She was an heiress.
Money erased all sorts of sins. But Charlotte did not care about the money apart from what opportunities it afforded her, and the protection it gave her. She wanted a love match. All girls did, she presumed, but she was one of the rare few who could actually insist upon it.
And insist she would.
“Emma is unsettled,” Georgie admitted, wrinkling her nose a little, “but she is for it. She thinks writing some articles would be useful, but she suggests we do not put our names to them.”
Charlotte raised a brow at her. “Anonymous? Interesting idea. She fears being labeled?”
Izzy cleared her throat softly. “She believes it could spare all of us the worst of things if we would refrain from attaching ourselves to anything.”
That was certainly a thought, but it would not spare everything.
“They’ll know who we are,” Charlotte warned. “Even if they don’t know who writes which article. They’ll still know it’s us.”
“But with enough blame to spread around,” Georgie said, “pointing fingers would be impossible.”
A slow smile spread across Charlotte’s face, and she settled into her chair more comfortably. “Then I declare the first meeting of the Spinster Chronicles authors to be open.”
“We’ll never get married after this,” Izzy warned with a laugh. “Everyone will say so, no matter what our charms. Or our fortunes,” she added, nodding to Charlotte.
Charlotte barked a hard laugh. “Balderdash! I say I will marry, if and only if I can find a love that pales all other loves to persuade me out of what is sure to be a most glorious spinsterhood.”
Chapter One
London, 1820
Decisions should always be conscientiously made, and even more conscientiously acted upon. There is no sense in being careless in decisions or waffling about. More’s the pity if a careless decision is made, for one should stand by one’s decisions. All the more reason, then, to make them carefully.
-The Spinster Chronicles, 24 November 1815
Marriage was not a foreign concept to Charlotte Wright.
She doubted it was a foreign concept to any person of the female gender in England. It would surprise a great many people to know that she did not consider it a foreign concept, however. She could hardly blame them, considering she was a spinster, and a Spinster with a capital S, as well. Which of those sins was the greater evil, no one could say, nor did they dare. Charlotte was one of the most respected and most popular heiresses in London. She did not suffer under any delusion that people felt any less about her involvement in the Spinster Chronicles than they had with her friends. She had no doubt she was reviled behind closed doors in some circles and hailed behind others.
She was not married. By definition, spinster was an entirely appropriate description and category. Most particularly because Charlotte had been given ample opportunities to marry. To date, she had received fourteen offers of marriage from ten different men, none of which had been revoked despite her refusals. Kind, respectful, but adamant refusals.
Somehow, she was less of a spinster for being wealthy and refusing proposals.
Her mother wanted her to accept a proposal. Her father wanted her to accept a proposal. Her brother wanted her to accept a proposal. She had no doubt all of Society wanted her to accept a proposal.
But Charlotte had not wanted to accept any of those proposals, and so she had not. Her family had not pressed her, and for that she was grateful. She was well aware of her good fortune in that regard, as several other ladies, including some of her friends, were very much pressured by family into marriages. Even forced into some.
It was not that she hated marriage, or despaired of it, or found great satisfaction in her life as a spinster. Not even putting a capital S on the thing could take away the sting of such a label. Yet she had not despaired of being a spinster, either. She had found the greatest friends in being so and meaning in her life beyond being a pretty fixture at Society events with a sizeable fortune behind her name.
All anybody talked about in Society was the marriage status of various members. It was the most social topic by far, and there was no use in denying it. Charlotte had known this from before her very first Season, and nothing about the conversation, or the marriage state, had particularly surprised or interested her.
No, marriage was not a foreign concept by any means. It had simply never been an avenue of interest.
Until now.
How did one go about marrying? She knew the conventional process, of course; she had dallied with the thing for ages. But she had grown so accustomed to engaging in attention from eligible men while politely refusing their offers of marriage that she wasn’t entirely sure how to adjust things appropriately.
And she still clung to the one thing she had always said would be her reason for marriage: she would only marry for love. Sweeping, dizzying, fall to one’s knees for the pain of it love. Nothing more and nothing less. No marriage of convenience, for nothing about marriage would be convenient for her. No marriage of comfort, for what comfort could be greater than she already knew? No marriage in name, for what in the world would be the point of that? It would be a love match or nothing at all for Charlotte Wright. It had always been that way, but now…
Well, now she felt rather abandoned.
The last five glorious years had been spent reveling in her unmarried state, embracing it publicly just as she had done privately. And she had not done so alone. The Spinster Chronicles had exceeded anybody’s expectations, becoming one of the most popular news sheets around town, if one could call it a news sheet. It was really more of a Society commentary, but the fervor might as well have been newsworthy. Izzy’s cousin Frank, their benevolent
