Paige Featherington, the youngest of the Featherington four, had always promised herself that she wouldn't get married until her older sister Penelope had married first. Yet this didn't seem like a difficult plan, not when her family had prevented h...
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The first ball of the marital season was no small feat, Paige knew it well. She knew there was a lot of expectations riding on this first ball. She knew as a young lady she was supposed to complete a few tasks during this ball. Namely, fill her dance card with suitors. Good, well endowed suitors. She was then to impress those suitors, with the idea that they should then wish to call upon her the very next morning. She was to also impress and socialise as much as possible with suitors who did not ask her to dance, to try and keep everyone thinking about her, in a positive light. There was also the importance of making friends with some of the other debutants, those from well off families who would likely marry into other well of, titled, families so that she had connections, a network say.
All of which seemed like a lot to rest upon her shoulders. Paige knew her mother expected her to do all of this, but was not going to bd offering her much help. And if she was being honest, she wasn't sure she even wanted her mother's assistance, she had seen what the woman had done for her older sisters, whom she had tried to set them up with. That was the last thing Paige wanted, was for her mother to get meddling and she end up with some horrible man, who would most likely only want her to produce heirs. It was stupid but part of Paige was desperate for a love match, she felt as though that was the one thing she was missing in life, true love. Sure she held love for her sisters, but they never seemed to show it back to her. Or if they did it always seemed to come with an ulterior motive. Therefore, leaving her to feel as though she had plenty of love to give, but no-one really to give it to.
The party had started off rather slow for Paige, she had come to the realisation, one she should really have known was coming, that the words of Lady Whistledown were not easily forgotten. Part of her had naively thought that over the last few days since the gossip paper had come out that some of the ton would have moved on, but alas that was not the case. Even the debutants seemed fearful to spend any time around her, scared that they will either conduct whatever mystery issue was wrong with Paige or they themselves would be featured in the gossip papers.
Arthur Rollings, was unfortunately not shy of the scene of marital season balls. For his mother was becoming more and more wary of him ever finding a bride. She had been forcing him to attend such balls for the last few years begging him to just dance with a few of the ladies, find himself a bride. But his mother was not aware that he only had his eye set on two people, and only one of them was a lady. But the Duke of Cheshire, couldn't focus too much of his attention to the waging thoughts upon his mind, rather he needed to focus his attention to the present, on what he needed to do next. For Charles had started their plan by attending the Featherington estate to gain Paige's initial attention, it was now down to him to make her aware that she had two suitors. His eyes scanned the large room of the Danbury estate, desperately trying to find the ginger hair he knew belonged to her, and it took a few sweeps. It would appear that Paige had managed to easily find herself a small dark corner of which to hide in. But he found her.
