A Solemn Vow [BRIDGERTON]

The Letter

   In the brisk glow of morning, Sophia can make out swirls of fog hanging low on the London streets. They swirl in a grey mist and forbid her to see anything or anyone that is quietly bustling by in the early part of the day. She sits on the bench near the window, peering, waiting, for what she did not know. Sophia only knew that she was waiting and waiting and waiting... That is what her life consisted of now that she was a young woman out in society: waiting for a man to proclaim a proposal of marriage. To her mother, the Marchioness of Lorington, waiting for a distinguished man to ask for her hand in marriage is precisely what Sophia should look forward to. In the world of the upper class, there is not a single thing that a young woman of good pedigree should do but wait for her soon-to-be husband to find her on a crowded ballroom floor. But to Sophia, a girl of twenty, it was a notion that made her stomach churn uncomfortably.

The sound of a light knock coming from the other side of her bedroom door stirs Sophia out of her melancholy thinking. Tightening her soft dressing robe around her, she watches are her lady's maid pokes her head around the door.

  "'Ello Lady Sophia," comes the voice of Helen, a young girl who wasn't too much older than Sophia herself. Helen offers Sophia a smile as she crosses into the room and begins to open the drapes. "Did you sleep well, my Lady?"

The morning drones on. Helen helps Sophia into a beautiful gown of pale blue that accents her full bust nicely and falls in shimmering tufts down to her feet. Her lady's maid styles her hair for her as well, picking a soft up-do that lets out a few tendril of curls to fall on Sophia's neck. Some diamond earrings passed down from her grandmother and Sophia is ready for the day... to wait for gentlemen to call on her and politely ask if it would be alright for them to court her.

Sophia takes stock in the sitting room of Lorington House, a book in her lap and her eyes, once again, on the clouded streets of gloomy London. And she waits. Sometimes she reads through the book and other times Helen will bring her some fresh fruit or tea.

At half past twelve, she hears the heavy footsteps that can only belong to her father, the Marques of Lorington. He wasn't a heavy man, her Papa wasn't, but he was a man of great stature who towered over most he met. He finds Sophia in the sitting room, waiting.

  "My dear girl," he greets happily. But immediately, Sophia can tell something is wrong. His face is fallen, ashen almost, and the smile he wears on his thin lips wavers too much to be real.

  "Is everything alright?" Sophia asks, concernedly.

  Her father's smile falters before cracking away. He sighs. "There will be no gentlemen callers coming to see you today."

For a second, Sophia feels dizzy. No callers? Her mother, who Sophia had not seen at all this morning, would be humiliated and thus, so would Sophia. Abruptly and forgetting every single etiquette taught to her, Sophia stands. She paces to the other side of the room as her father looks on, worried.

  "Why? Has my reputation been-?"

  "No," the Marques cuts off. "No, darling. Of course not. It's just a matter of... Well, there is an arrangement."

Sophia's blue eyes fall onto her father and she feels even more dizzy. Her heart is beating frantically inside her chest.

  "An arrangement?"

  "Yes, with the Duke of Hastings. I don't believe the two of you have ever met," her father says, his tone forlorn.

  "No, they have not met, but he is a handsome man, Sophia. You two shall get along well."

Her mother enters then, poised and wearing a smile that Sophia believes to be real. The Marchioness wears a gown of deep blue and is bejeweled with a large diamond necklace. As always, she was perfectly put together and not at all lost to the situation at hand, unlike her daughter.