Cassandra's sister, Alexandra, sat across from her, petulance writ into her every feature as she watched Cassandra pack her trunk.
"I simply don't understand why I may not go!" Alexandra exclaimed, her blue eyes filled with childish rage, "I am seventeen years old and every other girl I know is to have a season in London now."
"That is something you must discuss with Nate." Cassandra said firmly, "You know that he does not think filling a seventeen year old girl's mind with thoughts of marriage is right, which is exactly why he did not want either of us in society till we were twenty. I complied gladly, and you'll soon learn that it is better."
"I really don't care for your talks of how I will understand everything once I am older. You're two and twenty and unmarried, and I am in no mind to marry right away. I just want to dance and drink more sherry than is proper, just like all the other girls are doing!"
"I am sorry, Allie." Cassandra apologised, not truly meaning it. She knew her sister well, and knew of her tendency to be caught up in what everyone else was doing. Every other young lady was out hunting for a husband, which Alexandra was simply too young for. Cassandra agreed whole-heartedly with her brother on this matter. "But I cannot help it."
Alexandra groaned in frustration and collapsed on Cassandra's bed. Amelia, Cassandra's lady's maid, appeared startled as she entered the room at that very moment, her senses assailed by Alexandra's antics.
"Milady, is there anything else I might assist you with?" Amelia had learnt by now to ignore Alexandra's moods, and focused her attention on Cassandra instead. She had just returned to the bedchamber with her arms full of Cassandra's finer gowns.
"Just with finishing up this last bit of packing, Amelia." Cassandra smiled, choosing to follow Amelia's example and pay no mind to Alexandra, who was glaring exaggeratedly at her in pursuit of attention.
Amelia helped Cassandra pack the gowns that she had just brought in and an extra corset as well as some slippers. Finally, they had finished and Cassandra heaved a heavy sigh of relief.
"His Grace requested me to inform you, milady, that the carriage shall be ready within the half hour." Amelia said, referring to Alexandra and Cassandra's brother, Nathaniel, who was the Duke.
"Then, I suppose that will be all. You will be ready by then, won't you?" Cassandra said, and Amelia nodded, then curtsied. Before she could leave, Cassandra called after her, "Would you mind sending one of the footmen up to take the trunk to the carriage?"
"Of course, milady." Came the melodic reply. Cassandra truly did not know what she would do without Amelia.
"I suggest you get below the covers, then, Allie." Cassandra suggested, eyeing her sister. Since the trip to London would take a full week, Nate had suggested that they leave as early as possible. As a result, dawn had just broken and Alexandra was still in her night things. If the footmen saw her like that, it would be highly inappropriate.
Alexandra rolled her eyes, but obliged. Even she knew better than to argue when it came to things such as that.
Before either sister could say anything further to each other, however, the door to the bedchamber burst open and Nate entered in a hurry, his cravat out of place and his shirt only half buttoned.
Nate did not keep a valet, although it was custom, as he thought it odd and he believed he could dress himself. Then, things like this occurred and he was almost always late to something or the other.
"Are you ready?" He demanded frantically, his searching gaze focused on Cassandra.
"It is you who is always late, brother." Alexandra smiled, her good mood emerging as it always did when she teased their brother. Nate, of course, was so fond of his sisters that he tolerated even their most embarrassing jokes.
Cassandra stepped forward to fix her brother's cravat as he continually tied it wrong. She slapped his hand away and adjusted it till it was in it's proper place, to which Nate only rolled his eyes.
Two footmen then entered the room and left, taking Cassandra's heavy trunk with them. Nate's, it appeared, had already been sent down to the carriage. Nate and Cassandra would be travelling in one carriage while Amelia, another maid and a footman who would function as Nate's valet for the duration of the season would journey in another.
"Now, Alexandra," Nate began sternly, a moment or so after the footmen had left the chamber, "Mrs. Cook has very kindly agreed to stay with you for the next two months. I would appreciate it if you behaved like a proper young lady should during this period."
Mrs. Cook was Allie's governess who stayed in the village, and who looked after Allie when both Nate and Cassandra were busy and who tutored her. She was rather strict, which was why Alexandra and she did not get along very well.
Noting Allie's mutinous glare, Nate sighed and added, "When we return and she is no longer staying with us, you are welcome to wreak as much havoc as you'd like and complain until our ears turn blue or fall off."
At this, Alexandra let out a girlish, dramatic squeal that was only half sarcastic and made Cassandra chuckle softly.
Their parents had died when Cassandra was only fifteen and Nathaniel was nineteen, which meant that she hadn't been able to have a normal adolescence. She'd had to look after the then ten year old Alexandra while Nate learnt as much about managing the dukedom as he could. There had been maids to help, but Allie had wanted her sister.
So, she'd stepped in to fulfill her responsibility to Alexandra and to the family by becoming, in almost all respects, lady of the house. Not that she regretted it, of course. She loved her siblings more than anything or anyone else in the world and would do anything for them.
Even marry? A snide voice that Cassandra wished she could ignore slid into the back of her mind. Her heart lurched sickeningly at the idea, and she clutched at her day dress. When she looked down, her knuckles were white.
"We must leave now." Nate said, and Cassandra found it in herself to nod.
She wrenched her hands from her dress and opened her arms as Alexandra threw herself off the bed towards Cassandra.
"I'll miss you so much, Allie." Cassandra said, pressing a kiss to the top of her sister's blonde head. When Alexandra pulled herself away, her eyes were glassy with unshed tears.
"Oh, Allie." Nate sighed as he gathered her up into his arms. While Cassandra knew that he loved both her and Alexandra equally, she also knew that he was more protective towards Allie because of the age difference between the two of them. He saw her as a child, which both touched and annoyed Alexandra. "I'll miss you so much, dove."
"I'll miss both of you, too!" Alexandra exclaimed, pulling back from their brother's embrace. "If you don't write me, I'll escape the grounds and come to London to see you, I swear."
Knowing Alexandra, her warning was no empty threat.
"I will write you after every ball or gathering and tell you all the gossip." Cassandra promised, and Nate only nodded along. His letters would likely only be short notes enclosed in the envelope containing the pages upon pages Cassandra would write.
"I'll see you in two months." When Allie said it, it sounded more like a command than a promise.
After one final embrace between the three, the elder two headed towards the grand marble staircase that led downwards while Alexandra returned to her bed, from which she probably would not rise until noon.
All the servants stood in a line outside the front of the house to see them off, as was custom. Cassandra got into the carriage with help from the driver while Nate swung himself in.
He remained standing for a minute, however, to address the servants. He bade them farewell before rapping on the roof of the coach to signal to the driver to start moving.
With a lurch, they were off. The gravelly roads made the journey uncomfortable, but Cassandra knew that their path would be easier and smoother once they were out of sight of the manor.
"Are you looking forward to this season, Cassie?" Nate asked, appearing curious.
"My response to that question, dear brother, is the same as it's been since you first asked me two years ago." Cassandra said, appearing mildly exasperated.
"Why do you say that?" Nate asked, suddenly becoming light-hearted and teasing, "Aren't you excited for the grand romance that awaits you?"
"I don't know about romance," Cassandra began cynically, "But I am certainly not excited for matrons and their gossip all summer long."
"Cassie," Nate said in a tone so serious that she met his eyes, startled. All hints of teasing had disappeared and he was now staring at her steadfastly. "You know that I do not expect you to ever marry if you don't wish to? Marriages of convenience are the norm, but that doesn't mean they should be. I'd be truly happy if you married for love or didn't marry at all, if that were your choice. I'd much rather you be happy, and I will support you financially and emotionally even until you're eighty and ailing, but only if that's what you want."
Cassandra felt her heart warm at her brother's kindness, but she knew that even if he did not have such expectations of her, others certainly did.
"I have a duty to this family, Nate." Cassandra informed him, and he scoffed but allowed her to continue, "I must do all I can to save face and uphold the family name as the eldest girl and lady of the house. Even though I do not plan on upholding that, there are others who expect me to adhere strictly to it."
"What others think should not bother you as it does, and I wish it didn't. I believe you'd be much happier then, as blissful as Alexandra without this heavy weight of expectations on your shoulders." Nathaniel said, and Cassandra knew that their conversation was now too heavy. Having such discussions with her brother always left the both of them in bouts of seriousness.
"Yes, and then you would have to deal with two younger sisters who cry over missing the ball, not one." Her attempts at diverting the conversation were successful, and Nate laughed loudly, remembering just what that situation had been like last week, when Nate had hosted a ball to celebrate the beginning of the season. Alexandra had been in actual tears when she'd learned that she could not attend.
"I'm glad you have a sensible head on your shoulders, Cassandra, but I fear sometimes that you're too sensible. You haven't ever been a girl, you've always had to be a young lady."
"I truly do not mind, Nate, and looking after Alexandra and doing to duty is honestly all that I look forward to in the future. I don't believe there is any man to come and sweep me off my feet, nor will I let him even if he does."
"You are a strange creature!" He exclaimed, his eyes lighting up, "At one moment you say your duty is to marry, and the next that it is to nurse your sister!"
Although her brother meant it only as a joke, Cassandra felt the need to explain herself. "The duty the ton expects me to perform is to marry, whereas my own duty is to my sister and her protection."
"Perhaps I was wrong in wishing for you to be blissful as Alexandra." Nate mused, "Perhaps I should have wished for Alexandra to be more sensible so that you wouldn't feel the need to act as her guardian."
Cassandra only smiled at that, and turned her head to admire the countryside as they passed.
"Of course," Nate continued, his tone both offended and amused, "I should be questioning why you seem to think I won't be enough of a guardian for you to leave me in her care."
Cassandra rolled her eyes. "The last time I left the both of you alone for a fortnight, I returned to find her bedchamber burned down as she and you decided to play at having a pagan fire dance in there. Sometimes I really wonder whether you're six and twenty or simply six."
Nate could not find the words to retort to that, so Cassandra considered the battle won.
A sense of drowsiness settled over her, and even Nate found it in himself to shut his mouth for a few minutes as she closed her eyes and let herself fall asleep, the steady motion of the carriage acting as her lullaby.