“This was before the balls and courtship, I take it?”
His subtle prompt roused a dash of wry humor, enough for her to carry on. “The man she chose for me was the son of a…”—the enormity of what she was about to entrust him with struck and her conviction in his fidelity faltered, so Piper found herself skirting the truth—“son of a wealthy merchant. The merchant agreed to marry my mother if I married his son.Onlyif I married his son. I knew my mother was grasping. Her greed knows no bounds, but…” She paused and glanced at Connor, his encouraging gaze trained on her. “I suppose I should have known selling her only child to the devil to obtain her goals would rank low on a list of her sins.”
His mouth turned down in the corners. He was smart enough to glean an approximation of the truth from her words. She needn’t go on for him to understand her circumstances. Best to skip the rest and ask his opinion on her precarious situation…
“Her choice of a groom for me…suffice it to say, he isnota good man.” Piper moistened her suddenly dry lips. Her pulse knocked a tad askance. His fingers tightened around hers. She’d forgotten he continued to hold her hand. That she wasn’t alone now. “I knew some of his reputation and refused to marry him. At first, it seemed as though the merchant would accept my answer, but then…”
But then.
Her heart pounded against her ribs with such intensity it triggered a corresponding quake to her stomach, sending it churning. Just as Rutledge had.
“I wrote my guardian for help. My legal guardian. His permission was required because of my age, you see? My mother assured me that she had his approval for the match. I didn’t want to believe her as I was confident my custodian had far more of a care for me than she did. I kept writing, hoping he would come and save me.”
“They could no’ have forced the marriage, lass.”
“They were not terribly concerned with the legalities of it. Better to call it coercion.” Her head pounded in time with her heart now as the memories she’d struggled to keep locked away burst forth. Throat thick, achy, she couldn’t go on.
“Mrs. Milbourne…bugger it, may I call ye Lillian?”
Staring blindly forward, seeing nothing beyond the past, for a moment she forgot where she was. Who she was with.
“Piper.” Biting her lip, she glanced at him, fearing his recognition. Fortunately, there was no telling flare in his eyes. Only a comforting smile on his lips. The fearful pounding in her temples slackened a bit. “The d—merchant was furious with me, my rejection. I knew I could not wait in futile hope for assistance. You have to understand,it wasn’t simply marriage I ran from. I wasn’t being fussy or particular. It was him.”
“Did he hurt ye?”
“He…he frightened me.” Piper evaded the unanswerable question by soldiering on. “I didn’t know where else to go, hence my arrival at Aylesbury. I’d grown up around here and knew I had friends who could help me hide from my mother and from him.”
“What about this guardian of yers? Why no’ go to—” He cut himself off with a frown. “Aye, I ken ye felt ye cannae trust him any longer.”
“By that time, it did not matter whether I could or could not. I had to act with or without his assistance. I heard some time later that he’d visited to Scotland Yard to report me as missing,” she told him. “It’s been the opinion of some that he searched for me out of love. After all that happened, I couldn’t take that chance.”
“I cannae say I blame ye.”
“Don’t you?” she asked in surprise. “There have been some who insist I should.”
“If he’s no’ proven himself a good man, I’d say ye made a wise choice.”
How satisfying to receive some validation of her choices. And somehow displeasing at the same time. Harry had always been a good man. A good brother.
“Ye ken, given yer comments aboutMiddlemarch, I’d initially thought ye running from an unfortunate union,” Connor observed. “No’ trying to avoid one.”
“It will be more than mere effort I give to that matter, Mr. MacKintosh.” If she had conviction in nothing else, she was firm on that. “I will avoid it. At all cost. From the moment I left my choices have been my own. I live life on my own terms with no one to tell me what to do or force me to do things I don’t want.”
He allowed a moment’s pause to fully absorb her declaration. “But ye aren’t living, lass,” he pointed out. “Ye’re hiding.”
She jerked her head stiffly and turned forward to see that though they’d taken a broadly circuitous route, they were now on a narrow gravel road that led to the Grange’s stables. Without a firm hand to guide him, Dandy had worked his way back to the comfort of his stall and the bucket of oats that would be waiting for him. Instinct had driven him home.
As it had propelled Piper home two years ago.
“What else am I to do?” she half-asked, half-accused Connor. It was the question she sought the answer to. She tugged her hand from his grasp and flung her arm wide. “Hie myself off to America?”
“Why no’?”
She’d thrown Mrs. Davies words at him as a bitter jest. With a hearty roll of her eyes, Piper yanked Dandy’s reins to the left and away from the stables. The stubborn horse, knowing home was near, jerked his head back. Control seesawed back and forth before they were left standing with nowhere to go.
She could apply the same analogy in regards to Connor in that moment. His version of sharing her burden left her adrift with no certain direction to turn. All she knew was that her current state of affairs wouldn’t be an option soon enough.
Connor must have shared her discontent as he ran his hands through his thick dark hair until it stood on end. “Doye believe this merchant’s desire to have ye for his son endures after all this time?”
