Here's another of my hair-brained ideas. I got inspiration from another romance book. This time a historical romance by Julia Quinn. It will be similar in some ways, but I intend to twist things up a bit. :) Once again, a prologue thing. Hope you enjoy. C:

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The Viscount Mustang feared only one thing in life. It was a secret fear, and he would have died before anyone found out. For his fear was of love, described by poets as sweet and gentle, generous and blind... Love, and the tragedy that ultimately befell anyone who was stupid enough to fall into it.

Take, for example, his own parents. The late Viscount Mustang, also named Roy, had gone against the wishes of the dowager viscountess, his mother and married a girl of undistinguished blood. In fact, she was a foreigner, a daughter of one of the Xing merchants who crossed the desert and landed in the East. Xue'an was in fact a maid, and it was a sort of cinderella story, how she became the Viscountess Mustang.

They had certainly been in love, from what Roy heard from Chris Mustang Mas, his foster mom and his father's younger sister. But there was that accident, on the way to the summer residence in Risembool, which left two-year-old Roy Mustang the second an orphan and the new Viscount Mustang.

Then there was Chris herself. She had married the man she loved at the expense of her position in society. Her parents had thrown a fit, and had threatened disownment if she married John Mas, the poor stable boy. Chris had a good ten years of love and many, many daughters, until her husband passed away due to consumption. Her brother Roy, who had, sometime in those ten years, received the title, had taken her in and recognized her as his sister, to their mother's displeasure. A more independent widow there had never been, but anyone could see the loneliness in her dark brown eyes.

Now there Roy was, almost thirty years to his name, attending the funeral of his best friend. He had met Maes Hughes in university, and there they had become inseparable. Maes, a member of the police force, could be annoying, but he was the epitome of a husband and a father. He cared very much for Gracia, his wife, and Elicia, their only daughter. Why had he been murdered? Hughes was the nosiest man Roy had ever known, and the latter feared that the former had stuck his nose into something he shouldn't have. Nevertheless, Roy promised the body in front of him that he would care for Gracia and Elicia, for his sake.

He figured it couldn't be a coincidence, what with it occurring everywhere he looked. He figured that the other married couples he knew weren't really in love. Or maybe they were, and they were just blissfully ignorant of the inevitable,of the threat of separation that loomed over them. Because love surely brought a person weakness, and that was when fate attacked.

His best friend's death just rekindled the fire to an even brighter flame. It ignited and doubled his fear, so to speak. Because truly, had there been a happier marriage than the Hughes's one?

And so Roy, Viscount Mustang, resolved not to bring upon him or his future wife (well, he'd have to take one, in order to keep the Mustang line going) any unnecessary heartache or woe. He would never, ever, marry for romantic love- whatever that was.

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"Winry," Riza Hawkeye walked into the small rented drawing room and called the attention of her half-sister, "how many times have I told you to be careful with your correspondence? Ink stains very easily on white gloves, and you know we can't replace them very easily."

Winry, who at seventeen was four years younger than her sister, looked at the gloves in Riza's hands abashedly. "I'm sorry, Ri. I'll be sure to remove my gloves next time I...write."

"It's alright. It's a good thing you got them on your white gloves, we can have them bleached, and hopefully that will get the stains out." Riza gave her a smile that was meant to reassure.

Sara Hawkeye, Winry's mother, and Riza's step mother for almost nineteen years looked up from her own novel and said, "Don't worry, Riza. I know a trick to get those out, here, give them to me."

The late Baron Hawkeye had always done his best as a husband and as a father to his two girls, but he could provide only so much financially, compared to when he was alive. Riza had always known that since her father passed five years ago, things had been tight. That was the main reason she, at the age of twenty-one, was on her first season out in society. She'd had to go together with Winry, because the cost of renting a place in Central city (where most members of society spent the season) and other living expenses had taken about five years to save up for. And if the girls were not able to marry well, then Sara and her daughters would probably live together in the country as prudently as they could.

No, that was wrong. It would probably be Sara and Riza, or maybe only Riza. Winry was doing well, attracting many a suitor here and there. Winry was petite, with large blue eyes and light blonde hair. She was classically beautiful, and very well the apple of everybody's eye. The only thing that made men cower away was her lack of dowry. But if Winry were able to marry a man of decent means, they might be able to take Sara in too. Riza could never impose on her future brother-in-law, and would probably end up living back in the East by herself.

Riza hadn't much hope for herself. She was twenty-one, nearing spinsterhood, and men tended to go for the younger ones. It didn't help that she was often referred to only as "Winry Hawkeye's older sister". While Winry was fair and blue-eyed, Riza had darker blonde hair, and reddish-brown eyes. She was taller than most women, but even then not half as noticeable as the others. Riza Hawkeye was not conventionally pretty. She was quite plain, and she knew it.

That's why she's devoted herself to finding the right man for her younger sister, and not for herself. After all, who would want to marry her?

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