Everything I Do, I Do For You

Chapter 1

Belinda Bassett seemed to be the perfect amalgamation of the Bridgerton sisters. She had her mother's own piano prowess, her aunt Eloise's habit of writing (it was up to whomever knew her to decide if that was a blessing or a curse), her aunt Francesca's name as her own middle name, and her aunt Hyacinth's sharp wit. If she did not look so much like her father, one could assume she was a secret ninth sibling.

But she was a Bassett alright. She was stubborn in her convictions. Not as much as her elder sister was, but surely stubborn enough to get what she wanted. And as of age three and twenty, what she wanted was to remain unmarried.

This would be her third year out on the marriage market, and she was hell bent on keeping it as uneventful as the past two had been. No proposals. No courtings. Just herself floating along while her parents tried to marry her off. They had backed off by the middle of her second year, but they would not let her fully remove herself from the market of eligible women.

"You never know if you might make a love match" Her mother insisted.

As a second daughter, she knew her status did not matter, and she knew it. She could live out her life as an eccentric spinster if she wanted to, and that was something she was wanting more and more with each passing day.

It wasn't that she did not believe in love. Oh certainly not that, She knew what her parents had was surely love, and she had the privilege of watching her elder and younger sister fall in love with their husbands in the past three or so years. But love did not seem like something Belinda wanted. She was sure she knew how to love, she enjoyed spoiling her baby brother and her nephews, but something about romantic love seemed wrong.

Nevertheless, Belinda found herself at her third annual fitting for dresses.

"Do you prefer blue or pink?" the seamstress asked her.

"I'd prefer to not do this at all" she shot back.

"Belinda, please" her mother, the duchess let out a sigh, "blue is the perfect color for her"

The season didn't start for another two weeks, but that meant two weeks of strenuous planning. Planning that seemed albeit very useless for a woman who would never marry.

"Belinda," her mother confessed to her daughter on the carriage ride home after shopping, "I know you feel content with the idea of becoming a spinster, but your father and I simply cannot allow it. We just want what's best for you..."

"What's best for me is a life away from the commitments of marriage" Belinda cut her off.

"I know that is what you think is best, but that is just because you haven't met anyone who made you feel such a way" her mother seemed to be pleading, "just this one more season..."
Belinda perked up at the thought, "one more season as in that's it?"

She watched her mother grow pink with embarrassment, "Well that's not what I meant."

"But it is what you said," Belinda leaned in.

"You'll have to ask your father"

And ask her father she just did. The moment she made it home, she ran up the steps to her father's office. "Father! Father! Mother says that this may be my last season, only if you agree"

Her father, who she quickly realized was asleep behind her desk, woke up in a dazed state, "What?"

Belinda repeated herself all the more confidently, "Mother says this may be my last season if I do not find any suitable partner, which I most definitely will not."

She heard her mother hurry up the stairs behind her. "Simon before you start, your daughter cut me off while I was saying..."

"Would you both come in please" the duke cut her off.

"Oh look, everyone is cutting off Daphne tonight" Belinda heard her mother whisper.

Still on the high of the possibility of being done with the season, she confidently sat down next to her father.

"We were on the way back from the dressmaker, and I told mother that I don't think I'd ever fall in love..." Before she could finish, her mother cut her off. It was rightfully deserved, Belinda thought to herself.

"And your stubborn daughter thought my hope that she would find someone as our acceptance of her spinsterhood by the end of the season."

"Well then" Belinda watched her father sit up and crack his back, "I think we can grant her that."

Belinda watched her mother's jaw drop. "You're joking"

"No, think about it. We have two daughters already married. If she wishes to remain unmarried, then I don't see much of the issue with it."

"But her reputation?" Her mother asked

"I seem to recall one young woman telling me what a ton says about a reputation can be pushed off as gossip." Her father replied smoothly.

"Things were different then" the duchess exclaimed.

"Daphne, we will talk about it in a bit" her father put a finger up, "Belinda you may go"

Belinda felt as if she might faint, "oh thank you so much father! I have to go write this down." She scurried out of her father's office.

If Belinda had stayed, she might have overheard an important subclause to her deal.

"You were supposed to be on my side for this," Daphne spat.

"I am," Simon answered.

"Then why did you tell her that she may remain unmarried for the rest of her life?"

"Daphne," he leaned inward, "There is a whole group of young men joining London's season this year, I find it highly unlikely that our little girl will remain unmarried by this season's end"

"You better be right about this" Daphne leaned in equally, giving her husband a kiss on the lips, "She gets this from you, you know."

"I don't doubt it in the slightest."

Upstairs, Belinda scratched down the day's excitement. By this time next year, she knew that she would be granted the opportunity to relax untied to any man or societal need.