A Study of Courtship-Chapter 34: A Young Lady’s Fate

Fiennes Estate, Grosvenor Square — Morning

The household had scarcely finished breakfast when Marquess Reginald and Marchioness Josephine stepped back into the entrance hall, both still carrying the faint stiffness of people returning from a Very Important Conversation.

They expected peace.

They expected quiet.

They did not expect their daughter—already cinched into her riding habit of deep navy, hair swept into a tidy coiffure suitable for horseback—striding toward the door as though she meant to escape London on her own two feet if Coriolanus refused to cooperate.

Josephine froze. "Sophia Fiennes, where do you think you are going?"

Sophia halted mid-stride, jaw tightening with the defiance unique to young women who believe themselves terribly logical. "I am going on a ride, Mama."

Reginald looked at her boots, her gloves, the determined tilt of her chin. He wisely stepped aside so his wife could take the lead.

Josephine’s voice took on the tone of a woman who had raised an Enlightenment-philosophy-obsessed daughter for eighteen years and had learned—reluctantly—to prepare counterarguments. "No, you are not," she said. "Not without a chaperone."

Sophia blinked, baffled. "A chaperone? Mama, that is entirely unnecessary. I am a spinster."

Both parents visibly seized up.

Reginald sputtered, "Good God, you’re eighteen!"

Josephine placed a hand to her temple. "Sophia, you are not a spinster."

Sophia let out the kind of sigh reserved for people explaining basic arithmetic to infants. "Mama, it is quite simple. When I was eight and you took me to Whitechapel—do you recall?—a woman read my palm." She held up her hand as though her mother had never seen it before. "She said I was destined to be a spinster. And if you review the evidence logically, it is perfectly sound. Papa’s older sisters were spinsters—fulfilled ones, I might add. I am not a simpering young lady. Therefore, I am destined to be a spinster."

Josephine stared at her daughter with the exhausted fondness of a woman who genuinely wondered how she had birthed this creature.

Reginald placed both hands on his hips. "Daughter... you cannot base your future on the ramblings of a Whitechapel fortune-teller."

"But Papa," Sophia insisted, "her methodology was quite compelling."

"No it wasn’t."

"And statistically—"

"There were no statistics!" Reginald exclaimed.

Josephine inhaled slowly, gathering all her Marchioness composure. "Sophia, even if that fortune-teller existed—and I still believe she merely wanted a coin—your life is not predetermined by a stranger in Whitechapel."

Sophia frowned, unconvinced.

"And need I remind you," Josephine added gently, "you have a suitor."

Sophia stiffened. "Oh. Yes. Lord Benedict."

Reginald raised a brow. "You say that as if you’ve discovered a stray pigeon roosting in the pantry."

Sophia flushed. "I only meant—Mama, Papa—you know very well that I view him as a comrade in spirit. Nothing more."

Both parents exchanged a look. The look of two people who had seen their daughter unknowingly moon over a young man for weeks.

Josephine stepped closer, smoothing a stray hair from Sophia’s brow.

"My love... there is no shame in being uncertain. But do not imprison yourself in a prediction made when you were eight. You deserve the chance to make your own future. Not one chosen by a fortune-teller, or society, or even family."

Sophia’s expression wavered.

She looked down at her gloves.

Quiet. Vulnerable. Thinking.

Then she whispered, "But what if I fail at it?"

Reginald’s voice softened—rare, and therefore precious. "You will not fail. And even if you stumble, you are surrounded by people who will steady you." 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

He tapped her chin lightly. "Especially one particular young Montgomery who nearly fainted when he heard you wanted to travel to Russia for vodka."

Sophia flushed scarlet.

Josephine hid a smile behind her hand. "Now, Sapphire... no riding today. You will stay in, rest, and prepare for what comes next."

Sophia sighed, dramatic and defeated. "Yes, Mama."

But there was a spark in her eyes—one her parents exchanged a knowing look over.

Sophia swept into her chambers with the decisive stomp of someone who had just declared war on fate itself. Her parents followed—Reginald with quiet concern, Josephine with that maternal steel disguised as gentleness.

Josephine closed the door behind them. "Sapphire," she began, the nickname soft but edged with purpose, "we must speak plainly."

Sophia crossed her arms. "About my alleged destiny? If the woman in Whitechapel said—"

Reginald exhaled sharply. "My darling girl, you were eight. You also believed at that age that you could swan-dive from the stables and fly. We nearly lost a groom trying to catch you mid-air."

Sophia frowned. "That was different. I had a hypothesis."

Josephine pinched the bridge of her nose."And this supposed prophecy is not a hypothesis. It is superstition. Nothing more."

Sophia opened her mouth, but Josephine held up a hand.

"There was a meeting," she said, tone shifting into something formal and weighty, "with Her Majesty, your grandparents, Duke Cecil and Duchess Eleanor, and Lady Jersey."

Sophia blinked. "All of them? For what purpose?"

Reginald stepped forward, resting a warm hand on her shoulder. "Your courtship with Lord Benedict will continue. Formally."

Sophia froze. "...Continue? But—why would he? After everything? The brawl? The rumors? The duel-that-wasn’t? My... ah... enthusiasm regarding vodka production?"

Reginald bit back a laugh.

Josephine continued, "Because he asked that it continue. Because he is serious. And because we agreed that you must be guided properly—by your grandmother and Lady Jersey."

Sophia’s brows knitted. "Guided for what? I already know how to hold a teacup and differentiate Greek philosophers—what more is there?"

Josephine touched her cheek. "To become a duchess, my love."

Sophia stared as though her mother had just suggested she become a Roman emperor.

"But Benedict is a second son," she protested. "Edward is alive. Quite alive. Loudly alive."

Josephine and Reginald exchanged a look that carried four decades of shared marriage and shared exasperation.

"My sweet girl..." Josephine said gently. "Lord Edward has been in the marriage mart for four years without choosing a wife. If he does not fulfill his duty, the dukedom will pass to Benedict."

Sophia’s lips parted in shock.

Reginald squeezed her hand. "And whether or not Benedict ever becomes Duke... he wants you, Sophia. Not a prophecy. Not a theory. Not a hypothesis. You."

Sophia swallowed hard. "I... see," she whispered, as if the universe had just tilted under her feet.

"A duchess. Grandmama and Lady Jersey... training me."

Josephine smiled softly. "You will not lose your fire, my darling. Only learn how to direct it."

Sophia looked down at her hands—one still faintly bruised from punching Lord Lockhart.

"Direct it," she murmured. "I suppose that would be... sensible."

Josephine laughed. "Terrifyingly so."

Reginald kissed her forehead. "Our Sapphire was never meant to be a spinster."

Sophia’s voice was small, uncertain in a way she rarely allowed. "...But what if I disappoint him?"

Josephine took her into her arms. "You won’t. You never have."

The door clicked softly behind her parents, leaving the hush of the corridors to fade into the quiet of her chamber. The late afternoon light filtered through the lace-draped windows, casting pale gold lattices across the floorboards. Her sapphire-blue riding gloves lay untouched upon her vanity, a silent reminder that her planned escape to Hyde Park had been summarily intercepted.

Sophia stood in the center of the room, arms crossed, chin tilted upward in that familiar mixture of defiance and bewilderment that only family could provoke.

"A spinster," she murmured to herself, pacing. "Eight years old, and a woman reads my palm and my entire destiny is decided—how utterly absurd."

But beneath her rational protest, something prickled. A tug of insecurity she often swept aside with philosophy, debate, or sheer stubbornness.

She moved to the window, fingers tracing the cool glass. Outside, the coaches rattled down Grosvenor Square; somewhere, a chestnut gelding stamped impatiently. Life continued as though her entire world had not just tilted slightly on its axis.

"Grandmama and Lady Jersey," she muttered. "Mentorship. Deportment. Comportment befitting a duchess..."

She wasn’t sure which part alarmed her more—being molded into a duchess, or the unspoken expectation that she ought to want to.

"And Benedict," she whispered.

That name held weight now. More than she had expected, more than she knew what to do with.

A soft, frustrated sound escaped her as she paced again. "All because his brother refuses to find a wife. Truly, the fate of the dukedom teeters upon the whims of one man avoiding marriage. The absurdity of the ton knows no limits."

Yet her voice softened. Because she remembered Benedict’s expression when she spoke passionately about Locke. His laughter when she declared her intention to procure Russian vodka. The way his eyes warmed—not with ridicule, but... something else. Something rare. Something steady.

Her cheeks warmed.

No. Impossible. Illogical.

"I do not love him," she declared to the empty room. "That would be ridiculous. I merely respect him. And appreciate him. And perhaps enjoy—occasionally—that he listens to me without flinching."

She paused. "...and that he smiles when I enter a room."

She stopped pacing altogether, her breath catching.

"Good heavens," she whispered.

With a groan, she fell onto her bed, burying her face in her hands.

How in the world was she expected to survive being molded into a duchess when she could barely survive the realization that her heart—her rational, well-defended heart—had begun to stray into territory no philosopher had properly prepared her for?

Outside her chamber, the household bustled. Plans were surely already underway. Meetings. Lessons. Strategies.

But inside the room, Lady Sophia Fiennes lay very still, as though movement might make the truth any more real.

"I," she whispered into her pillow, "am in dreadful trouble."