#shanonwrote

Last season, Daphne Bridgerton wedded the Duke, and since, I have yet to have a single ounce of peace from it.

If it weren’t for Lady Whistledown’s debriefs, nor the tedious eyes of every lady I passed and their mothers, or even the judgemental gaze fermented in the portraits of the hallways I passed on a daily basis, willing me to do better, I’d be living a rather tranquil life, if I don’t say so myself. Yet, I was to be chastised at every minute. On every walk, at every meal, throughout every soirée and ball that presented itself, I felt my tolerance, and that of everyone else’s, deteriorate. With that, at least, my mother and I could find common ground.

“You’ve been awake since dawn, I suppose?” She asked, accompanied by the persistent anticipation of argument to her tone that she had seemed to make rather well an acquaintance with as of late.

“And why do you suppose,” I countered, focusing my gaze on the eggs ahead of me. To the sound of her sigh I remembered to remove my elbows from the table as I dug in, but not without a sneer to the empty seats surrounding us at the breakfast table to emphasise my point of who on Earth I was supposed to be impressing.

“I noticed the stable appeared rather… unkept on my walk this morning,” she hummed. An absentminded finger of hers droned around her glass, her appetite obviously more centred on something else entirely.

“You mean you’ve been spying,” I said, shoving a forkful of runny yolk and bacon in my mouth, much to her dismay.

I ignored the rolling of her eyes. “I’m not spying. Merely observant.”

I hummed back, glancing up to see her reprimanding expression before gladly returning to my breakfast. Clarence always seemed to know when tensions were running high, and served my breakfast accordingly: stacked to the brim. She knew that if anything was to take my mind off things, it was her Full English. I had smiled when realising she had added an extra slice of toast, with inch-thick butter to accommodate for it. She’d been right to do so; tonight was Lady Danbury’s ball, one that had been mentioned throughout the papers and this house far too many times to count. A dress had been hanging on the back of my bedroom door to be a painful reminder every time I opened my eyes for the past week, had my mother’s relentless comments not stricken the fear into me enough.

“I only say, YN, for I am concerned you won’t tire yourself out for tonight. I need you to be proper, and… observant, like myself.”

“Hm, you’ve made it abundantly clear,” I muffled, finding my way to the mushrooms.

“Oh,” she tutted, as if I were some sort of dog she’d seen relieving itself on the street. “Must you eat so…”

She failed to finish her sentence, but the scorn of her voice made me raise my eyebrows all the same. Looking up for the first time that morning, I adjusted to how far away we were, her sat at one end of the banquet table and I at the other. I struggled to see her face past the unlit candles and floral centrepieces, but felt the weight of her judgement from the distance between us all the same. It seemed, no matter how many times I endured it, there was no end to the way it pierced through me.

“So…?” I urged her.

“I just hope you have more sense of manners this evening.”

Something told me her issue surrounding me and my breakfast had nothing to do with my execution of manners.

“I will, mother, I always do.”

“And yet, here we are.”

I stopped eating, letting the blistered tomato go amiss on my fork as I set it down. I swallowed apprehensively, and wiped the corner of my mouth with a napkin. My mother had seemed to make some sort of game out of my failure as a lady. How I’d been unable, for the fifth season now, to entice any approval and secure a marriage — nay, not even a suitor. While it was some sort of cathartic ritual for her by now, the novelty had long worn off, and something my mother failed to imagine was how wearying it was for myself too.

The only solace I had obtained this upcoming evening was that it was to be a Masquerade Ball. The prospect of hiding my face and being unidentifiable swelled my chest with joy and relief. I had implored for my mask to be as covering as possible, my request hidden behind an eagerness for elaborate and flattering designs. Of course, I only cared for my countenance to be unrecognisable, to be protected from the knowing glances and prolonged stares. Albeit, while my desire to be betrothed may have diminished with every season, I knew my hidden identity would only work as an advantage for me. With no one knowing who I was, I was gifted a blank slate. There was no gossip attained to my face, and therefore no expectations or hinderances I had to apply to myself. For a moment, briefly, I was the young girl only just embarking onto her first season.

My mother cleared her throat across the table. I wondered, if I was particularly lucky, if I could use my new identity to formulate an excuse to be apart from my mother this evening, only to ensure no connections to my true self are made, of course. I sat back in the chair, allowing my plate to be taken away.

“Tonight is a big night, YN.” She spoke. “Lady Danbury will be accompanying us–”

Babysitting me, she meant.

“– and I am sure of it, this time. We will find you an eligible bachelor.”

And, my God, if I had a shilling for every time I heard her say that.

one dress fitting later

I had been reminded now, sixteen times, the way to hold my fan, to bat my eyes and, most importantly, to smile. My mother assured me that the only thing she wanted to pass my lips was a grin, and even then, only at the man who we (she) deemed most worthy.

I willed myself not to let it slip that beggars can not necessarily be choosers.

By the time our carriage arrived in front of Lady Danbury’s conservatory, I had managed to bite my tongue (I had learned well, it seemed). My mother and I, though already remarkably well acquainted with the instances of balls and, above all, Lady Danbury’s opulence to running them, peered through the carriage’s curtains eagerly. The courteous sound of people arriving provided a certain buzz to the atmosphere that I hadn’t missed at all. While my mother watched on with glistening eyes, already brandishing the delicacy of her posture, I greeted hello to the old friend residing in the pit of my stomach known as forsworn dread. I was much older than the first time I had attended a ball, and still, I hadn’t found a way to combat the nerves that attacked me in this moment. There was no alleviation in something that only got worse every year. I was convinced the stares would be more intense, the whispers even louder. Bile rose to my throat at the thought of how everyone would stop when I entered. They’d look down on me with pity, some would wonder why I put myself through trying, mercilessly, every year to be dealt the same fate, to only be in the same position again next year. The music would shudder with my footsteps, a falter to the ideal scenery, shattered by my mere presence. I’d be an impostor, a spinster. I didn’t belong here, and I wanted to go home.

“YN, come.”

My breath hitched. I swept a strand of curled hair from my eye and brandished my gaze to the mask sitting on the pillowed carriage seat beside me. The dressmaker had done a splendid job, despite my mother’s concerns, and had created a magnificently woven accessory. It matched my dress in colour, with accented gold framing the edges which, I triumphed, would run across most of my face, only stopping at the stoop of my cheekbones. Had I been told the maker had crept into my room one night and secretly melded my face to the creation, I would have been sharp to believe it. I draped the string behind my head and let it cling to my hair, the mask falling into my facial features.

“Y/N.”

My mother was wedged in the pebbled path to the conservatory, adorned with lights and ivies. The artificial hope in her countenance made me want to return home even more, but I knew it would be worse for me to do so, to admit defeat and to let down the woman in front of me, to whom I owed so much more.

“Yes, certainly,” I whispered. There was no ignoring the influx of people swarming into the conservatory, but I simply had to pretend it did not matter. I heard my mother beginning to entertain someone who had rushed to her presence, and she was swept away in an instance, leaving me on my own, which I was left to deliberate on whether was a fortune or not. I took solace in the fact that I hadn’t recognised the voice of who had cornered my mother, and relished in that, if there was one good thing that could come from my frequent annual visits, my generation had long been wedded off, and maybe no one around here would know me at all.

I stepped out, my hand guiding itself to where the guard stood, completely in awe of what Lady Danbury had presented, and in some oddly confound optimism that maybe tonight wouldn’t be so bad.

Whatever hope I momentarily grasped subsequently dissipated, however, when my own grasp did not meet that of any guard alongside the carriage, and my heel slipped, sending me pummelling to the ground.

I, suddenly, no longer admired the dedication of the pebbled path, not when the rocks themselves were jabbed into my knees and palms. I only hoped the fall was not enough to draw blood, or graze what skin of me was visible, as it would surely be enough to ward off anyone that even dared to go near me. That, and I prayed my screech had not caught any eyes, although I knew it was fruitless to think my fumble had gone unnoticed.

Already, as I knelt on the ground of the path, having not even made it inside, I felt defeated. I subsided my weight onto my backside, slouching on the floor, barely concerned to any ripping of my dress or what onlookers may think. Let them judge, I thought, what more could they say? This was only this night’s entertainment to them. Something else to add onto the list of why my whole prospect as a woman was a failure.

“Oh dash, are you alright?”

I cursed myself. The last thing I needed now was anyone’s feigned pity.

“I am quite fine, thank you,” I said, clearing my throat and pushing down any flushed humiliation that threatened to make me a teary mess. I could at least still try to redeem myself, but I wasn’t going to do a good job of that whilst kneeling on the floor.

“Here, let me help you,” the voice came again. Insistingly kind, and yet I wanted to rip their face off. But I was a lady, so I glanced up and mercifully took the gloved hand outstretched to me.

I sighed, curling my fingers around their palm. “Thank you.”

They pulled me up with an ‘uumph!’ back onto my feet. The shock of it all must have still been coursing through me, for I wobbled on my stance, but the grip tightened on my hand and another came to my forearm to steady me. I leant on it dependently, desperate not to suffer another embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry, this is… humiliating, to say the least,” I said, trying to laugh it off.

“Please,” he said, “don’t apologise.”

The gratification of his voice willed me to raise my head. I was surprised, grateful and humiliated all over again when I saw he was someone relatively close to my age. He was adorned in a mask, but a meek one which suggested he was only playing the role as to appease someone dear to him. I was still able to see the youthful stubble across his skin, and the small smile he looked upon me with, like an old friend with whom I was sharing an inside joke with we had rectified years before. I felt more at ease in the ability to laugh at myself when what was a courteous smile reached his eyes and his hands fell.

“I rather indulge in a drink or two myself before an event as such in an attempt to dilute any nerves, but… dare I suggest you may have had one too many?”

I scoffed, much too loudly, unattractively, and close to his face, and was endearingly reminded of the time my mother had chided me for doing so a few years prior in front of a Lord Dawsdon, who I was to never hear from again after my mother likened the outburst to that of a certain farmyard animal. I composed myself rather quickly, and pursed my lips, reminding them their only duty was to smile.

“I assure you,” I said nevertheless, “I am somewhat appropriate. Even I am aware arriving intoxicated is less likely to make a good impression.”

“Ah, you are more well versed than you seem,” he said, and I resisted the urge to scoff again. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes, perfectly fine, thank you.” I smiled. “Just a wobble.”

The fear coursed through me then that maybe I had broken a heel, and watched the amusement of the man before me transform to worry at my own as I frantically waded through the layers of fabric to my dress to ascertain the status of my shoes. My mother had bought them especially, and to think of her finding them broken made me revisit the bile in my throat from earlier. I bundled up my skirt, revealing their intact state, and breathed a sigh of relief. When I returned to the man’s gaze, I saw him peering at where I had previously with an astounding flush to his cheeks. I wasn’t particularly well-trained, despite my years’ experience, to the etiquette of… everything, and realised only then that maybe hiking my skirt up past my thigh and not been necessarily appropriate.

“My apologies,” I muttered, dropping the hem and fixing my hair in the awkwardness that ensued. He coughed clearly and abruptly, and insisted.

“The apologies are all mine, Miss…” his voice trailed away, and I clicked all too late that he was searching for my name.

As I fumbled, not yet acquainted to introducing myself, I caught my mother out of the corner of my eye, punctual as ever. She had obviously grown impatient; she had that wrinkle above her left eyebrow that told me so. I dreaded to keep her waiting any longer, but couldn’t disguise the thankfulness I felt for her interruption, for possibly the first time in my life. I bid my apologies and my farewell to the man with a, less than par, curtesy and rushed to meet my mother, a careful yet haste flurry in my steps as to not cause any real damage to my heels this time.

I hoped that maybe that would be the worst of it, and I could leave that part of the night behind me, outside of the conservatory, this ball and my prospects, where it belonged.