Author's Note: Okay, so I'm not too sure about this one so I'm going to need you all to be completely honest in your reviews. I've had this idea for a while now and I decided to finally type it up, but I don't know if this is something you guys would like to have me continue with or not. I would like to go on with it, but I obviously want to write stories that you all want to read. So, as I say, please let me know what you think of this "pilot" chapter, if you will, and I will see you when I next update if you would all like another chapter.

P.S: For the time being - if you all would like more, of course, I am going to be posting chapters when they are completed. My updates are going to be a little over the place until I decide whether I can update weekly or monthly, but I will let you know when I come to a decision! Now I'll let you enjoy the chapter, hehe! xx

She had wanted to give it to him from the evening that they had confessed their love to one another out in the gazebo on the evening of her return, but every time she told herself that she was ready to let him read it; ready to let him find out just how miserable her youth had been, she would panic at the last minute before hiding it once again at the very back of her undergarment drawer. She loved Georg more than she could say and she trusted him with everything, but despite how hard she tried, she just couldn't shake off the nervousness that overwhelmed her every time she thought about letting her fiancé read about her childhood.

She hadn't held anything back when she had written in it as a young girl; she hadn't sugar-coated a single thing. Everything that her Uncle had ever done to her when she'd lived with him had been written on those pages: every beating he had given her, every curse and insult that he had screamed at her when she had made the slightest mistake and every threat that he had made against her. She felt her clear blue eyes sting with tears as she brushed the pad of her thumb softly over the words stitched onto the front of the leather book: Maria's Diary.

Her father had made it for her and had surprised her with it on her ninth birthday – just two weeks before he'd died alongside her mother when their small house had gone up in flames – and had told her to write in it any memories that she had wanted to remember along with any dreams or life goals that she'd wanted to achieve. She had been so excited to start filling her diary with happy thoughts and things that she had longed to do and see in the future, but she had never had the chance to do so. Writing in her diary about the abuse that her Uncle had forced her to endure had been the only way for her to vent and talk about her feelings, and with every word she had written she had felt as though she was letting her father down.

She had vowed to herself, after her Uncle had abandoned her outside Nonnberg Abbey and told her that she was the Sisters' problem from that moment on, that she would never open her diary again and no-one would ever know what its pages contained. That had been when she had believed that she would be spending her life in service to God, however, and before she had fallen so unbelievably in love with a rather dashing Naval Captain. On the evening that Georg had asked her to marry him, the two of them had sworn to each other that there would never be any secrecy in their relationship and that they would always be honest with one another. Even so, he hadn't pressured her into talking about her childhood. He had told her that he would be patient and wait until she felt as though she was ready to talk about it.

Talking about it, however, meant reliving it. Reliving the beatings, the hours locked in a dark and damp loft with nothing to eat or drink and the sleepless nights that she had had due to worrying about what the following day would bring with it. She knew that she would never be ready to speak to him about it, but she had finally managed to convince herself that she was ready to let him read the contents of her diary. Hence why she was now standing at the door to his study with the book in question grasped in her hands. As she brought one hand up in order to knock on it, she felt a sudden wave of anxiety wash over her. She knew that it was time to let him in on just how miserable her childhood had been, however, and so after taking a deep breath she knocked on the door and waited patiently for permission to enter.

'Come in.' Georg's deep voice was a little muffled as it came from the other side of the door, Maria nodding to herself just seconds before she turned the door handle and slowly pushed the door open. Her fiancé looked up from whatever it was that he was writing as she took a tentative step into the room, a warm smile spreading across his lips as his gaze met with her own and he pushed his chair back as she closed the door behind herself. 'Hello, my love.' He stood in order to meet her in the centre of the room, Maria offering him a gentle smile as he ran the palms of his hands along the smooth skin at the outside of her arms before lowering his head to brush the gentlest of kisses against her lips. She felt her heart flutter as one of his hands found her waist through her dress and he pulled her close, the soft smack of their lips filling the silence of the study as their kiss reached a natural conclusion a few moments later.

'It feels so incredible to be able to do that.' He breathed as he ran his hand along her waist.

Her lips curled up into a delicate smile as her eyes fluttered open. 'I love you.' She told him.

'I love you too.' He nuzzled her hairline with his lips as he had done two weeks earlier out in the gazebo, his arms slipping around her frame before he brought her close and allowed her to slip her own around his waist as she lay her head down on his chest. 'What's wrong?' He buried a kiss into her short hair before resting his chin atop her head and bringing her closer, Maria turning her face into his chest as she gripped the crisp material of his shirt at the back.

'Can I speak with you about something?' Her gentle voice was muffled against his shirt as he ran his palms along the length of her back through her pale blue dress in a soothing manner.

'You can speak to me about anything, darling, you know that.' He told her as he brought her away from him, his hands coming up to cup her face as he gazed into her beautiful blue eyes. 'Come here.' He took her by the hand before leading her over to the burgundy settee on the other side of the room, a troubled sigh escaping her lips as he lowered himself down onto it and took her slight waist in his hands before bringing her into his lap. 'What's on your mind?'

'Do you remember that night in the gazebo? The night you called off your engagement with Baroness Schraeder and asked me to marry you?' She asked, Georg nodding as he wrapped his arms around her middle and she snuggled against his chest. 'I told you about how I had a violent Uncle, didn't I? That he used to beat me?' Again, he nodded, his heart hurting for her as he just couldn't understand how someone could touch her with the intent of harming her. 'Well, I remember how you told me that I could tell you about everything that he did to me in my own time, but I realise now that I don't think I ever will be able to tell you about it all. I still have occasional nightmares about what he did to me, and every time I think about what he put me through when I lived with him I feel sick.' She took a deep breath to calm herself down as she felt her heart begin to pound. 'I don't want to walk down the aisle without you knowing what my childhood was like, though, and so I want you to have this.' She gave him the diary that was in her hand, his brow furrowing just a little from confusion. 'It's my diary.'

A moment of silence passed between them.

'I thought that by giving it to you, I would be able to tell you about what I went through as a child without having to relive it.' She admitted. 'I never had any friends when I was growing up, which meant that I had no-one to talk to about what my Uncle was doing to me. When I found the diary that my father had made for me though, I began writing in it as a way to tell someone how I felt.' She felt Georg's hold tighten around her. 'It hasn't been opened since I was eighteen and once you've read it I'm going to burn it because I don't want anything to remind me of my Uncle. I wanted to give it to you on the day that we told the children about our engagement, but we were all so happy and I didn't want to spoil it. Then, whenever I felt as though I was ready to give it to you, I would lose my confidence and put it away again. It's not that I don't trust you, because I do, it's just that I've never shown this to anyone before.'

She fell silent for a time then before Georg set the diary down into the space beside him on the settee, his arm slipping back around her before he gazed up at her and she wrapped her own arms around his neck. 'You know that I would never judge you for what your Uncle did to you, don't you? No matter what I come across when I read this, it won't change the way I feel about you one bit.' He revelled in the gentle smile that graced his fiancée's lips. 'You are the strongest; bravest woman I know and I feel so blessed to be able to call you my fiancée.'

'You mean so much to me.' She cupped the sides of his neck in the palms of her hands as her words were coated with tears, brushing her thumbs against his soft skin as she pressed her forehead against his and felt him nudge his nose affectionately against her own. 'I love you.'

'I love you too.' He ran his hands along the length of her spine through her thin dress as they gazed into one another's eyes. 'Do you have any idea of how desperately I want to kiss you right now?' His words earned him a gentle giggle from Maria as she wrapped her arms back around his neck, her beautiful blue eyes sparkling as she sucked tenderly upon her lower lip.

'What's stopping you?' She purred as she teased the thin baby hairs at the nape of his neck with the tips of her fingers, her cheeks taking on a deeper shade of red as she was unused to being so forward. Georg, on the other hand, couldn't prevent the soft smirk that appeared upon his lips at her boldness. Gone was the innocent little governess that he had discovered snooping around in his ballroom just two months earlier; she had now been replaced by this delightful little temptress who was eager to learn about all the different aspects of intimacy.

He unwrapped one arm from around her waist then before bringing his hand up to her face and cupping the curve of her cheek in his palm, her eyes drifting closed of their own accord as he stroked the pad of his thumb against the smooth skin that he found there. 'My Maria.' He whispered, still not quite believing that the miraculous woman in his lap was going to be making her way down the aisle towards him before the end of the year. He directed her face closer to his own then before he captured her lower lip in a long and slow kiss, her eyelashes fluttering against his cheek as she returned his delicious kiss without the slightest hesitation.

Their lips moved over one another's in perfect sync as one of his strong hands tangled itself in her hair and the other caressed her waist, her own hands running across his shoulders and down the outside of his strong arms through his jacket as they released soft hums of delight. He felt her stiffen for a moment in his arms when he traced the seam of her bottom lip with his tongue, but felt his heart swell with love for her as she settled against him once more as he brushed his thumb against her lower back. She parted her lips beneath his own so that he could deepen their kiss then, both her hands going to his hair as their tongues danced softly.

She allowed Georg to lay her down upon the settee a few moments later and as soon as her head had come to rest upon the armrest and his lips had sought out her own once again, all memories of her Uncle and the miserable childhood that she'd had left her mind completely.

It was later that same evening when Georg left the en-suite bathroom and re-entered the master bedroom after indulging in a long bath to settle himself for bed, a deep sigh escaping him as he used the towel in his hand to remove the remaining drops of water from the back of his neck before hanging it over the back of the chair that stood in the corner of the room. He removed a pair of underwear along with a pair of blue pyjama bottoms from his drawers a short time later, sitting down on the edge of the bed that he would one day share with the incredible woman that had stolen his heart as he pulled them on. His gaze fell upon Maria's childhood diary as it sat on his bedside table once he had finished getting himself ready for bed, his heart racing as he reached for it. Truth be told, he was rather nervous about what it was that he was going to read when he opened it. He was going to be reading about the hell that his beloved had been forced to endure at the hands of her Uncle as a young girl; about all of the things he had done to her and the names he had called her for just shy of a decade.

If he thought he had a choice, he wouldn't read it. The thought of someone harming Maria intentionally for so many years made him feel sick to his stomach; made him feel the urge to murder. He had seen the look in his darling fiancée's eyes when she had been sitting in his lap, however, and he had been able to tell just how important it was to her that he read every single page. Despite how much it killed him to know that the book grasped in his hands was filled with nothing but heartbreak and fear, he couldn't deny that he felt so blessed to know that Maria trusted him enough to give him permission to read the private thoughts that she had had when she had lived with her Uncle. With a trembling sigh, he moved backwards on his bed until his back came into contact with the headboard, his hands shaking ever-so-slightly as he lifted the front cover of Maria's diary and started to read what his fiancée had written.

...

10th November 1924

Dear Diary,

It has now been a week since my mother and father died when our beautiful little house set on fire and I miss them more than I can say. I miss the way that mother sang to me when it was her night to put me to bed and the way that father ran his fingers through my hair until I fell asleep when it was his night to do it. I have to sing myself to sleep now that I live with my uncle, but if he hears me he tells me off and so I don't do it much. I thought that I was going to like living with him when the nice lady that I met was bringing me here, because he is my father's brother and my father was so loving and gentle with me, but my uncle isn't like that.

My uncle tells me off if I try and talk to him when he lets me go downstairs and he says that children should be seen and not heard. He got angry with me when I spoke too much earlier on and that's why I'm locked in my room. Mother and father never told me off for talking to them before they died and there wasn't a lock on my bedroom door at my old house. I don't like my bedroom here; it doesn't have any toys and there are spiders on the ceiling that come down when I'm in bed at night. Father used to get the spiders out for me when I was scared of them, but uncle doesn't. He says that it's just something that I'm going to have to live with.

I'm not allowed to play now that I live here; I have to help uncle with the animals on the farm every day and when there's a job that's too big for me I have to clean the farmhouse. When he lets me talk to him I ask him if I'll be allowed to play when I've finished cleaning but all he says is that I'll be too tired when I've finished and it'll be time for me to go to bed. When my mother and father were alive I had a lot of toys and I used to be allowed to play with them all the time, but now I only have one and it's a teddy-bear called Jasper that mother gave to me for my birthday. He sleeps next to me in bed every night and gives me cuddles to try and help me not to have a nightmare, but he isn't the best at it. I always have nightmares about the fire and I wake up screaming for my mother or father to come in to me and snuggle with me.

All I ever hear in response to my cries is my uncle pounding on the wall and calling me a little wretch before ordering me to go back to sleep. I never can drift off again after a nightmare, though, and so I just lay in bed gazing into the darkness for hours until the sun finally starts to come up and reminds me that that day is going to be no different to the one before. It may have only been a week since I lost my parents and was forced to come and live here with my uncle, but it feels as though it's been years. I've never had to go this long without a kiss from my mother or a snuggle from my father, and it's the worst feeling in the whole entire world.

I miss them telling me that they love me when I wake up in the morning or when I go to sleep at night, and I miss the way that they used to wrap their arms around me and hold me close to them whenever there was a thunderstorm. Mother and I sang a song about our favourite things when we were sat waiting out a storm once; it was so much fun and the thunderstorm had ended by the time we had finished singing! Whenever I start to get upset when I think of my parents, I think of all of my favourite things and tell Jasper about them. He's a very good listener. I don't think that I will ever feel better or that I will ever stop wanting my parents to come back, but I am glad that I have things to remind me of them because it helps me a lot.

I have to end this entry here now because I can hear uncle coming up the stairs and he told me that if I wasn't asleep when he came to bed then I would have to spend tomorrow in my room also, and I would much rather help him to clean out the horses than be trapped in here.

Goodnight,

M.A.R.

...

Georg felt his eyes sting with tears as he reached the end of his fiancée's first diary entry. He had been able to feel the pain that she must have felt at the time as he had read every word that she had written, and it broke his heart to know just how alone and unloved she felt as she had sat writing it in her cramped bedroom as a little girl. She had only been a little older than Marta when she had been sent to live with her uncle, and the thought of his beautiful little girl ever having to experience something like that made him want to sob uncontrollably.

He wasn't a man to show emotion – anyone who knew him knew that – but he just found it so difficult to believe that someone could be so cruel to a little girl. How could Maria's uncle have been woken by her cries for her parents to come and console her, only to demand that she quieten down and go back to sleep? He was only on the first entry of Maria's diary and he already longed to kill her uncle for the way he'd treated her. He closed the leather bound book carefully before setting it down on his bookshelf once more, a trembling sigh escaping his lips as he slipped from the bed before running his fingertips through his damp strands of dark hair and making his way across the master bedroom toward the door on the other side.

Something within him told him that he needed to go and see Maria – to just stroke her hair and make certain that she was content. He stepped through his bedroom door and out into the hallway before beginning to make his way down it, not even caring that he was only half-dressed as he headed for the corridor that the bedrooms of both his precious children and darling fiancée were situated in. He remained silent as he reached the door to Maria's room, holding his breath as he turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.

The light from the corridor spilled into the dark bedroom and allowed him to just about make out a slumbering figure beneath the luxurious sheets of the bed in the centre of the room. Leaving the door ajar so that he had enough light to see where he was stepping, he made his way over to the bed before turning on the lamp that sat atop his beloved's bedside table. 'My darling…' He whispered as he lowered himself down onto the edge of her bed and drank in her natural beauty as she slept with her hand tucked beneath her cheek, her breathing calm and slow as her cheeks held a soft blush. He was unable to resist reaching out to caress one. He was unable to find words that conveyed just how deeply he loved the woman before him.

Leaning down a few moments later, he pressed his lips to the side of her head in a slow kiss. 'My brave girl.' He whispered into her ear. 'I promise you that you will never be alone again.' He saw her lips curl up into a small smile in her sleep when he drew back from her, his heart swelling with love for her as he continued to stroke the backs of his fingers across her cheek. He had sworn to her earlier that evening that no matter what he came across whilst reading her diary, it wouldn't have an impact on the way that he felt about her. He had been wrong.

It had made him love her so much more.

Was he nervous about reading her second diary entry the next evening? Of course he was.

But he knew that as soon as he had reached the end of it he would love her even more and he would feel even prouder of her. He knew without having to ask her that there were still some horrible things to come in following entries; things that would both sicken and anger him, but they would also make him feel so much more blessed to have the title of her fiancé. Because she had gotten through all of the abuse that her uncle had put her through and had come out the other side as this beautiful, compassionate and strong-minded young woman.

Who was one of the most important things in the world to him.

Author's Note: Thank you all for reading and please review!