Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

by Crazycurls100

AH/Victorian/AU The Swan family go on holiday to Brighton. While there, no less than seven suitors are pressed upon young Bella and after rejecting them all the young lady ends up having her right to choose taken from her. Renee Swan isn't about to let some seventeen year old get in the way of her finding a title, even if she is her daughter. good Edward / abuse/ mention of rape.

AN: Hey everyone, new story time. This is set in Victorian Britain, maybe around 1850 ish? Bella is Scottish, darling Eddie is English and Rose and Jasper are French. I'd really love it if you guys would read and review. This chapter is going to be considerably shorter than the others but I want to see if you guys actually like it before I continue. I am actually going in to this story with a plan unlike my others so we should see some sort of plot (hopefully). Basically the Swans decide to stay go down south for a week. During this time mummy swan sets up her darling daughter with several eligible bachelors. Events unfold and bella becomes engaged to a certain someone ;)

I dislike the seaside. I dislike the cold, biting winds; the damp, sticky sand that clings to everything in sight; the nasty tang of salt every time one breathes in. I dislike the portly gentlemen in their tight bathing suits that laugh with their sons in the water as they splash their daughters while their stately mothers look on from the safety of their picnic baskets. I dislike seagulls; I dislike ice cream, and, most importantly, I dislike the pointed looks that mother has been giving me throughout this luncheon.

We had arrived in Brighton the night before, after spending the whole day in the horribly cramped compartment in the brand new East Coast Express train. Mother had found it thrilling of course and I suppose I found the scenery mildly entertaining but aside from that I was bored beyond belief. The 1st class carriage was filled with boring, upper class families who, like us, were on their way from the rainy confines of Edinburgh to the supposedly warmer south coast. We are to spend a week here, by the sea.

It had been father's idea, naturally. What better way to prove that your family was worth something, that you weren't nobodies than to sweep yourselves of to the beach? If good queen Vic does it then why shouldn't we? It's laughable of course. Just several decade previously and mother was living in a Glaswegian slum, begging for money and going days without a proper meal. She had found salvation in Charles Swan, my father, the son of a banker. They moved to a fairly affluent part of town and Charles Swan Sr. used his connections to help his son move quickly up the political ladder. 17 years later and here we are. Rhona Dwyer became Mrs. Renee Swan, wife of Mr. Charles Swan MP and mother to me, Isabella Marie.

I'm not completely simple-minded however, no matter how many times I've been told the contrary over the years, I know that this trip is more than a simple family outing or even a cunning move by daddy to let us be seen in the public eye. No, they want me engaged. How marvellous would it be for mother to walk into the insufferable Lady Mackintosh' house and declare to all of her friends that she had found a suitable match for her darling daughter? How delighted would the people of Leith and the North be to find out that their favourite politician's very own daughter is engaged to be married? Everybody loves a wedding. Especially one which, if a suitable bachelor is found, could take place by the seaside?

I hate the seaside.

AN: I know, unbearably short but I want to know if you guys like this style of writing? Not even half a page :P Please, please, please review? I want to know whether you guys like this or not? Think of it as a pilot telly episode. I'm considering an alternative in which Bella is a street urchin?