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

Chapter Seven: Family Ties

It was a hectic fortnight; a long fourteen days of scathing insults poured over Wendy in daily heaps while her nights were filled by awkward dinners with the duke glued to her side, saying not a word to her unless it was bid to goodnight or tell her a tidbit of information he felt she should know about the wedding, instead he silently regarded her and her family with those intelligent grey eyes accessing her with precision that scared her deep in her chest, her every flaw visible in glaring view. Before she felt as though she was truly steady on her feet since the moment, he kissed her hand and left her in her father's small sitting room, it was the night before her wedding day.

She had been entirely too certain that this day would never be in existence, she would have bet her life on that... and yet here it was. She glanced at the jeweled tiara, set up in her room for tomorrow, looking so out of place in with her splitting walls as their backdrop. Wendy knew she would blend right into those cracks, falling into them and forever being unseen. She knew with dreadful certainty that she would be as sore a thumb at Thornberg as this tiara was a solo spot of beauty in her common home. Jewels had been sent to the house by the duke with a note of explanation and an excuse that he would not be at dinner, they were his mothers, the late duchess' jewels and when Sarah had giddily set it to be buried on top of her wild hair Wendy felt as though she might suffocate from its metaphorical weight.

the duchess, Amelia Granger, had been named the very star of her society in the Capital by her peers. She was swept off of her feet by her longtime friend and confidant duke Leonard Granger and they danced into a fairy-tale life that ended in with great tragedy striking, an unexpected and devastating carriage accident robbed the duke and Lady Baxter of their parents at young ages. Wendy attempted to learn all that she could of him and his family in the short amount of time she had, had to prepare for the wedding, every morsel of knowledge about him she implored Sarah and other servants to divulge to him solidified the daunting truth looming over her, the duke was making a horrid mistake by linking himself to her and one day she would disappoint him as she had everyone else in her life. 

No matter how she tried to convince herself that this was nothing but the result of ill timed fate, still guilt ate at Wendy. She already saw that knew he was kind and thoughtful despite the very few encounters and words exchanged between them. He had raised his younger sister, refusing to send her away even when he was scarcely but a child himself, and it was quite obvious they still held a close relationship. He had spent many years providing military strategy services to the crown and it was rumored he was a close friend of the Kings, even though he stayed away from the battlefields now he left his estate yearly to the Capital to assist the crown in critical military planning. Above all that Wendy could not help the way her heart clenched at the of his latest rescue, her, his eyes stared into hers each night he had left and promised a safety Wendy had not dared to think on. If he had walked away she would have been left to face not only the scorn of society, which she knew from experience she could bare, but the wrath of her parents,  which she was not confident that she would survive.

She sat with a small candle burning at her vanity, her hair hung in all directions, dark curls twisting around her, clad in her white nightdress. She gazed on her reflection, the flame of the candle casted a shifting shadow across her features, until she wasn't seeing her own attributes she was seeing. His stoic yet fiercely handsome face, his sharp silver eyes that see every detail and piece of information left open to their scrutiny, they seared her soul her their intensity. Surely, what would people have to say when such a revered man was tied to an ugly and penniless woman. He was trapped by his own moral standing when she knew he could have any woman in the Capital. Stuck only because he had been there to save her life, the thought of what would have happened had she collapsed with no one around, gasping for breath and unable to get any, haunted her often the past several nights.

It was some cruel joke from the heavens, she thought as a tear escaped solemnly down her cheek, landing soundlessly against the top of her vanity, that so amiable a man, rich in wealth, high in title, and so obviously graced with a handsome face. A man so kind as to come to the aid of a stranger and then remain honorable still when accusations of sins he was free of laid at his feet, that such a man were to be paired with her, someone so displeasing to look upon, who lacked everything it might take to be a duchess, that someone like him, was stuck with her. Fate had been unusually cruel to him.

Wendy was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of feet scampering across the hall behind her closed door, her brows pulling together in confusion, picking up the candle she made her way out of the room, she followed the footfalls down the stairs and gazed on Penelope and Clarissa's bent forms as they peeked through the crack of a door, light pouring into the foyer from the candles still displayed inside.