However, he would be giving John, as a member of the family, a picture of one of their ancestors and also a canteen of silver engraved with the family crest.
John thanked him politely and then hurried back to Marcia, only to find what he had never expected in his wildest imagination.
Waiting for him at his home was a letter and, when he opened it eagerly, it was to read that Marcia would not be marrying him as had been planned.
She had fallen in love with a young man who was a Viscount and would, when his father died, become an Earl.
To John it was a blow he had never anticipated.
He realised cynically and with a bitterness he did not attempt to hide that Marcia had only become engaged to him because he was related to the Duke.
There was no thought of his inheriting the title, so she
