The Eldest Daughter and the Second Son

Sophie Baek had spent her whole life poised between acknowledgement and silence. The illegitimate daughter of the Earl of Penwood, she was raised in his household neither as a servant nor quite as a true daughter - too cherished to be forgotten, and too inconvenient to be fully embraced without reservation.

But what if her story were to unfold differently? What if Sophie's father did not die, and she herself entered society not in secret, but with the hope of a season that might truly be her own?

In this alternative story, Sophie's life may take an altogether different course: instead of a furtive entrance into society, she is given the chance of a proper debut; instead of despair, hope. But if the beginning of a story is changed, does its ending change as well? And if one meeting was truly meant to be, does the path that leads to it matter at all?