting. I know."Her voice broke on the last word. She hated that more than the veil, more than the dress, more than the sight of his packed valise. "I know they are."Piers moved his hand toward the space between them, then stopped. He had taken her hand exactly four times during their engagement. Every occasion had been supervised, appropriate, and almost entirely without warmth."I cannot marry you today either," he said.There it was, plainly spoken. She had wanted the wedding stopped; she had not wanted to hear that she was a woman a man could not bear to marry.He saw her expression change. "Annora, I did not mean—""You needn't soften it. I have just said the same thing.""Yes. It is still a dreadful thing to hear."She looked at him then. The train ran between fields bright with the particular green of early June. A man in a cart waited at a crossing. Cows continued to graze, unconcerned with the collapse of two respectable lives."Why did you ask me?" she said.Piers rubbed a thumb over the edge of his watch chain. "I thought we should suit, because I am quiet, among other things.""Name one.""You were kind to my mother.""I am kind to most elderly women. It isn't a marriage proposal."His mouth moved—almost a smile—then settled. "I know that now."At their second meeting, his mother had fallen asleep in her chair. Annora had continued talking softly about the garden until the older woman woke, sparing her the embarrassment of finding a room full of people staring at her. Piers had watched from the doorway. Something in his chest, worn thin by months of being told what his life required, had loosened. He had mistaken gratitude for certainty."And you?" he asked. "Why did you accept?"She might have said that she respected him. She did. She might have spoken of affection developing in time, of common interests, of the wish to make a useful home. All the phrases had served her well before.