Maverick (FCRAs Winner)

Expectations

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"Have you any idea what you have done?"

Duchess Anna Marie Lucielle Charming was a curvaceous woman dripping in silks and diamonds, with a face that belied someone who had gained a lot of weight in little time. The strict guidelines on size and figure for a respectable young woman were strictly adhered to up until the threshold of her 35th birthday, with corsets, shakes and a potent cocktail of retail therapy and suppressants, but the birthday girl had requested a three tier chocolate and cream masterpiece with trimmings of all descriptions, and had been the first and last one at the dinner table. Since then, the endless cocktail parties and over indulgent duties of token nobility had dramatically taken their toll on her waistline, with most shop bought garments straining to contain her generous figure. Still, it allowed her to have a seamstress and custom gowns, leading to a more exclusive appearance and a higher standing in society. And, after all, noble mothers exhibiting a voluptuous motherly figure were praised in the courts and even encouraged. She was on a vicious circular path of expansion, but that was the least of her worries as she devoured a one cheesecake canapé after another from a large gilded platter with one hand, waggling a sausage like finger towards her eldest daughter with the other. Eighteen months of absence had clearly not made any hearts grow fonder.

Hannah sighed and rolled her eyes. She knew she had messed up again, but the lecture was always the same and was hardly enthralling the first time around.

"You have jeopardised our reputation once again, Hannah. Flying? Who did you steal those wings off? Now we have to do damage control to stop people branding us a house of thieves."

She paused a moment to wipe a smudge of cake from her mouth, her seams straining and a groan escaping as she reached across the table for a monogrammed napkin. Hannah barely hid a grimace. Little love was lost between her and her mother, but the feeling of resentment and disappointment in being related to the other was most certainly mutual.

"Mother, if you would let me explain-" Hannah was cut off by more waggling of fingers and chins.

"I am not interested in your feeble excuses. You never fail to disappoint, I can say that for you. "She chuckled at her own meagre joke.

"But mother-"

"But nothing. You should be thanking us. We have spoken to a few people and called in a few favours and we have managed to salvage the mess you got yourself into. We have saved all of us."

"But-"

"You realise this was your last chance? Your last test for potential first lady ranking? The Senate? A husband? Well maybe you have saved a poor young man a lot of misery in that respect."

She chuckled again, breaking into a series of hiccups. Hannah sighed. She couldn't remember the last time her mother had not been two or more glasses into a bottle of something potent and bubbly. For all her titles, aires and graces, she really was pathetic.

"What you need to do now is put on a wonderful show at the gala. There's a new frock and trimmings in your sister's rooms, and the seamstress will be coming to fix my gown so she can take a glance over yours too. You have a lot of things to prepare, so I expect you to be focusing on this over anything else. And we shall book you in to the hair weaver. The waggling finger was out again. You are not going anywhere with hair like an urchin. You have no sense of decorum-"

"MOTHER!"

The silence lasted but for three seconds before ignorance resumed.

"Raising one's voice is not becoming of a lady, Hannah." She sighed. "Not that it will make much difference to the sorry state of affairs-"