An Unwanted Wife

Chapter 1

Christmas Eve, 1811
Suffolk county, England

In her family's small library at their country estate, Miss Lauren Haverhill was sitting in a chair by the fire while she devoured a new novel, Sense and Sensibility. The book identified its author merely as "A Lady" which caused a huge scandal at the time of publication due to it possibly being written by a female member of the ton. Women of good, moral character did not write novels or hold any other profession for that matter save that of a governess or possibly as a companion to an elderly, female relative if they had no relations to support them and had not yet married. Naturally, the scandal surrounding the new book hadn't deterred Lauren's feisty Grammy, her paternal grandmother, a whit from gifting it to her favorite grandchild this morning knowing how much she loved to read. Knowing Grammy as she did, Lauren realized that she likely bought it to send shock waves of any member of the ton who saw her purchasing it in the booksellers on Oxford Street. The subject of the book hit a little too close to home for Lauren, given she was the oldest daughter of a good family with no sons to inherit the family title and estate just like Eleanor, one of the main characters in the novel. All three Haverhill daughters would be totally dependent on the generosity of her father's distant cousin who would next inherit the title and contents of the estate on their father's death unless they each made a profitable marriage before the time came.

Not only did Lauren not earn a single suitor in her previous four seasons at court, she had also earned a rather disastrous reputation of being too serious-minded and scholarly from the young bucks circulating the marriage mart. She had the audacity to discuss having an interest in science or heaven forbid...politics while dancing, topics reserved for the male species leaving her male dancing partners aghast and never returning to book a second time on her dance card. She had never been chosen for a waltz, the new dance that was all the rage only chosen by a man if he intended to pursue a match for which required permission from a chaperone. The lack of suitors had clearly shown to bother her mother enormously and Lauren far too little. Now aged twenty, she was nearing an age when most men would consider her too old to wed. To add fuel to the fire, her parents were allowing her younger, beautiful, twin sisters to make their debut this season.

Her auburn hair and green eyes were in sharp contrast to the honey blonde and blue eyes of her twin younger sisters, Gemma and Jacinda. Their hair flowed straight down their backs, while Lauren's flowed in waves and curls which rarely stayed tame. Where the twins were both petite and shapely in the current fashion, Lauren was tall and willowy. The twins were giggly, simple girls who cared about their next bonnets whereas Lauren preferred to go horseback riding or take long walks. If her twin sisters had opinions on anything, they kept it to themselves and never said a word, preferring to mimic the opinions of their dancing partners rather than offer their own thoughts. Lauren knew from personal experience the twins were as opinionated as their gossipy mother. They just followed the long standing, society rules and voiced their more shrewish comments at home. Gemma was definitely the sharper tongued of the twins, whereas Jacinda tended to be more quiet and shy. By debuting the twins while Lauren was still out, it was as though Viscount Haverhill and his wife had taken out an advertisement in The Times newspaper stating they'd given up on her making a match, let alone a good one. It would permanently reduce her list of suitors to men considered to be far below the first or second tiers of eligible bachelors, most likely the older peers aiming to take a second (or third) wife which held absolutely no interest to Lauren.

Grammy, her paternal grandmother, was furious with her son and his wife for abandoning their oldest daughter. She held a soft spot for Lauren, since her first grandchild bore her name. She herself was once a serious, studious girl who made her own match at the shockingly old age of 23. She decided to make it her personal mission to find Lauren a worthy match with no help from her family by paying for Lauren's season. The bridegroom had been targeted chosen after she and a childhood friend had once discussed the pairing and it was decided they'd make a solid couple based on their common interests. All that was left to do was get them in a room together and see if an attraction would build. Unbeknownst to Lauren, her grandmother hadn't married for love and she didn't want the same fate befalling her favourite granddaughter.