Augustus's attempt to break the news of the betrothal to his daughter was not going exactly as he had planned.

Though she could say nothing, her flushed face and scornful expression left no doubt to her anger.

I cannot marry, as my heart belongs to someone else. Read the piece of parchment that she handed to her father.

Upon reading it the man laughed.

"Prey tell daughter, who is this love of yours? Is he a man of stature and fortune, or does thou heart fancy a lowely stable boy?"

His daughters reaction was one so odd he could not tell if it was one of embarrassment or anger.

Fumbling for another scrap of parchment on her desk, she quickly scribbled a reply.

He is a man of stature, and great wealth.

To this he laughed again.

"Very well daughter, I am not unreasonable. If you can get this suitor of yours to agree to a betrothal before the end of the feast tonight, you will be married next week. If not, you marry my choice, either way you are to be married next week." Then with another hearty laugh he exited her chambers.

In truth the father knew exactly who his daughter was infatuated with. Duke Matthew Kensworth, a rather airheaded young man with a rather promiscuous reputation with the womenfolk. Her soundless sighs and yearning eyes at his mere presence gave his daughter away to her father's ever watchful eyes.

He knew of the type, arrogant and vain, Kensworth would never agree to marry a petite mute heiress with no royal title.

Later that night in the garden, Angelica searched for the Duke. It was in that very garden that he had kissed her. 3 fortnight's ago, she had stepped outside to escape the claustrophobic atmosphere of the party, when a the Duke had rushed past her, stopping momentarily to plant a quick kiss on her unexpectant lips.

He tasted and smelled of to much ale, and it was cold and slobbery, but it had caught her so off guard that she had been unable to stop thinking about him ever since.

In the carriage, on the way home from the feast, he consoled his red eyed and sobbing daughter. On a scroll which she always carried with her, she wrote the tale down, telling her father everything.

He let her cry into the sleeve of his coat as he read the tear stained paper. How she had stumbled upon the Duke just as he was finishing slobbering on another lass. How she had confronted him about the kiss, how he had said he must have been so drunk on ale to do as something as stupid as that, and how he wouldn't even wish upon his worst enemy marriage to an invalid like her.

She resigned herself to her fate of her father's proposed marriage.