illicit affairs. | bridgerton

PROLOGUE

⠀⠀In the brisk dawn of an autumn morning, Ophelia Amélie Wynn took her first gasp of air she'd ever craved; with hair like wisps of honey kissing her forehead and eyes like winding ivy, the young girl had looked just like her mother. Hailing from France, her mother had married an affluent man from Cambridge, whose smile Ophelia carried with her. Though not initially a marriage full of unbridled love and joy, through the time spent together, a spark seemed to light between them and soon came their dearest love to them. However, the bright news soon became dimmer in the passing days after her birth.
⠀⠀Maroon and sick stained sheets had continously been changed, doctors weaving in and out of the quiet halls and into the room where her mother lay; something was wrong and they couldn't understand what was happening. As Ophelia lay clueless, hungry in the wet nurses arms, her father had been praying in his study for something to happen—— for anything to happen. And God had worked a miracle for the young man, who would do anything for his love.
⠀⠀Eventually, Ophelia's mother had regained her health and made a recovery that the ton had chittered and twirped about like little birds, masked by genuine worry. But these miraculous things did come at a cost: Ophelia was to be the last of the Wynns. There was no possibility of another heir being conceived, due to complications unforseen in the long and strenuous birth of their beautiful girl.
⠀⠀Silence between the pair had haunted the estate, interrupted by the cries of both mother and daughter— was there a reason God hadn't given the Wynns a son? A reason the name should die forever? A bloodline diminished to a daughter, one who could bear no claim to their fortune, no claim on anything? And yet, even in the mourning the man felt, he couldn't help the love he still felt for the two girls, although changed. He could still fix this mess that was made.