Hopeless Heart

Will moved to sit beside her and captured both of her hands in his. She had suddenly gone so very pale that he wondered if he should fetch her some brandy. He would have done, if he had the strength to be parted from her. Instead, he held her hands while he explained.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered tearfully. “I thought–but Cecily said–everyone-”

“You need to understand my parents and the way their strange minds work to be able to understand the machinations that go on between them. While they have had a long-standing and happy marriage, it is highly unconventional and a somewhat formal arrangement–or so I believed. In fact, what I have been witnessing of late is a strange discomfort between my parents that waged between formal and normal.”

“I don’t understand,” Georgiana whispered, wondering if she had slipped into a dream state where nothing made sense anymore. Her mind refused to work beyond the stunning realisation that Will hadn’t married Penelope Smedgrove after all, and never would be.

“Were you engaged to her?” Georgiana interrupted. She didn’t want to hear about his parent’s marriage, she wanted to hear about him.

Will shook his head.

“But you led me to believe-” she protested.

“I hope you suffered,” he said without apology.

“Pardon?” She asked in shock.

“I hope you have been just as miserable as I have,” he replied. “You see, my parents saw something in me that I had no idea was there. They recognised it many years ago, when I was a teenager apparently, only sat back and waited for me to grow out of it. When it became obvious that I wasn’t going to, and less and less likely that I would recognise it for myself, they decided to take matters into their own hands. As such, they began to pile on pressure and pester me about marriage about as much as your mother pestered you about, well, everything.”

Georgiana remained mute and listened while she struggled to understand.

“One day, they pushed too far, and we ended up having a blazing argument about it. I have lived with what I perceived was the stiff formality of my parent’s marriage. There was no earthly possibility that I would succumb to the same torment and so always refused to consider marriage. My parents might be happy in their arrangement, but having a wife who ate breakfast at a table that was twenty feet long was not my idea of a happy marriage. Moreover, no wife of mine was going to have her own suite of rooms on the opposite side of the house and live as bloody stranger under the same roof.”

Georgiana’s lips twitched at the fervency behind his words but she didn’t take him to task over his epithet. In fact, rather than be shocked by it, his utterance of it endeared him to her even more. It made him more of a person, less stuffy and formal. It was wonderful.

“I told my parents that if I was stupid enough to enter into a cold-blooded marriage, I would rather marry someone staid and boring like Penelope Smedgrove.” He huffed a laugh. “I left shortly after, but it seems that I handed my mother the perfect weapon to put phase two of her plan into action. She then went to the ball and announced to your mother that I was going to marry Penelope Smedgrove of all people. She made sure that the salient information was handed to your mother, who revelled in being the blessed with the confidence of someone like my mother, and began to twitter on about marriage and weddings soon after to anybody who would listen frankly.”

“I know,” Georgiana sighed. “I was there.”

Will nodded. He kissed her fingers. “Then you left and I realised what my mother was putting about. To my horror, she had taken what I had said in anger as consent that I was prepared to marry Penelope Smedgrove. When I found out she had already started to spread the word, I lambasted my father but was inevitably drawn into a web of deceit that had even me convinced that I was destined to marry the chit.”

“I don’t understand,” Georgiana sighed. “Why would they lie to you about something like that? It doesn’t make sense.”

“My mother is just as bad as yours. But, Agnes is considerably more underhand and sneaky. Yours is loud and brash and has a yen for theatrics. I would prefer your mother to my own, but we are all burdened with family we cannot change.” Aware that Georgiana was staring at him in confusion, Will sighed. “I digress. You see, I have no idea what my parents recognised in me at an early age that I didn’t understand, but they say they have known all along that I have a special relationship with you that goes far beyond friendship. I thought it was deuced odd that whenever you had your season in London, I was swiftly dispatched there as well to ‘keep an eye on you’. I didn’t raise issue with it at the time because I was more than happy to spend time with you. I have to confess that I have, over the course of time, interfered, and even thwarted the endeavours of a few ardent suitors whose intentions were less than honourable. Anyhow, you reached one and twenty without crossing paths with someone determined to race you up the aisle. I was able to relax, confident in the knowledge that while in Cranbury, your mother dictated enough of your life to make sure that no suitor would steal you away.”

“I was safe,” she whispered. “You could go your own way.”

“Yes, from any challenge to your heart,” Will replied.

Georgiana gasped. Her stomach flipped. “Pardon?”

“When I left here, I returned to Cranbury and adamantly refused to marry Penelope Smedgrove. My mother promptly dismissed that as a ruse and assured me that they have known all along it would be futile to try to persuade me to marry anyone but you. You see, my parents have known for many years now that I am in love with you. You have not just been my shadow, you have been a part of me even when I have not been anywhere near Cranbury. I have been unable to stop worrying about you no matter where I am, even to the point that I have altered my plans just to see you myself and make sure you are alright. This, I fear, has led my parents to understand that my affections are engaged with you and are not likely to change now that I have reached adulthood.”

“Are they?” Georgian gasped, her heart full of hope. “Are they engaged?”

“Most definitely,” Will said huskily. “Upon seeing you in the lake, any good, respectable friend would have turned his back, scolded you, and left you to your own devices, or waited at a discrete distance to escort you home. Rather than doing any of that, I battled with the need to join you, and ended up kissing you in broad daylight for the world to see.”

“Of all people to be caught by, it had to be Mrs Atterton,” Georgiana replied ruefully.

Will grinned at her.

“I make no apology for kissing you,” she whispered.

“Good, I don’t want you to,” he replied huskily. He forced himself to keep his attention focused on what he wanted to say to her before he kissed her again because he knew that once he started to kiss her he wasn’t likely to stop.

“When my father found out what had happened, he began to laugh. Neither of my parents were surprised when I returned home without you and was thoroughly moody and miserable. They were even less surprised when I couldn’t stand being away from you and back for you.”

“You have been miserable too?” she whispered.