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LORD REGINALD BLACKWOOD WAS A FRAUD.
The season of 1814's most sought after and eligible bachelor had a dirty little secret, one that would bring him and the ever-so-prestigious Blackwood name to condemnation. A secret so damning, so scandalous in high society, it would wreak havoc should a soul outside the Blackwood family find out.
The fraud ran deeper than the flecks of blue swimming within the greys of his irises and deeper than his skin, it ran beneath the surface. The lies and deception, the fraudulent nature of high society's much-adored bachelor flowed in his veins, deeply knotted and intertwined within his blood. It sustained him, giving him life and yet, it was the root of all his troubles.
The image, the riches, the future earldom, the influential position in society — he had it all. However, he did not have the one thing that mattered most. The one thing that weighed heavier than all else.
The blood.
Reginald Edwin Blackwood, the heir to his father's earldom, was nothing but a bastard. There was not a drop of golden Blackwood ichor coursing his veins. Yet no one (aside from his adoptive family, that is) knew of his unfortunate status.
He may be a bastard, but he was the luckiest damn bastard there was.
. . .
LADY AMELIA BLACKWOOD WAS A MIRACLE.
With the onset of the social season of 1814, Amelia knew what she wanted — no, who she wanted — and she believed the odds were in her favour. This season, she was certain the man she had coveted in secret for a year will reciprocate her feelings, he will become hers in marriage. Having lived a privileged upbringing and wearing her status as a 'miracle' like a shimmering crown on her pretty little head, Amelia fully trusted the world was in and forever will be in her debt.
For, she was never supposed to be born, she was never supposed to live. Yet from the first breath that toppled from her lips, she became a deviation from the norm, the exception to the rule. From a young age, Amelia lived as if her miracle status were an unbreakable oath and not a mere blessing from the heavens.
Amelia believed she was untouchable, that an invisible and impermeable armour coated her skin as if she had bathed in the River Styx. She believed the world was fabricated from a beautiful palette of watercolours, a painting that bent to her will and her manipulation as if she were omnipotent. She truly believed the world existed to serve her. So, Amelia pursued each whim and aspiration, no matter how scandalous it may be.
Amelia Jane Blackwood, the youngest Blackwood sister, was flirting with scandal. But she was a miracle — she was the exception to the rule. Or so she believed.
