“I know that, Mother,” Adelaide snapped as Madame Hubert placed another pin in the back of what would be her wedding gown. “Every girl knows that. From the moment we are presented at court, we are nothing but ornaments in Society, whose sole purpose is to marry and thereafter produce offspring. However that is managed, not that anyone has excelled in informing us of its process.”

Madame Hubert coughed a noise that sounded more like a laugh than anything else, while Adelaide’s mother merely blanched and sniffed once. “Never mind that, Adelaide. It can be rather unpleasant. Just close your eyes and think of the coast.”

Adelaide frowned at that, but her mother looked away and busied herself with some nearby lace. What in the world was that about? How could Madame Hubert laugh about something that her mother could not even discuss? Was the disparity in classes so great that even topics of discussion were viewed differently?And what would picturing the coast do anything about it?

The ignorance relegated to young ladies of her station had never perturbed her before, but with her wedding fast approaching, she found the thing quite maddening.

Her docile mother did not help matters.

It had often been said that no one knew where Adelaide’s willfulness of spirit had come from, and Adelaide could see why. Her father bowed and scraped to almost anyone of influence, and her mother seemed to merely exist in a state of ambivalence. Her siblings had been raised with the same almost dismissive mothering as Adelaide, though their father had been doting enough, and the flaws in their personalities were more than compensated by their accomplishments and charm.

None of them could be considered a mouse, Adelaide could say that for certain, but they were a variety of shades along the socially inclined and opinionated gamut, at the top of which Adelaide alone proudly sat.

She thought, perhaps, it could be due to her being the youngest of her siblings, and thus needed to ensure her voice was heard, or it could have been her nature from the beginning. Whichever it was, her parents had long given up on managing Adelaide and manipulating her to their own wishes. Apart from this marriage arrangement, Adelaide got what she wanted at any given time, within moderate reason. She knew better than to try for extremes in her demands, as her father did have a modicum of restraint and wisdom with his finances and abilities.

And he’d always held the power when it came to her marriage, just as he had for her sisters. Her brother had been given some leeway, being a man, but their father’s approval of the bride-to-be had been paramount. As Charles was almost entirely their father reborn, it had been a simple enough affair, and his sweet mouse of a wife had given him three strapping sons already.

Heaven help her if he wished for a fourth.