Alexandra

Chapter Six

Over the next month, Allie found herself more and more disillusioned with the concept of the ton and romance than she had ever been before. Everything was monotonous and repetitive, from the conversations to the people. She'd been apart from her beloved horses for far too long, as well as from the books that offered her some amount of escape from those around her, not that her family was anywhere near as supremely irritating as the ton. She'd brought some books with her, of course, and had purchased some more in Hatchards, but she missed the library at Somerhall, which was both extensive as well as interesting. Nate allowed her devour and demolish whichever of his books she pleased, but although his books on science were rather interesting, the romance novels were her favourite.

Of course, she didn't believe love like that existed in real life, at least for her. Her brother and sister had found it, along with a few others, but the vast majority of people were not as fortunate as they. Especially in the ton, one married for money and status, and love was not even a tertiary factor. Love was beautiful and something her heart ached to experience, but her experiences in the past had already proved to her that she was not to be lucky in love.

One silver lining to the cloud that had been her season was Richard Kensington. Richard, once they had affirmed their friendship of sorts, had turned out to be a man of greater depth than she had originally supposed. Although she had, at first, been apprehensive about maintaining relations of any sort with the man, they had spent far more time together. Just at balls and social events, at first, but then she'd found that they had both grown comfortable enough with one another to even call on each other.

Of course, rumours of this slowly spread through society, and certain comments were made on Allie's questionable character despite her, normally, calling only with family, usually Kit. She did not care very much for those, because she knew that people like that would always find something to pass judgement on, no matter how much Alexandra attempted to rein in her behaviour. There was never any point of pretending to be perfect as, at the end of the day, no one would ever be happy— neither she nor the ton.

This was the exact thought she found herself expressing to Richard, Cassie and Kit one afternoon over tea.

"Love, I believe I recall telling you that ages ago." Cassandra laughed, taking a sip of Kit's tea, having finished her own. Christopher simply could not stand the beverage, but only accepted it out of politeness. Although most in their acquaintance already knew this, they also knew that Cassie took this to her advantage and drank twice what she normally would. "You have cared far too long for rules and norms and things that you really oughtn't consider as being even the slightest bit important."

"It took some time for me to arrive at that realisation myself." Allie defended herself, nibbling at the lemon square that she had picked up from the tea tray. All of them were in Richard's home, which was a lovely townhouse in Grosvenor Crescent, which he resided in half the year, mostly when his father was required to be in London to sit in the House of Lords. The fact that this information came so easily to Allie genuinely surprised her, but she pushed it aside.

"We do not have to endure nearly as many of the conventions you are expected to adhere to." Kit mused, agreeing entirely with his wife and sister-in-law. "There are many things a man might get away with that a woman cannot. It is exceedingly unfair."

"It's true. There are many things that I have done that a woman would never be able to get away with." Richard admitted, wearing a small smile as he presumably considered all of his..... exploits. "On a more serious note, I do not believe we will ever develop as a nation if we continue to ignore this glaring gap and make, at the very least, an attempt at bridging it."

"Well, someone ought to tell Lord Liverpool of this fact, then." Allie said, only half joking, as she referred to their Prime Minister, someone who probably wouldn't acknowledge that such a thing was a problem.