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Chapter 1
“Are we almost there?” Dorothea asked as she looked out of the window, watching the townhouses pass by.
Ellie was about to answer her sister when the carriage rocked violently, tossing them around. She gasped as her shoulder hit the wall and pain shot down her arm. Beside her, Regina groaned and clutched at her elbow.
“Ouch! That really hurt!”
“We probably just hit something in the road,” Ellie said, rubbing her shoulder. She looked at Dorothea. “Are you alright?”
“I think so.” Her youngest sister pressed a hand to her chest. “I think I was more shocked than anything else. I thought the roads in London were supposed to be in better condition than in the country.”
“Apparently, that’s not always the case.”
Ellie peered out into the street. It was late afternoon, and the sun was slowly creeping down the sky, changing shades and making the shadows lengthen. It made the walls of the buildings look like they were turning a pale orange.
“So?” Dorothea prompted. “Are we almost there? Aunt Emma said she lives near a park, and we passed one a while ago.”
“There are several parks in London, Dorothea. They don’t have just one in the city,” Regina retorted. She bumped into Ellie as she peered out past her sister. “Why are some of the windows blocked up? It makes the houses look a bit odd.”
“I think it’s something to do with the window tax,” Ellie said.
“Window tax?”
“Father mentioned something about having to pay more money to the government for the treasury.” Ellie pointed at a house with four of its thirteen windows bricked up. “People didn’t want to pay it, but you obviously couldn’t get rid of all of the windows, so they would brick up a few so they would have to pay less. It’s not a very popular tax, according to Father.”
Regina looked bewildered. Dorothea snorted.
“They’re just trying to squeeze more money out of us. It’s silly.”
“The government will do what they can to raise money in case we have another war and such.” Ellie sighed. “Hopefully, it’ll be stopped in the future. Nobody likes it, and we can’t block up all of the windows.”
“Does Aunt Diane have blocked up windows?” Regina asked.
“How should I know? I haven’t been there in twenty years.” Ellie gestured for her sister to sit back. “Just settle down and stop being so impatient. We’ll be there soon.”
“I hope so.” Dorothea scowled as she shifted back on the cushions, dusting down her skirts and adjusting her gloves. “I don’t like travelling, and I feel like we’ve been in here all day, even with our break for lunch.”
Ellie could sympathise. She didn’t like travelling for a long time, either, but it was necessary. Their family home was in Kent, so it took a while to go from Gillingham to Harrow. Even spritely people like her younger sisters would end up getting grumpy and fed up.
It shouldn’t be too long. Things were beginning to look vaguely familiar, and Ellie imagined they would be coming to a stop soon.
As she watched the scenery go by, the carriage rocking as it moved along, Ellie found herself thinking about her father. The Earl of Gillingham was sick, and it looked like he was on death’s door. She had wanted to stay at his bedside to take care of him, just as she had done since their mother passed away. But her father had told her to go with her sisters to London and do her duty. She couldn’t do it in their home looking after him.
Leaving his side had been difficult, especially when she knew that she had to leave to find a husband. There was no money, no prospects, and no other male relatives to take them in. Their only option was to get married.
Which was why all of them were coming to stay with their late mother’s widowed sister in London. She was well-connected, so she would be able to point them in the right direction.
The problem was that Ellie didn’t want to do it, mostly because it felt like she was going to be paraded around as though she were on display. Finding a husband had passed her by, and Ellie suspected she would struggle to find someone who wanted to be with a woman in her mid-twenties. As far as thetonwere concerned, she had already been put on the shelf.
She had tried to tell her father that before, but he’d said that she shouldn’t put herself out of commission yet. She could find someone who would be perfect for her. Ellie had argued that if there was someone perfect for her, she would have found him years ago.
She looked over at her sisters. Regina sat beside her, adjusting her hat on her auburn curls. With only eighteen months between them, they were incredibly close. Ellie was the more practical, sensible one, while Regina was the careful, confident sister.
She was also far more beautiful. Dorothea was barely eighteen, so this would be her first Season. The youngest sister was looking like she was going to blossom into a beauty herself with her burnished gold curls, delicate complexion, and cornflower blue eyes.
Ellie felt plain compared to her sisters. Her hair was a simple brown, and she wasn’t willowy and petite. Her body was curvier, which made fitting her for dresses a bit of an annoyance. And while Ellie could handle herself in a social setting, she liked her own company. She was the practical one of the three.
Tradition said that she should be the one to get married first, but Ellie didn’t see that happening. Not when her sisters, quite rightly, outshined her.
