My score today was several omegas’ rights pamphlets discussing the need for some kind of system to be put in place in order to protect the omegas from those who would take advantage of their designation, a few about the rich taking advantage of the poor, and one about the need for equality amongst all classes.
In our current society, an omega’s family would make a match for them. If you were an omega born into a poorer family, a richer family would usually sponsor you and would split whatever dowry the alpha or alpha pack would pay. Awakening as an omega when your family was poor was like winning the lottery. It could change the course of an entire family’s fortune in the blink of an eye.
But it also had its drawbacks.
As I flipped through the pamphlets and skimmed the text, my mind went to Midge, the omega that I had met at a tea party a few months ago. Midge was a sweet thing, but her mother had been a laundress and her father worked in a factory. Her alpha had purchased her from her parents and then refused to let her see them again. Midge had told me her story while trying not to cry. Then her alpha came to collect her, scolding her for showing such embarrassing emotion in front of ‘better company.’ I hadn’t seen her at any social events since.
“Mother is going to be very displeased with you after she finds out that you snuck out again,” a voice said, making me nearly jump out of my skin.
My surprise faded quickly though, irritation replacing it as I glared at the figure that was sprawled out across my bed.
“Timothy, what have I told you about sneaking into my room? This is my private space,” I said to him as I shoved the pamphlets back into my purse. I couldn’t risk them being confiscated before I got the chance to read them.
Timothy sat up and grinned cheekily at me. His green eyes took in my disheveled, damp appearance and he shook his head like he was oh so disappointed with his rebellious little sister. “And I was sent here by Mother to collect you… thirty minutes ago,” he added gleefully.
“Shit,” I cursed under my breath, the same thrill I always had when I used vulgar language filling me as I hurried over to the buzzer that would wake up Dorothea. I pressed it several times before turning back to Timothy who was still sitting on my bed, lounging like a housecat. “Get out.”
“I’m telling mother that you used that word,” Timothy said, acting more like a little boy than the twenty-seven year old that he actually was.
I turned to him, crossing my arms over my chest. “And if you do that, I will tell mother that you are the one making all the maids quit because you’ve been toying with them.”
Timothy visibly paled. He had a penchant for flirting with the maids and likely doing even more naughty things that I decidedly didnotwant to think about my brother taking part in. My mother continued to wonder why we had such a high turn-over with our maid staff, and the reason behind it was my brother. “And I’ll tell Nicky when he returns for the gala as well.”
Our older brother, Nicky, was the head of our family now and usually spent most of his time at the townhouse we kept in the city. Ever since our father passed away, he had thrown himself into keeping the various business ventures that our father had started alive. The Wilde family business was primarily in textiles and clothing, but during his time our father had expanded to working with industrial machine manufacturing and the building of the railroad.
My thoughts returned to the idea of the Nouveau riche and the building of their wealth with the newest technological advances. Had any other older wealthy family dipped their toes into that sort of business they would have been ridiculed by the rest of society. But the Wilde family had a long history, dating back to the rule of Queen Elizabeth the first. That meant that my father was untouchable by the gossip of old women at tea parties, and Nicky was no different.
Nicky was constantly pushing Timothy to do more than be a lazy rake who was more interested in getting under the skirts of the maids than actually doing any work. But our mother babied Timothy the most out of the three of us, probably because he looked the most like her. Where Nicky and I had inherited our father’s golden hair and blue eyes, Timothy had taken after our mother with his dark brown curls and green eyes. Anytime Nicky tried to scold Timothy, our mother would step in to say that he was still growing and learning… at nearly the age of thirty.
“Fine, but hurry because you’ve already kept mother waiting,” Timothy finally said, clearly cowed by my threat as he hurried out of my room as if his coattails were on fire.
“Coward,” I muttered to myself as I shut the door and headed over to my bed, sniffing with irritation. Timothy’s scent was his usual alpha citrus, mixed with the copious amounts of cigars and whiskey that he had drunk the night before. I would need to have the entire bedding washed and replaced before I even dared to sleep in it.
Opening the bedside table I grabbed the key that opened the little cupboard where my nest was kept. Ladies of high society did not leave their nests out in the open for the casual viewer to see, that was far too scandalous.
I opened the cupboard door and smiled at the collection of blankets and pillows piled strategically within. I loved my nest and wished that I could crawl inside, lock the door, and pretend that I didn’t have the weight of my family’s expectations on my shoulders.
I didn’t have time to curl up in my nest, though, because my mother’s summons usually carried a time limit before I got the scolding of a lifetime, and I was already thirty minutes late.
Reaching behind one of the pillow piles, I pulled out the little wooden box where I kept all of the pamphlets and newspapers I collected on my walks. I added in the new papers and shut it firmly. I would have time to go through them later, but now I needed to focus on getting my walking dress off and getting into something clean. I would rather die than show up in front of my mother in dirty clothes.
I was halfway through the buttons on my back, half-cursing myself as I struggled and half-wondering how I had even managed to get the dress on by myself earlier, when Dorothea burst into the room wide-eyed.
“Miss, why didn’t you wake me up this morning? Maria will have my head if she knows that you went out on your own, and your dress!” Dorothea exclaimed in her usual Irish lilt as she took in the muddy hem before immediately jumping in to help me finish taking the dress off.
Dorothea had come to America with her father when she was a little girl, they had struggled to find work until my father had hired both of them on. Dorothea’s father still worked in our stables and she had been my first playmate growing up, eventually learning how to be a lady’s maid when the need arose.
“I didn’t want to wake you, besides, Maria already knows that I snuck out. I was caught tracking in mud this morning,” I told her sheepishly as I stepped fully out of the dress and shivered while I waited for her to pull another dress out of the wardrobe.
Dorothea paled at my words, muttering a prayer under her breath as she pulled out a light blue day dress, my mother’s favorite, and began to help me put it on.
“Youhaveto wake me Miss Juneau, I’m supposed to be with you when you go outside. Besides, the storm is frightful outside, why would you go out in it in the first place?” she asked as she began to button the row of pearl buttons in the back.
I didn’t know how to explain to her about the itchiness I felt while being cooped up in the mansion all day, especially during the rainy season. Every single minute of my day after ten in the morning was scheduled. Tea parties, charity functions, accepting visitors with my mother, dress fittings for the gala, and needlepoint in the evening with my mother. Every. Single. Minute.
My sneaky adventures early in the morning were the only time that I could find just for me, and I could already see them ending if my mother realized just how often I had snuck out over the past few years.
“What should we do about your hair…” Dorothea mused as she tried to bring some semblance of order to the mass of golden curls, still mussed and damp from my time outside without a hat.
