A Secret Ambition

Prologue

"How many people are trapped in their everyday habits: part numb, part frightened, part indifferent? To have a better life we must keep choosing how we're living." Albert Einstein

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Prologue

August 1825

Lily could hardly believe her eyes as she stared at the brief note that her mother has sent her from London. She truly was unsure of what she had been expecting. Her mother, Grace, and her grandmother, Cecily, had departed for London shortly after Lily had finally revealed Perrie's true location.

Lily had endeavoured to keep her sister's flight to London a secret for as long as she could out of loyalty, despite the fact that she had tried to convince Perrie not to go. Lily had cared about the consequences even if Perrie had not. Lily Beresford had always both admired and feared her elder sister Perrie's resolve and determination. Her tenacity had always gotten her into trouble with their parents and instructors alike.

Perhaps Lily had been naïve in assuming that the consequences of Perrie's trip to London would be a scolding from their father. But it was not.

Lily knew that her sister possessed complicated feelings for Joe Parish. She suspected that Perrie had affection for him buried somewhere within her, and her determination to go to London did confirm that suspicion for Lily, but she also believed that these feelings ought not to be rushed.

Despite their grandmother's insistence on Perrie's debut the following year, Perrie was still only seventeen, and would not be eighteen until September. For fifteen-year-old Lily, that still seemed so young. Lily wanted time. She wanted time for Perrie to make her own choices, and to grow into them. Perhaps Perrie had other things to do before she decided to wed.

Lily was beginning to think that she certainly had other plans. She knew that eventually she would be a slave to her sex and rank. Marriage was inevitable. She understood that one day she would have to choose someone to marry, and perhaps she would be as lucky as some of her family members had been, but perhaps she would not. Before she resigned herself to that decision, Lily was quickly affirming her ideas as to what else she could do.

That had to be something else.

And just as she was exploring those ideals and imagining what it was that she could possibly do with her life before she resigned her autonomy, her mother's missive arrived.

Dear Lily,

Much has happened. Too much to explain by post. Please pack your things and ready Charlie and Alice to travel to London.

Perrie has to be married to Joe promptly. There has been a rather unfortunate compromise of your sister's reputation, and so I must ask you to be discreet.

Everything will be explained properly in time, but please do as I say.

Your Mama

It was brief, and it was anything but newsy. But one word stuck out to Lily in and amongst the very few her mother had sent explaining the situation.

Has.

Perrie has to be married.

That sentence frightened Lily. She felt true fear in reading that.

It did not matter that she suspected her sister cared for Joe. It did not matter that she was entirely certain Joe loved Perrie in his own odd way. What mattered was in that sentence, Grace had told Lily that Perrie had no choice in this.

Perrie's autonomy had vanished before she had ever really wielded it. Lily felt her hands begin to tremble, and the sound of the paper shaking in her hands had alerted her two younger siblings, both of whom were occupied in a game of chess against once another.

"Lily?" called Alice. "Is everything alright?"

Lily knew that she would have to be married one day. It was the way of the world. But what she could not fathom was it not being her choice. Girls had so few choices as it was, and Lily could not stand it when the most important choice that she would make in a day was whether or not to salt her eggs at breakfast.

One day she would choose a husband. She would say 'yes' to a suitor. That would be when she would choose to resign her authority to her future husband.

At least, she had always thought that it would be her choice.

But in her hands was the very evidence that it might not be.

She had always felt a sense of security because of the way that she and her siblings had been raised. Her father had always been a protector of these choices.

This could not be it. This could not be it for Perrie. She was seventeen! She was only seventeen! How was this fair?

Perrie's choice might not have been her own, but Lily knew right there in that moment that she would not follow the same path. She would not hand over her autonomy without living first. There had to be more to life than this. 

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Here. We. Go. 

I know this is super, super short, and don't worry, Chapter 1 is being posted NOW! Just lemme write the author's note first before I post it. 

I just wanted to start here, to give you a little window into Lily's formative mind.

So, strap on your seatbelts. Let's get moving. I'm so excited to take you, and Lily, and our unnamed new mancrush on this journey of torture :) Oh, wait I think this is supposed to be a romance novel? Hmm. I suppose we can find a sprinkle of that somewhere. 

Anyway, I'm going to quickly get Chapter 1 up now. I hope you love this story xxx

Vote and comment!! xxx