A Duchess in Distress – A Regency Romance
Chapter 1
Annabelle Catesby sat before a plate of untouched food at lunch time. Her mind was on one thing, and one thing only. There was a ball later on that evening. But it wasn’t just any ball, it was the most important ball of the year, and possibly, of her life. Of course, some would think that no ball was important, but Annabelle was not one of them. She was Anna to her family and friends, a beautiful girl of nineteen with an overprotective father and a mother who doted upon her only daughter. She had two brothers, both older, both young men working with her father at his business, each of them learning so that they may run it themselves one day.
For Annabelle’s part, she didn’t quite know what her father did. She knew it was something like banking, but not exactly that. He loaned large sums of money to people sometimes, often if they were trying to open a business themselves. The whole world bored Anna, and she stayed out of it.
Anna liked nature. She spent hours upon hours atop a horse, or walking through the woods which surrounded her father’s lavish home and grounds. Her eldest brother Edwin had even taught her to fish, and though her mother looked down upon it, Annabelle did so in the small pond on the grounds as often as she could, when weather was permitting.
She would miss the pond most of all, if she wasn’t taking people into account, but she was ready to leave. And the ball had finally come, and that meant she would perhaps have a chance to find a husband.
The petite young girl had caught the eyes of men since she was just fourteen. But in the recent years, sideways glances at her large, perky breasts had become something else entirely. First it was requests to dance, and then it was men calling at her home for her. And for the past two years, there had been the proposals.
Henry Catesby, Annabelle’s father, had built such an impressive business for himself that it had done wonders for his social standing. He had been raised poor himself, and he had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t put his own children through that. And so he hadn’t, and in his late fifties he commanded a certain respect that was shared with his wife and children as well. Anna would not be marrying just anyone, the offers she had received had been from men of great standing. Nobility. Dukes.
Last year at Lady Patterson’s annual dance, Annabelle had been proposed to by Colonel Warren, a man of thirty-three who had no doubt had his eye on the young girl for quite some time, judging by how often he came by to see her.
Anna liked the man, found him to be attractive and kind, and she was eager to marry. She saw how happy her mother was, how fulfilled she was to be a mother and a wife, and she had yearned for the same for years. But her father had forbade it.
Anna spoke to him that same night, a year previous, in his study after the ball. Hot tears had streamed down her face, leaving trails down her cheeks which shone in the soft light of a single candle, burning on her father’s desk top.
“Please, daddy,” she had pleaded.
“You are too young,” her father had said. He was a tall man with a bushy moustache, though he had no hair upon his head.
“I am eighteen!” she said. “A woman grown!”
“No to me,” her father had said, and then he looked to see his daughter crying, having been previously staring out the window, and his hardness vanished in an instant. When he spoke again his voice was softer, gentler. “A year from now. Alright, my daughter? My beautiful little girl? That is what you are to me, even now, so grown and amazing. You will always be my little girl, running around in this home, getting underfoot. But that is not fair to you. This ball, it is every year, the same date, yes?”
Anna nodded her head, and used the back of her hand to wipe away the tears.
“And then next year, at this ball, if a man wants your hand, and you’re willing to give it, I will not stop you.”
And so it had been, and for a few months after the conversation, Annabelle gave herself to a string of daydreams and hopes, wishing that Colonel Warren would ask her again. The young woman was worried he would ask someone else, but instead he lost his life. It was an accident out of the city, something the Colonel had been doing with his men, but he went out alive and came back dead, and Annabelle found herself mourning him. He was going to be her husband. She had thought about it so often, and though she didn’t know the man well, she had grieved for him.
But the sadness ebbed, and as the ball had drawn close, her dizziness returned. The deceased Colonel hadn’t been the first man to propose to her, and he wouldn’t be the last. She was sure of it.
“You are not eating,” her father said to her, from over his own bowl of soup.
“My stomach is in knots,” Annabelle said.
“You think you will be engaged tonight,” her father said in a knowing tone.
“As if father would be so lucky, to get you taken off his hands,” Annabelle's brother, Reginald, said. He was two years younger than Edwin, and still lived at home, while Edwin had been married for three years, and had his own home elsewhere outside of London, in the same green fields and pastures where Henry’s home was built.
“I’ll marry before a woman will accept your proposal,” Anna said, glaring across the table to her brother.
“You two bicker too often,” Anna’s mother said quietly, and both of her children bowed their heads slightly.
“Eat,” Henry said, and Anna lifted her spoon to her mouth, knowing there was no sense in arguing with her father. “You do not want to waste away,” he said with a laugh as he watched her. With each bite she took, Annabelle realized just how hungry she was, and through her nerves were on edge, she cleaned her plate and bowl, and then hurried upstairs to begin getting ready for the most important evening of her life.