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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Paige awoke the morning after the Danbury ball feeling very confused within herself. For she had potentially had the most enjoyable night in her entire adult life. But at the cost of dancing with someone who was not the first person to call upon her. It was strange in a sense that Paige felt as though she owed something to Charles Bridgerton. After all, he had been her only caller, nobody else had made the effort to call upon her prior to this. And despite him not being at the ball the night prior, or if he was he did not make an effort to search her out, Paige still felt guilty for having spent the latter half of the night dancing with a single man, a Duke at that, and Charles' best friend.
It was silly of her though, to feel as though she owed something to a man who had only truly interacted with her the once, surely. Paige knew better than that, she was much more certain of herself than that. Yet she was unsure why she still felt that way. Perhaps it was the harsh words of her mother over the last few years that she would not find a husband that made her cling to the first man who possibly could be that for her. Or maybe it was the fear of getting to know a Duke. In her mind, she knew that someone from her family did not belong higher up in society than they already were. It remained a shock to Paige that they had somehow managed to keep their place in society all these years, for they were not the proper respectful family they should have been. And she knew she would never fit into the role of Duchess. Nor was she sure she wanted it.
But she had to push these feelings aside, and prepare herself for that morning. Her older sisters had whispered all evening on the ride back to the house about Paige having been seen dancing all night with a Duke. Their wondering minds thinking back to a few seasons prior when a single dance with a Duke had changed Daphne Bridgerton's entire season. How it had taken a house that received no callers to a house that was overrun with them. Both Prudence and Philippa had been so excited by the prospect of their youngest sister finally getting what they had all deserved, the opportunity to pick through suitors, that Paige felt guilty. For she knew that despite having danced with a Duke the night prior it would be hard to shake the words of Lady Whistledown. And she did not blame potential suitors for still being put off by the indirect words of the season gossip papers.
Therefore, Paige readied herself as she had done the time prior, with little hope for whom might just be waiting for her. But part of her, a part which was perhaps a little delusion hoped for perhaps just two specific callers. Maybe that way she could at least start to bury some of the guilt she was feeling overridden by. It would sure make her nights much easier to sleep through if that was the case. At least that was what she was telling herself. But she also prepared herself to not have any suitors, just because she had a semi-successful night the night prior did not mean anything. Not in a society where words were harsher than actions.
She sat herself in the same chair as earlier in the study, a poor attempt at needlework before her. A part of Paige, the part which knew there was limited years before her, wanted to get better. The part of her which longed for children, sometimes, wished that perhaps this would make it so that she could pass something of meaning onto them. Or not, she wasn't really sure of anything any more. Only that her heart and her mind were at war with one another. Over what, she wasn't even sure of that. Oh to be a teenaged debutant in a world where being pretty was the only thing that mattered.
