Sarah MacLean: The Season

Ella this time: "Well, you can't blame them. You are exceedingly mockable."

Vivi chuckled as Alex shot her friend a withering glance and carried on. "It's atrociously unfair! Men our age aren't even asked to attend balls. The idea of boys marrying at eighteen is unfathomable for our set. It's what happens in the country! And yet, we are paraded around like... like... cattle... to be sold... to the highest bidder!"

Ella interrupted again. "Well, to be fair, perhaps it's best men aren't married off at eighteen. Have you met the average eighteen-year-old male?"

Vivi's dry remark followed. "Mmmm. I'm still trying to avoid taking offense at being compared to livestock. Go on, Alex...."

Alex sighed. "I'm just being silly, I know. But that's how it feels. Especially when you grow up with three older brothers who seem to have an entirely different set of rules."

"You're right," Ella spoke seriously, "but it seems that we don't really have a choice. Our options are rather limited."

And Ella would know. As the eldest in a family of girls, Ella had a familial obligation to marry and marry well, setting the standard for her younger sisters... unless she could figure out a way to take herself out of the running. Ella had considered any number of options to render herself unmarriageable. The girls had discussed every possibility and come to one conclusion: The fastest way to be set "on the shelf" and ignored was to have one's reputation ruined.

Unfortunately, being ruined was not an option, however tempting it was, for it seemed that ruination was the punishment for anyone daring enough to try something exciting. Girls in London society could have their reputation destroyed in any number of ways, but the biggest offenses were clear kissing (or something more scandalous) on the lips (or somewhere more scandalous); dancing three or more dances with someone at a ball ; or visiting a man at his home unchaperoned.

Ella had considered these options again and again, even going so far as to make lists of the men she felt she could convince to aid her ruin, but she simply couldn't commit to bringing gossip and criticism down upon her family. After all, ruination didn't stop at the young lady. Polite society could be devastatingly cruel to her loved ones as well.

"Unless I decide to give my mother a case of hysterics and destroy my sisters' chances of ever being matched, I have to settle for remaining unnoticed," Ella said to no one in particular.

Vivi chuckled and shook her head at her friend. "You make it sound so easy! You're beautiful and come with a sizable dowry. Spinsterhood isn't exactly guaranteed, Ella."

"Ah, but you've forgotten my most hideous trait. No one wants an intelligent wife." Ella gave a mock shudder. "Too terrifying a possibility."

Alex laughed. "Sadly, I think you're right. Reveal just enough of your intelligence and you're safe from being courted. Especially by any of the ninnies who will be asking us to take a turn about the room at Almack's."

Her friend smiled. "Let's hope so, because that's the best plan I've got. It's the only way my novel is ever going to be written."

It wasn't simply that Ella found the idea of a proper marriage to a proper man distasteful, it was that she found it in direct opposition to the one thing she had wanted to do for as long as she could remember. Ella had dreams of becoming a great novelist and writing the sort of book that told the story of her time. She read anything she could get her hands on and was rarely seen without her notebooks, which held any ideas and observations she thought would be useful when she finally had a chance to tell her tale.

Of course, the challenge of being a woman who writes loomed over Ella's head. Of all the respectable novelists in the past fifty years, few had (at least publicly) admitted to being women. But Ella was well aware that the small odds of her being an unmarried female author were slightly higher than the minuscule odds of being a married one. And she was willing to bet on them.

"That reminds me," Vivi interjected, "I have an idea for your book that I think might be just perfect." The girls were always trading concepts and plots to be recorded in Ella's notebook. "I overheard my father discussing the impending capture of a series of spies — English spies — who have been trading secrets to the French."

Alex leaned back against the chaise and pulled her feet up under her. She loved hearing tales of Vivi's eavesdropping. "Oooh... go on."

Vivi leaned forward, a natural storyteller with a gift for making anything sound interesting. "From what I could gather, the Royal Navy have had some trouble with their secret movements being intercepted by the French. It's apparently quite vexing for the men at the War Office. With Napoleon's escape from exile last month, they've obviously been preparing for a full -scale push to unseat him; they've considered a number of possible ways that their coded instructions to naval ships might be intercepted and decoded, but it seems there's only one conclusion. English spies."

Alex had a choice and unladylike word for any Englishman who would sel state secrets in wartime. Ella already had her notebook out and was scribbling. Ignoring her friend's crude language, she spoke without looking up, "Fascinating. Who?"

Vivi shook her head and waved a hand. "They don't have any idea at this point. It must be someone fairly high up in the War Office who has access to this kind of information. My father was recently placed on the case, along with William." She made eye contact with Alex at the mention of her friend's eldest brother. "Between the two of them, I'm sure it will be cleared up soon enough. But I'm certain that if anyone can make it more interesting, it's you, Ella."

Ella was lost to them for a moment — focused entirely on the words in her journal. Chewing daintily on the end of her lead pencil, her mind was turning over the story she might weave around such a loose collection of information. Leaving her to her reverie, the conversation turned to Vivi and her own preparations for entering society.

The three girls would attend Almack's for their official coming-out on Wednesday evening. Vivi, the only one without a mother to pester her, had the least amount of animosity for the event. It wasn't that she didn't feel the pressure of society's will as much as her friends. As the ravishing only daughter of a wealthy and decorated marquess, it was simply expected that she marry and marry well, considering that she couldn't inherit her father's title. She'd been hearing this from meddling aunts and the parents of her friends for years, but she had one thing in her favor — her father thought it was a terrible idea to marry for marriage's sake.

While the ladies of the ton had spent years worrying about Vivi and her twin brother being raised by a widowed father and encouraged the marquess either to deposit his children with any number of female relatives or to quickly remarry, the marquess had flown in the face of convention and flatly refused to do any such thing. Vivi's parents' marriage had been a love match (something that would have been considered disgustingly common had the marquess not been just that — a marquess), and he had showered his daughter with the same caring and affection that he'd given her mother, encouraging her to marry for the same reason he had. Love.

"You unbelievably lucky chit!" Alex spoke. "You have parental permission — nay, parental expectation! — to avoid all versions of limp-necked, pasty white, simpering dandies who might come calling for your hand in marriage. Are you sure your father wouldn't like to assume charge of me as well?"

"I'm not sure my father could handle you." Vivi laughed. "But, in all honesty, I'm not planning to avoid anyone's simpering wish for my hand. My plan is to gain as many proposals as possible. I need to hone my flirting skills if I'm going to catch The One."