Page 1 of Marrying Bluebeard

1

ADELAIDE

There are days when life seems unbearably hard, and the weight of expectation hangs on you like a plague. When everyone wants something, but all you have left to offer is the rapidly thinning air in your lungs. Today is not one of those days.

But it’s close.

“You shouldn't frown like that, Adelaide. You'll get wrinkles before you reach three-and-twenty.” Marguerite nudges me with her foot from the other side of the carriage. “And goodness knows we only have room for one spinster in this family—me.”

“You're hardly a spinster,” I grumble, letting my gaze wander out the window. Our eldest brother, Julien, rides alongside us on his bay, a contented smile on his face. I wish I were allowed to ride instead of being stuck in this cage like a rat.

“And you're hardly a martyr,” she retorts. “Although you certainly do a fair job of acting like one, what with all the moaning and sighing. I swear, it's all I've heard pass your lips for the last six hours. If it weren't for Julia waiting for me at home, I'd have leaped from the carriage ages ago.”

“I haven’t been that bad.” I wrinkle my brow. “Have I?”

Marguerite sighs. “It hasn’t been an easy ride, but I suppose I can’t blame you overly much. Now that Julien’s finally accepted Julia’s and my relationship, all of his matchmaking hopes have landed on you. I can see why you’d be overwhelmed.”

The fact that Julien has seen past society’s disdain for anything different and used Marguerite’s dowry to purchase a country cottage for my sister and her beloved Julia is one of his few redeeming qualities. Otherwise he tends to be overbearing and stuffy. Two of my least favorite attributes.

“There’s an understatement,” I mutter, cutting him another look through the window.

“Are you nervous about the house party?” Marguerite gives me a concerned look. “I know Julien has been especially adamant that you find a husband among the guests, and when he’s set on something he can be quite⁠—”

“Insufferable? Overwhelmingly tedious and pig-headed?”

Marguerite laughs. “I was thinking more along the lines of determined, but yes. Something like that.”

“He's always hinted that he hoped I'd make a respectable match, but now, with Father’s forgery scandal driving customers away left and right, he’s desperate to save the company. And apparently he’s got it in his head that if he can somehow bind me to an outstanding member of society, all of Father's mistakes will be forgotten. As if that would be enough,” I scoff.

“He's not completely wrong,” Marguerite points out. “The right match could make a difference. Just be sure it's one that makes you happy as well.”

“And how exactly am I supposed to be happy, attaching myself to one of Julien's loathsome friends? They're absolutely tedious, aren't they, Whisper?” I scratch the bundle of white fur curled up in my lap between her ears, eliciting a contented purr in response.

Marguerite bites her lip. “Adelaide...”

“Hmm?”

“I know how important it is to be true to yourself, but...” She wrinkles her nose. “Maybe while we're there you could refrain from doing things like that? It's unnerving.”

“First you complain about my frowning, now you don't even want me to pet my cat? What's next? Should I stop breathing?”

“Addie, please. Be serious.”

“I am serious.”

“You're petting a make-believe cat. How serious can you be?”

And there it is. The reason why their matchmaking schemes are ultimately doomed to fail. “Don't listen to her, Whisper,” I coo, pretending my sister’s words don’t bother me. That they don’t drive a wedge of hurt and insecurity into my soul. “It's not her fault she can't see you.” I narrow my eyes at Marguerite. “It is, however, her fault for refusing to listen each and every time I explain that you're not a figment of my imagination.”

Marguerite groans in exasperation. “This again? Adelaide, I swear to god, there's nothing there. You haven't had a cat since you were ten, and that white fluff ball of yours fell into the river and drowned.”

I was eight, actually. But that's beside the point. “Just because she died, doesn't mean she isn't here. Does it, Whisper?” I bend down to give her a kiss, and she mews in response.

“Adelaide.” Marguerite leans forward, waiting for me to look up and meet her gaze. Her expression softens, but the determined glint in her eyes remains. “There are no such things as ghost cats. Or ghosts, for that matter. You have to let this obsession of yours go, or you're never going to find a husband worth having.”

“A husband worth having would listen when I tell him the milliner's deceased wife is staring at us through the bedroom window,” I retort. “And besides, who are you to lecture me on husbands? You don’t even like men.”

“That's different,” Marguerite objects. “What I have with Julia is real. Not some desperate ploy for attention.”