TITLE: Letters from the Country
AUTHORS: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring and Kathleen Speck. (Kathy wrote the Torres entries, Brenda the Chakotay ones.)
RATING: G (all audiences)
CHAPTER: 2/9
DISCLAIMER AND AUTHOR NOTES: See Chapter 1.
From Chakotay Darrow, Viscount Trebus, Darrow House, to Lord Thomas Paris, London
15 May 18--
Dear Tom,
I was very pleased to hear from you again, old friend. My heartiest congratulations on your betrothal! From your previous letters, I'm quite convinced of the charms of your Annika, and no doubt it would have been futile for you to resist the pull of matrimony. How does milord Admiral feel at the prospect of a foreign-born daughter-in-law?
Thank you for your congratulations on my own betrothal -- though was it merely my fancy, or did they lack a certain enthusiasm? For shame, Tom: Lady Kathryn is a sensible, intelligent woman, and we suit one another very well. Perhaps our match does lack the grand passion you seem to advocate, but we get on excellently. Unlike yourself, I'm not a great romantic seeking a love match.
As you know, the social season is in full flower here. Lady Kathryn and I recently attended the debut ball of Kessandra Lien. You may remember her as Belle's great school chum, the pretty little blonde girl who sometimes visited the country place or Father's town house? (If my ward is to be believed, they managed to accomplish as much mischief in their school years as you and I did during our time in the navy!) Well, she is a little girl no more; she was lovely and quite radiant. I'll be astonished if she remains unwed at the end of the season.
If I may say it without boasting, though, my Belle was quite the match of her. Somehow I had failed to realise it before this, but like her friend Belle is fully a young woman now. She will never be tall, but she is slender and graceful, and more vivacious than I had ever imagined her becoming. It's a pity that her birth prevents her from being launched into society as Kessandra has been, or I'm sure she would be as vied-for as any young woman of the season. As matters were, she did not receive so many offers to dance as her beauty deserved, and Father and I were obliged to make up at least some of the gap. Not that I had any cause to object, for she is as graceful and spirited as she is pretty. Indeed, I would have claimed her for more dances had not Kathryn demanded her own turn. She is not especially fond of dancing, but is quite conscious that her position as a betrothed woman requires her to engage in such public niceties. (I, of course, am likewise obliged to yield to her social knowledge!) She advised, as well, that I was doing Belle no favour by making her unavailable to such swains as might express an interest. In that she was undoubtedly correct, though it pulled at my heart to see Belle stand alone whilst others were engaged on the dance floor. Belle does not conceal her disappointments well, and they were plain upon her face. And of course I am all too well aware of the indignity of being held in low regard for one's birth.
But if I brood, you will tease, just as you always have! So I will make an end to it. I was not friendless in my day; nor is my Belle, and she will make a fine match, if I must see to it myself! I confess, I had never pictured myself as a matchmaker, but needs must where the devil drives. If even you -- and even I -- are betrothed, there is surely a suitable mate for Belle.
Speaking of my lovely ward, she is calling me away from you now. She has engaged me for a morning of riding, and is presently in her habit and pacing impatiently.
Give my fondest regards to your Annika. You must come and visit before the two of us are married men, so that we may share old stories and celebrate our final days of bachelorhood. I look forward to your acceptance by return post.
Fondly,
Chakotay
