Maybe instead of a season in London I should reverse my story and send her to the island after failing to find a husband after a few seasons. The rest of the plot will remain the same. However it stands to reason that there will be fewer social opportunities on an island for obvious reasons.
Too many choices!! Arrgh!
Excerpt:
As she had expected, the skies seemed a bit gray, the air was
cool and somehow felt damp. And what was that foul odor? She couldn’t quite put
her finger on it. Unwashed bodies maybe? Or rotting debris strewn in the
streets near the vessel? How did people live here?
She was not accustomed to this at all. There was so much
activity. On the island where she grew up the port never had more than a few
boats at a time and not many more people. But this, this was almost chaos. Dock
hands loaded goods on and off scores of ships docked along the wharf.
Many coaches came and went each almost seeming to slow down
and stare at her before speeding on by. She unconsciously touched her hair and
smoothed her dress. Could they look at her and tell her secret? She tried her
best to hide it. She had put on her best dress and had taken great pains to
care for herself better than she ever had.
She was a woman of ten
and eight but this was her first time ever leaving home. Oh how she missed Papa
and her home in the colony. The bright sun and the warm fragrant tropical
breeze always comforted her. This was a culture shock.
Her papa was adamant that she have a season as befitting a
woman of her station. But she didn’t really care about all that, she would have
happily stayed at home attending to her aging father.
Instead he wrote to his sister and packed her off to England
to find a husband. A husband was the last thing she really needed. She was an
heiress thanks to her father’s good business instincts and spendthrift ways.
She didn’t need anything; she had her writing
to keep her otherwise occupied. She made up her mind to respect her father’s
wishes and attend the season but at the end she would return home alone,
hopefully it wouldn’t prove to be too tedious an endeavor.
“Faith, is it truly you?” She looked up a bit startled at
being caught unawares. This woman could be no other than her Aunt Davinia. She
looked so much like Papa that she almost burst into tears on the spot. She was
shorter than Faith, as big a barrel of wine with kind brown eyes just like her
fathers. Instead she gulped in a big
breath of air to fortify her and responded as serenely as she could “Why yes,
you must be aunt Dora what a pleasure to finally ... oof!” She found herself
locked into an embrace that almost knocked the wind out of her.
“ Oh Faith look at you! You are even more beautiful than your
father described. I’m so happy to finally meet you after all these years!” She turned around
and there were a few other faces staring back at with a mixture of curiosity
and surprise. “These are your cousins Lord James and Lady Elizabeth. Both of you girls will
have your coming out this season. It will be so much fun!”
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