It was a tricky dance.
Frankly, Elizabeth could not wait to be married. It could not be too soon. But it couldn’t be just anyone. She had to choose very carefully.
Yes, she needed to marry a man who would not be the tyrant that her father was, but she also knew that she needed a man who had the sort of title that her father insisted upon. Anything less and her life would be a continued misery and she needed freedom from her papa.
Eighteen years of her father’s mastery had nearly broken her, but she would not break. She was too close to the edge of freedom to give in.
Oh no. She could taste it.
She had already won over half the ton.
No, that was modest on her part.
She had won over theentiretyof the rulers of the ton and the approval of the queen. Yet, no one knew who she was truly, not deep in her soul, but she did not need them to know who she was to escape.
When she escaped, when the ring was on her finger as her father said, the money settled on her was in her coffers, and the new coronet of whatever high title she married was upon her head…
She could finally be who she wanted.
But for that to happen, she could not let her father choose alone. For if her father picked, he would pick someone like himself, someone who would master her for the rest of her life and that? That would break her beyond anything.
And so as soon as she had adjusted the flowers in her hair, she followed her father out into the night, into the coach, and they rode in silence to the Sheffield ball.
He did not need to say a word.
His eyes were upon her, assessing. Checking every minute detail of her appearance again. It wasn’t necessary. He’d already done so. He never would’ve allowed her out of the house and into the coach if he had not approved of her gown, her hair, her slippers, her gloves, the jewels that she wore, and even the phrases that she had picked to use with her dance partners.
He had even selected the song that she would sing after dinner.
He was a master of everything.
She had no will of her own except on the secret nights in her room when she wrote out in her journal all her dreams and hopes.
When she whispered to the stars and her mother at night the things that she would one day do, and the freedom that she would have, and she felt alive.
One day, she would hold salons. She would entertain the greatest wits and she would no longer be limited to simply knowing them in the cold pages of her books.
Oh, those pages were not as cold as her father.
Those books had sustained her in the long lonely hours. She was given so little company and had no friendships, and she recognized that though the books were a companion, they were nothing compared to the warmth that her mother had shared.
There were days she longed for a simple touch, let alone an embrace.
She longed for any kindness, though she’d likely accept it warily. But like a flower stretching out to the sun, she needed those rays, or she would wither one day. Her petals would curl in on themselves and she would turn into a withered stalk.
The coach quickly pulled up in front of Sheffield manor. After all, they did not live that far apart. None of the great families did. But to arrive in grand style was imperative.
Towalkwould be an anathema.
Perhaps to be carried in a sedan chair would be acceptable, but even that was not considered to be particularly affluent. They waited for a considerable amount of time in the long queue of coaches before at last her father climbed down after the footman opened his gilded door.
Her father did not turn and offer his hand. No. He continued to walk straight ahead.
The footman, of course, had the honor of escorting her down from the coach. Her father never did anything a servant should. She did not scurry to catch up to his perfectly tailored form.
She walked quickly, making certain that her flowing skirts did not catch on anything. Elizabeth floated along the pavement in the way that she had practiced for hours. It was not easy to be quick and to float, but she did it. She followed him up the lantern-lit pathway, up the stairs, and into the crowded throng of the ton.
The scent of perfume and sweat assaulted her as it always did.