Beauty Unseen: The sisters of Folly trilogy (Book One)

Chapter One: Content

"I'm perfectly...content." Wendy whispered to herself as she sat and watched her young sister's dance.

Clarissa and Penelope, twins just turned seventeen and set out for the Capital to be judged on their grace and beauty in their first season. She felt much like she imagined a proud mother would, being herself, ten years their senior she had played a heavy hand in raising them and she was thankful for it. She unconsciously gripped the skirts of her dress as she watched them twirl around the public ballroom, men also looked on enthralled by the ethereal looks.

Being quite alike in appearance it was often difficult for others to tell them apart, both slim with beautiful waiflike figures, taller than most of the young ladies they lined up with in the dances, they stood out. Silky blonde hair fell to their waists with crowns of pearls adorning their heads, shining hazel eyes and rosebud pouts completed faces that would be best suited for paintings they were so pleasant to gaze upon. Though Wendy could always tell them apart seeing the fire inside of Penelope's eyes and her extroverted attitude often left her more subdued and introverted twin, Clarissa, chasing after Penelope and cleaning up her messes.

She worried at her bottom lip and sent a prayer above that Penelope found a bit more sense before it was too late, and their mother taught her the kind of lesson only Bianca was capable of giving. Her shoulders curled forward at the thought of the switch biting into her back and as if thinking of her had summoned her Wendy heard her sharp whisper "Sit up straight, Wendy!" The words were hissed through her teeth as she feigned a stunning smile at a passing couple and batting her fan around her face, her blonde hair fluttered in wisps as the rest was piled on top of her head in an intricate updo. "This is your last season, and we cannot have it being such a waste as you've allowed all the others to be." Bianca warned with a scathing look shot towards her eldest daughter.

A shuttering breath heaved from Wendy as she tried to compose herself, her cheeks flamed red, and she kept her gaze pinned to the dance floor "I think we may safely assume that bad posture is not the reason I am unwed in my tenth season, mother" Wendy spoke quietly as she felt Bianca's sharp eyes picking apart her appearance "Even you have not deigned to spare my feelings in the truth of my looks, mother, so why begin lying to yourself and believe it is anything other than the fact that I lack the beauty to secure a husband that leaves me destined for spinsterhood?" Feeling brave by the surrounding crowd Wendy dared to meet her eyes, clashing like iron on iron.

Another hiss escaped Bianca's lips as she muttered to herself something or other of Wendy being a waste of her time moving on and away from Wendy, flitting around the dance floor her sisters currently occupied.

She was far too used to the ugly words to react outwardly though she had to admit to herself that they still tore at her heart, her chest suddenly feeling too tight as her fan slipped from her lap to clatter against the floor at her feet.

Just as she moved to pick it up a masculine gloved hand grabbed it, she looked up and found a tall, blonde, gentleman smiling as he kneeled slightly in front of her to retrieve it "Yours I believe, madam." He stated more than he asked as he placed the fan in her outstretched hand.

Unable to help herself, Wendy could feel the color flooding her cheeks as she accepted the fan "Thank you." She murmured dipping her head in gratitude.

"It is not even yet halfway through the evening; do you not care for dancing?" His overtly friendly voice asked, and she was slightly surprised he was still standing there, a sudden unease she had been taught through consequences not to ignore rolled down her spine as his eyes swept along the couples dancing.

"Indeed, I do." She spoke clearer this time; she felt the eyes of the Capital's peers as some of the older ladies leaned in with interest to listen. "I am watching my younger sisters dance though and I find to it being as entertaining to me as though I were dancing myself" another lie she told herself, to sooth the sting of never being asked to dance.