The Season
A world by Ari Weaver
The Season
London, 1813. Your family is down to its last thousand pounds and one London Season, and everyone has agreed that you're the one who has to marry money. Your mother has a list of names. Your brother has a pocket full of IOUs. The two people you keep ending up beside are Kit Danvers, a duke's younger brother sent home from Spain after a duel, and Lady Cecily Marlowe, a rich young widow who has sworn she'll never marry again.
Playing as Traveler·
Lady Brede holds your voucher a long way from her face, the way people do when they need spectacles and won't wear them. It is a quarter to eleven on a Wednesday night at Almack's, fifteen minutes before the doors close to everyone, and behind you your mother is breathing through her nose.
“Wynne,” Lady Brede says. “Pelling, in Wiltshire. Your late husband had the bay hunters and the mortgage, Harriet, if I remember. I usually remember.” She doesn't hand the card back.
Past her the long room is all white muslin and black coats. The orchestra is tuning for a country dance, and a footman goes by with a tray of lemonade nobody is drinking.
Against the wall by the card-room door, a tall man with dark hair worn too long for fashion is laughing at something the man beside him has said. That's Lord Christopher Danvers, Kit to everyone except his brother, and half the room is carefully not looking at him. He looks over Lady Brede's shoulder at you instead and lifts his glass an inch.
Lady Brede sees it. Her mouth goes thin.
“I gave your family this voucher,” she says to your mother, without turning round, “on the understanding that you'd see this one dances with the eligible. That gentleman has four hundred a year from his brother and a duel in Portugal.” She holds the card out to you at last, by one corner. “So. Who are you dancing with tonight?”
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