Chapter Text
When you meet him for the first time at a ball hosted to celebrate your father’s solving of a case, to say it had been electric would be lying. He was a pretty face, you were convinced, and nothing more. He took your hand and kissed it, longing in his eyes. You were the challenge, because English gentleman in America had little trouble finding women, especially rich and easy-on-the-eye bachelors like Sir Thomas Sharpe. Yet you too knew the trouble and the fear of crossing the ocean over to a new city; born and bred English but matured American, you could yet again deny a simple-minded brat who didn’t have a sore or callous to his fingers to claim hardship with.
You denied him a dance more than once that night. He was persistent, and you enjoyed that a lot. Your father’s mistress scolded you for denying his affections, yet you brushed her off. She knew of the wealth he was acclaimed for. You didn’t want the scandalous, money-grabbing wench even having an opinion on your life.
Lady Lucille Sharpe was a little more bearable. She too had the youthful, sharp and utterly divine features of a god. Yet a little less renown, which settled your nerves as she brought you a drink, and allowed you to lean against the piano whilst she played melodically. The lack of conversation was as soothing as it was not, yet you still enjoyed watching her graceful, and somehow calloused fingers work along the keys of the piano. Out of the corner of your eye in a break between dances, you saw Thomas approaching through the crowds. You made an excuse to leave, and found your father hailing a carriage. You left without word to anyone.