Spinster Ever After (The Spinster Chronicles #7) - Rebecca Connolly

Prologue

London, 1815

“Capital idea! I wish I’d thought of it, but I am never the genesis of good ideas. Still, I will die on the battlefield for your idea, see if I don’t.”

“I don’t imagine we will be facing any battlefields in this…”

Charlotte Wright looked at her friend Georgiana Allen as though the girl were a simpleton, which she might actually have been. Could she really not see that, in doing this, they would be waging a war?

“What do you think a ballroom is but a battlefield?” Charlotte sputtered, reaching for the fresh cup of tea that sweet Isabella Lambert had made for her. “Do we not gird ourselves with armor before we go in?”

Izzy wrinkled up her nose as she handed Georgie her tea. “I’ve never considered silk or muslin to be armor myself.”

Georgie snickered a laugh while Charlotte gave the best soul in the room a dark look. “No, because you are the nicest creature in any ballroom at any given time, so why would you? Everyone is good and kind and has the very best intentions. You don’t need armor, Izzy, you’re immortal.”

“Impervious, too, apparently.”

Charlotte ignored this comment and returned her attention to the more fallible of the two. “I can assure you that Society as a whole will rise up in arms against us. Spinsters not particularly caring that they are so? And speaking about it? It will upset the entire balance. I cannot wait to begin.”

Georgie looked troubled for the first time. “I don’t mean for us to incite a rebellion or to recruit followers…”

“We are hardly Jacobins,” Charlotte retorted without shame. “Don’t look so scandalized. I only mean that it will be quite a noise we create, and it will make such a difference to the other young ladies of Society.”

“That is what we hope for,” Izzy assured her, her relief evident. “After what poor Elizabeth Daniels suffered…”

Charlotte waved a dismissive hand, cutting her friend off. “Elizabeth was a fool, and that is a rather common predicament. We most certainly have something to say about that, do we not?” She quirked her brows, taking a long and silent sip of her tea. “Now, what does Emma have to say about this, hmm?”

Emma Asheley was Georgie’s other half, in many respects, though the same could have been said for Izzy, as her cousin, and it was generally known that Emma and Georgie were approaching the actual spinsterdom shelf. Society had written them off despite the lack of an actual discriminating age. Apparently, it was behavior more than a number with regards to their marriageable state. Izzy, on the other hand, was the sweetest creature Charlotte had ever met, but it was clear she would follow in the same course as the other two. Already spinsters and not yet decrepit or faded, Society said. It was not fair, but it was the truth where those three ladies were concerned.

They were also some of Charlotte’s oldest friends.

Charlotte was, of course, of a similar age with the lot of them, but there was one particular difference that kept her from the same harsh categorization.

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