You already read the prologue. That should be enough. Just read the stupid fic now. PLEASE. ;)

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Chapter 1

"Erik, have you heard the wonderful news?"

Those were the first words Christine practically blurted out as soon as they were far away enough from the little cathedral in the center of the town of Rouen.

Erik sighed. It was not as if he wished to have time to reflect back on the service and the sermon and all of those things, but was it really necessary for Christine to start gossiping as soon as they had left the church? Then again, Rose and Lottie seemed to share the same mentality, for they too had begun chatting away shortly after the mass was over.

"Erik, have you heard the news?" repeated Christine. "Sherriford Hall has been let at last!"

"Is it?" replied Erik with little enthusiasm. Sherriford Hall was a highly coveted estate about three miles from le Chateau de Jumièges that for the past five years had fallen vacant.

"Yes it has, my dear! Do you not want to know who has taken it?"

Erik merely answered, "You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it."

"Well, it has been taken by a young man of large fortune who has just traveled all the way from the north of England. A single man of large fortune, my dear. His name is Trevor, and he will be in possession of it by the winter. And do you know that he has 30,000 francs a year!"

Christine paused, waiting to see what Erik's reaction would be. There was none. He merely kept walking, allowing the facts to mull over in his head, and then preparing to chuck them away. So she put in one more comment. "What a fine thing for our girls."

This made Erik stop and look at her in confusion. "How so? And how can it affect them?"

Christine looked at him in surprise, then glanced at their daughters. "Oh, Erik, how can you be so tiresome? You know I am thinking of his marrying one of them!"

Erik sighed and started walking once more. Oh no. Not THIS business again.

Angelique, who was keenly listening to the conversation and predicting what each parent must have been thinking, could not help but take her father's side. Since they were all old enough, Christine had done nothing but try and prepare them for the world of suitors and courtship, hoping that each one would easily find a suitable husband. Day in, day out, it was about nothing but finding the proper husband. Angelique could not help but feel that such pursuits were not as necessary as her mother made them out to be.

Instead of complaining or making her father's point, she replied playfully, "A single young man of large fortune must be in want of a wife."

This made Rose and Lottie giggle. Christine, however, replied with sincerity. "Yes, he must indeed! And who better than one of our five girls?"

Just as she said that, Lottie snorted from her uncontrollable giggling. "Lottie!" reprimanded Charlotte, her large, sweet eyes widening in shock.

"What a fine joke if he were to choose me!" laughed Lottie, ignoring her eldest sister's disapproval.

"Or me!" echoed Rose.

"So that is his design," said Erik, "to marry one of our daughters?"

Christine once more was surprised by him. "Design? Oh how can you talk such nonsense! But he may very likely fall in love with one of them. Therefore you must visit him when he comes."

"Visit him? Oh, no, I see no occasion for that." His tone was very nonchalant.

Christine was once more in shock. Did he really mean it? "Erik . . ."

"Go with the girls. Or, still better, send them by themselves."

Now Christine really could not believe her ears. "Oh Erik! By themselves!"

"Of course. As you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Trevor might like you best of the party."

Once again Lottie and Rose laughed out loud, and once again Lottie snorted. This time Angelique gently warned Lottie against the unpleasant habit.

Christine was not aware of anything going on behind as they arrived at the house. Her nerves were in a terrible state and she immediately began to have a fit when they walked through the door and the servant came to take their coats.

"Oh, I am so distressed! How could Erik do this to us? He has said over and over that he will not visit Mr. Trevor when he comes."

"Mama, I'm sure Papa is just teasing you," replied Charlotte in her usual soothing manner. Christine, however, was determined to make her complaints.

"No, no, Charlotte, it will not do. You know your father has a will of iron!"

As Christine continued her rants, the entire family assembled into the drawing room where they took their spots either at the table, on one of the couches, or any other stray chairs standing about the room with no particular use. Erik took his position by the fireplace, a tall formidable figure completely dressed in black, except for the white silk mask that totally enveloped his face but for his two yellow eyes. Some people in the town said that if one took the time to look long enough, they would see that Angelique was the only one of the five daughters who had inherited that unique color of eye. Although most would see her eyes as an ordinary hazel shade, she did in fact have golden streaks radiating from the pupils. This, among some other qualities as well, made the father and daughter quite similar as well as close. It sometimes vexed Christine that Erik should have favored Angelique above all the other girls. She was not nearly as beautiful as Charlotte or as lively and humorous as Lottie. But she had her fair share of both qualities, plus her wit and slightly more sophisticated level of intelligence.

Erik and Angel looked at their beloved wife/mother and could not help but find some small amusement in her overly-dramatic state.

"While I am very appreciative of the compliment, my dear," Erik began, "I will agree to write to Mr. Trevor and tell him that I have five daughters, and he may choose from any of them as he wishes. They are all silly and ignorant like other girls." Then he briefly glanced over at Angel, who always enjoyed her father's sarcastic sense of humor.

"Well, Angel may have a little more wit than the rest. But then he may want a stupid wife as others have done before him. There, will that do?"

Christine gave him an agonized look. "Oh, you just love to vex me, don't you? You have no compassion on my poor nerves!"

Erik chuckled a little louder this time. "You mistake me, my dear. I have the highest respect for your nerves. They have been my old and only friends these twenty years at least."

Most of the girls chuckled or giggled, except for Madeleine who usually did not find much humor in anything.

"You don't know what I suffer," moaned Christine again.

"Well, I hope you'll get over it and live to see many more men of 30,000 a year come into the neighborhood."

Christine's glance was more resentful than before. "It will be of no use if 20 such gentlemen came, since you won't visit them!"

"Depend upon it, my dear," smirked Erik, "when there are twenty, I will visit them all." Then he walked out of the room, leaving the women of the house to discuss among themselves this interesting or vexing (in Christine's case) subject of Mr. Trevor, his 30,000 francs, and if Erik would really never call upon him when the time came.

Night eventually came after a long day of gossiping and griping, and everyone was retiring for bed. Only Erik was the exception, for he was working on his financial paperwork and needed to spend a few more hours thinking everything over.

Charlotte and Angelique shared a bedroom, as did Rose and Lottie. Madeleine had no sister of great closeness to partner up with, so she was granted a bedroom to herself. Rose and Lottie still could not stop talking and chattering about the men in the town and with whom they would and would not dance with at the next ball, and Christine was beginning to complain of a horrible headache.

Charlotte was quietly brushing her curly locks at her vanity while Angelique sat on the bed, temporarily lost in her own thoughts. After several minutes of reverie, she finally decided to speak.

She sighed. "If I could love a man who would love me enough to take me for 100 francs a year, I should be very much pleased."

"Yes," sighed Charlotte in an almost equally whimsical way.

Then Angel thought it over again. "But such a man can hardly be sensible, and you know I could never love a man who was out of his wits."

Charlotte laughed lightly at this, then grew serious again and placed down her brush. "Oh Angel . . . a marriage where either partner cannot love or respect the other . . . that cannot be agreeable, to either party."

"As we have daily proof," noted Angel, rolling her eyes slightly. She did believe that her parents loved each other a great deal, but she knew that even they had their share of arguments every single day. Couples who had not loved each other from the start were even worse off, and they were nearly everywhere in that day and age (although they were beginning to lessen more and more).

"But you know," she added, "beggars cannot be choosers."

Charlotte turned to her. "We aren't very poor, Angel."

"With father's estate entailed away from us, we have little but our charms to recommend us. One of us, at least, will have to marry very well. And . . . since you are nearly five times as beautiful as the rest of us, and have the sweetest disposition, I fear that the task will fall on you to raise our fortunes."

Charlotte turned back to the mirror on her vanity, her reflected eyes downcast and anxious when she heard Angelique's point. "But Angel . . . I would wish . . . well, I would very much like . . . to marry for love."

"Of course you will," replied Angel, walking over to her sister and placing her chin on Charlotte's head. "I'm sure of it. What man of good fortune would not fall in love with you?"

Charlotte let herself laugh at her sister's humor. "Very well, I will do my best, for you. And what about you?"

Angel gazed into the mirror, studying herself carefully to be sure of what she was going to say. She had thought it over many times before, and she was quite resolute. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. As she stared, she answered, "I am determined . . . that nothing but the deepest love will induce me into matrimony."

She paused for a moment, then continued in a more comical tone, "So . . . I will end an old spinster and teach your ten children how to embroider clothes and play their instruments very ill."

Both girls laughed, the elder shaking her head at the younger's severity upon herself, and the younger kissing the elder upon the head before retiring to bed.

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So, here it is. Should I continue or not? Although I will say that it should get better, considering that this is only the first chapter, I will understand if many of you feel that this is a totally ridiculous thing to continue. It's up to you whether or not the story goes on. Tell me what you think with your reviews. Until then, ladies and gents.