Two hours later Isabella sat at her dressing table in her undergarments while Renee painstakingly sculpted her abundant tresses into an elegant updo, leaving just a few of Isabella's rich chestnut locks loose to surround her face. Meanwhile, Renee's maid Jessica applied an elegant, subtle covering of makeup to Isabella's already beautiful, porcelain features. Very little was required and Isabella often preferred to go without but James insisted upon her being made up and dressed to perfection whenever they were seen in public – a source of much tension between them. All Isabella wanted was a simple life where she could be free to be herself, and yet she seemed boxed into a corner, categorised by her position and expected to live up to her reputation and be "on show" at all times.

"There, all done I think, perfect" Jessica stated as she stepped back to look at her masterpiece.

Isabella didn't even spare her a glance. She and Jessica had a strained relationship at best. They had grown up together and being the same age of 19, they had been educated together. Unfortunately for Jessica, when they had been taken to The Facility for testing, whilst Isabella had passed and been approved, Jessica had failed. She was proven to be infertile and therefore was stripped of her titles and position in society. Jessica's family, thoroughly humiliated at their only daughter being infertile, insisted she leave the family estate within the week without a second thought to her welfare and how she would survive. Isabella had thought by offering her a position within her own household that Jessica would be grateful, it was certainly a much more generous offer than she would have got elsewhere as many infertile women end up at the very bottom of society, considered worthless to the population and forgotten by those of position as an embarrassing reminder of the problems they faced as a society. It was something that Isabella could never understand and which made her uncomfortable, she longed to find a better solution for these women but it was not her place to do so. Whilst it was possible that infertile women with exceptional intelligence or musical or artistic talents could find very acceptable employment within society, Isabella was well aware that a large majority of the unapproved, infertile women ended up in the brothels on the far side of New York where Isabella had never been allowed to venture. These were places where women could at least find some form of employment, however unsavoury it was, and married men could find companionship away from the duty of their marriages. The thought of having such a future for her friend terrified Isabella and she couldn't bear to see it happen. However, Jessica seemed to see the offer of employment as a slight against her and vehemently refused to accept the position until, surprisingly, her own family managed to talk her into accepting.

Isabella managed a tight lipped smile, avoiding Jessica's eyes as Renee and Jess studied her face.

"A little more colour on her eyes I think Jessica, you know how James is, he likes to show off her beautiful eyes", she gave the younger woman a bright smile which earned a pained grimace from Jessica in return, before Renee continued with the artwork of Isabella's hair. Jessica let out a muted huff before grabbing more of the dark eye shadow from the dressing table and jerking Isabella's chin up none too gently. If Renee noticed, she didn't comment and Isabella wasn't about to get the girl she still wished to be a friend into trouble with her mistress.

Isabella may be the lady of her house and therefore ultimately responsible for the staff and the running of the Estate but in most high ranking households with many staff to oversee and many duties to manage, a valued member of staff was selected to be promoted to managing the day to day running of the house. This was a very privileged position for the person chosen and was a mark of the trust placed upon them as well as affording them the luxury of their own maids and staff to assist them. Renee, as Isabella's head maid and companion since the day she was born, was given this responsibility for managing all other staff in the grand house and she ran the Estate with amazing efficiency, with a firm yet kind hand. Isabella would be lost without Renee, she knew that for sure.

Not long later Isabella was dressed in the elegant midnight blue silk dress and standing stiffly while Renee put the finishing touches to her outfit – the beautiful sapphire and diamond jewellery. She was just fixing some tiny jewels into Isabella's hair when a firm knock came at the door before Emmett, one of James' guards entered the room. The guards were more for show than anything, very few Families could afford to employ these highly skilled men and to do so was a clear indication of wealth and power. Rarely were their skills called upon, but they would travel with the family and were especially useful on the rare occasions when anyone would have to travel beyond the city walls.

"Lord James is ready to leave Isabella", Emmett stated. His tone was formal and he avoided eye contact, but Isabella had always had a soft spot for the huge man. When he was not on duty she had seen him playing with the other guards and laughing and joking. He looked so carefree and younger and his thirty-plus years.

She offered Emmett a small smile before following him out of the room, casting a nervous glance back at Renee who offered her an encouraging, motherly smile. Head held high, Isabella followed Emmett down to the main entrance of the grand house where her Lord and husband was awaiting her arrival.

A/N

So yeah.. Our little Isabella is married to James. Who saw that one coming?

Thanks for the reviews, I have addressed few comments below as they were Guest reviews so I couldn't reply, or sent via PM.

This is another short chapter, but there were two today so don't be too put out. The chapters will get longer but I am just wanting to get as much of the background out of the way as possible and shorter, easier to read chapters I think are preferable so it isn't information overload, especially with regular updates.

So, to answer a few questions;

The societal structure in the story is the real backbone of it will be explained in much more detail over the coming chapters. I don't want the story to get bogged down with every intricate detail as I think that would make it a boring read, but I am hoping that the information I give as it relates to the situations our Isabella finds herself in will be interesting and help to give a better understanding to the world she is living in. Whilst I gave the story the title of "Building New York" I am not going to focus too much on the history of the city - I was struggling to think of a name for the story and that popped into my head! Anyway, if you think that anything needs explaining further let me know and I will try to work it into upcoming chapters if it isn't already there.

One review asked about why the rich families would allow their fertile sons to go to The Facility when they would have the monetary means to perhaps keep him. I think it's important to remember that the system, which of course would be shocking if the government put it into place now, is set up the way it is to ensure that the human race doesn't become extinct which is a real possibility for the people of New York if they don't manage the population very carefully. The system was also set up, and is governed, by those rich families and all information regarding fertility is automatically updated onto the database (will be covered later) so there would be no way of hiding the results. Not to mention, in a world where so few men are fertile, to have a son be so valuable to the existence of mankind certainly gives the family a lot of bragging rights and would elevate their status considerably! It is something that families would be very proud of and they would announce that as they would announce their daughter being fertile. It will be explained in more detail in the next couple of chapters, but as I said in the first chapter, think of it more a medieval mindset to the society structure – children were often used to further the family wealth and status back then, and it is much the same in this story.

Bella is 19.

As for James being evil… Wait and see!

And finally, yes the story does have a HEA as it stands at the moment. It is written and complete, I am just tweaking the chapters as I post them as I wrote the whole lot in one go (about 6 hours solid! Crazy I know!) so it has an awful lot of grammatical errors amongst other things! Haha! At the moment the ending is a bit abrupt so depending on the response the story gets as it moves along, I may consider expanding it out a bit but we will see.

Sorry for the long A/N but its nice to see people so interested in the story, only a few reviews so far but great to see people so interested in it, I really appreciate all of your comments.