Courting two gentlemen at the same time—only one courtship is real, and one courtship is fake.
Since Lady Priscilla was ten years old, she was told she would marry Nicholas Pierce, the future Marquess of Hollingsworth, when she turned eighteen.
Nicholas Pierce dreads the day Lady Priscilla turns eighteen. That will be the day he refuses to propose to her and crushes her girlhood dreams. But she deserves someone better than his broken, damaged self. He has nothing of himself to give her.
That time comes and goes without a marriage contract. Then two years later, she elopes to Gretna Green and marries a Royal Naval Officer, who then dies at sea months later during a battle with the French.
