It would take a very particular type of man to truly appreciate Crecy, and Belle was determined that her half-sister would have the time to find him. Time, however, was something they didn’t have. This was to be their one and only season. There was no money for a second. If they didn’t marry, Belle knew that Aunt Grimble had plans for Crecy that were not at all respectable. Indeed, she wouldn’t put it past the cruel-hearted creature to sell her off to the highest bidder before this season was even over.
The idea made fury burn in Belle’s blood and she stabbed the needle through her mending with such violence that she pricked her thumb. Cursing under her breath, she sucked the blood away before it could stain the delicate fabric of one of her better dresses.
“Language, Belle,” Crecy, without looking up from her book, said in a singsong mocking tone that Belle well knew was an imitation of her own words.
Belle poked her tongue out and she saw Crecy’s lips twitch with amusement, even though her eyes never lifted from the page. Well, Aunt Grimble could go to ... to somewhere hot and unpleasant, and stay there. It was up to her. Somehow, she was going to have to make the best of things and snare herself a husband. Someone wealthy enough to overlook their lack of dowry, and generous enough to give Crecy the kind of season she truly deserved.
How exactly she was supposed to do that, however, was not something she could figure out.
She had spent some time giving herself a critical once-over before the one tiny and rather tarnished mirror. Though certainly no beauty, she wasn’t exactly hard to look at. Her pale blonde hair was unremarkable when compared to Crecy’s golden shade, it was true, though it was glossy and soft. Her eyes were an unusual shade of blue, perhaps, but nothing truly out of the ordinary, though they were wide and ready to be pleased with the world. Her figure was good as well, though once again, nothing special next to Lucretia’s. The problem was, if you put Belle next to Crecy, which was where she always was, she faded into the background.
If Crecy had been a different kind of creature, Belinda might have felt a twinge of resentment at that fact. However, Crecy regarded her looks as nothing but a freak of nature and would cheerfully point out to any young man that dared to compare her to some ridiculous goddess that she would be old and haggard one day, and then where would they be?
It was a fair point. Crecy would drive any romantically inclined gentleman to his wits’ end in days with her rather prosaic outlook on life and her studious interest in the macabre and, well, downright disturbing. If he took her for a stroll in the gardens, she was far more likely to return with a bird’s skull, or something else as revolting and long dead, than a bouquet of roses.
Belle sighed.
Lucretia looked up and frowned at her sister while twisting her bookmark, a thin length of black velvet around her fingers. It was a nervous habit that Belle well recognised, though it was her that Crecy was anxious for.
“Do stop fretting, Belle,” she said, though Belle could see the strain of their uncertain future in the serious grey eyes of her sister, too. “Everything will be fine. I know it will. One of us will marry and we’ll get away from ... that woman, and everything will be rosy. You’ll see.”
Belle returned an uncertain smile and Crecy huffed, placing the velvet book mark carefully in between the pages, and closed her book. “It will! I’ve promised to behave for this blasted house party, haven’t I?”
“Crecy!” Belle replied, shaking her head. “Mind your tongue. You speak so freely to me that you’ll be bound to forget yourself in company.”
Crecy shrugged but didn’t deny it. Instead, she set the book to one side and got to her knees, sitting at Belle’s feet. “I hate to see you so worried, Belle,” she said, taking her hand and squeezing her fingers.
“I can’t help it,” Belle admitted, turning her head to stare into the fire. “I’m frightened what will become of us. We have such a short time to find a good match. How can we possibly find someone who will be a good husband when we have but a few months?”
As ever with conversations of this nature, Crecy grew quiet. If Belle didn’t know it was impossible she could have sworn her heart was already engaged. But due to their straightened circumstances and the fact that Aunt Grimble was universally detested, they had very little society, and Belle never, ever left Crecy alone. It was impossible. More likely, she was in love with some devilish character from one of her dreadful books, in any case.
Belle had wondered if perhaps she simply didn’t want to marry, and somehow this seemed far more likely. Crecy was a solitary girl, far happier alone with her own thoughts than forced to be the centre of attention. The idea of the beautiful creature leading such a solitary existence, of never being in love or loved, was enough to make tears spring to Belle’s eyes.
“Oh, now stop that!” Crecy cried, revolted. “If you are crying for my sake, I shall get cross, you know I will!”
Belle spluttered a hiccoughing kind of laugh, amused as ever by Crecy and her forthright nature. The trouble was that no one else understood that there was a heart of gold beneath that rather sharp tongue. Belle had lost count of the amount of wounded birds, cats, ducks, dogs, and, God help her, even a rat, that had recovered under Crecy’s tender care. Though, of course, that had been curtailed once they’d moved in with their aunt. She would not put up with such nonsense, being the kind to drown kittens without batting an eye.
Before he had died, their father had left them very much alone and to their own devices, though, and Belle had brought up her younger sister as best as she could manage. She wondered now if she’d done right in allowing Crecy such freedom of speech and thought. It would surely lead her into trouble.
Well, their chance was before them, and Belle was going to do everything in her power to make sure she found a way to save them both. She cringed instinctively at the idea. Like Belle, the idea of polite conversation and dancing and socialising, paled against the idea of sticking her nose in a good book and curling up by the fire. She despised the city and always felt rather out of place at the few parties she had attended. She often dreamed of a life in the country, but now she would settle for a roof over their heads, wherever that might be.
Desperate times called for desperate measures - and Belle was desperate.
So, she would go to the ball and simper and smile and giggle with all the other brainless débutantes, and pray someone of worth could actually do something as strange and remarkable as fall in love with her.
***
Edward watched the tearful reunion between Puddy and Violette with impatience. He felt a fool, being forced to come and stir a blasted pudding with Violette’s husband looking on with that perpetual glimmer of amusement in his eyes. Well, at least he’d have to do it, too.