The Allure Of Love (Sample)

Prologue

Prologue

Elizabeth POV

Georgia 1875

Huge sorrow filled tears dripped down my cheeks. Sad, angry, and upset were an understatement to the feelings I felt deep within. You see my life is in complete disarray. I laid on my back contemplating the course of events that had stricken my life so intensely the past few months. Living in Georgia was neither kind nor easy.

Every moment lived is a scandal waiting to happen. News travels fast between the young and wealthy. Secrets are like currency and each smile masks a sticky web of lies and deceit. At this point in my life I was at the pinnacle of society. That is until last summer blew in a breath of despair; A breath that never ceased.

Being a southerner was like being a man or woman. It was something given to you at birth, and you couldn’t change it. Not that you would want to. It was a great privilege. As a southern woman you were expected to adore parties, marry a gentleman, and raise children on a prestigious plantation.

Peering out my bedroom window I saw plantations that lined the road for as far as the eye could see.  Your number of servants, the decorum of you women, and of course the quality and profit of your crops defined what class of society you belonged to. By this standard my father was a very wealthy and important man.

Everything about the south was slow; the slow way of speaking, the slow endless summer days, and of course the slow lingering stares that were always upon us ladies. Life was about being merry, sipping lemonade, watching the occasional polo match and of course hating the Yankees. We were known for our charm, hospitality, and of course our sweet southern drawl that left each word dripping sweet with honey.

I grew up in the time of the reconstruction. The north was desperate to make amends for the ties they had cut during the great blood bath of the civil war. We southerners were still licking our wounds, and brooding with self pity over our loss.

While the north was moving forward we eagerly clung to our traditions and culture that we had proudly carried on for years. We despised the Yankees for many reasons, and every southern man knew each one. They freed their slaves, taught women to rule like men, possessed no manners, and thought Christmas was a sin.

The old bitterly recalled those early war years, and many bared the scars of battle. Us youths didn’t have a care. We swooned over the brave soldiers, and patriotically lifted our voices in song. The front line was a far off place, and poverty had never been a word we knew. The generation of suffering was soon to be forgotten and we were ready to experience life to the fullest.

We hadn’t known pain or suffering. We didn’t wear widows black, or know the pangs of starvation. We had never been so cold we wished death to come as a mercy. Our pale flesh had never seen a day’s work, and our cheeks flushed with rosy gaiety. We were young, beautiful, catty, and simply southern.