Dances With Dukes... An introduction.

Our story follows the middle child of the three Wharburton sisters through her trials and tribulations following an unsuccessful season in Simdon.






Willowsea Park is one of the Principal properties in Simbury.


It is home to the Wharburton family.



Mother and Father - Terrance and Georgiana...



and their three daughters Lydia, Emilia and Rosamond.



 Emilia, the middle child, was commonly thought to be not as beautiful as her younger sister Rosamond.

 

Emilia did not have Rosamond's much-acclaimed platinum blonde hair, bright eyes and impeccable complexion.





Nor was she so accomplished as her older sister the Countess of Beacon, the former Miss Lydia Wharburton.

 

Lydia, who spoke four languages besides Simlish, net purses and painted screens,

 

was widely acclaimed for proficiency on not only pianoforte, but also harp.



She added to all this her ability to correspond remarkably finely and a closet interest in Mathematics.

 Emilia herself was of an average height, with an average complexion.
She had inherited her father's average brown hair and average grey eyes.



 She had been given a gentlewoman's education; she had also learned to paint and draw, she could hold a tune whilst playing pianoforte, but never truly found anything to distinguish herself with these arts and enjoyed them little.



She did not dress to advantage as Rosa did, nor could she move so elegantly as Lydia.




Having all her life been compared to those two and coming up short, she had developed somewhat of an inferiority complex. She knew her shortcomings and sometimes, of a night, they would play heavily on her mind.

Perhaps if it were any other group of three girls, any other sisters, they would not have loved each other so much as they did. Luckily for Emilia, and for her sisters as well, the three were very close and without any of the jealousy and foibles seen in girls they knew growing up. On occasion they even slept in one or the other's rooms.

So close they were, in fact, that never did the people of Simbury see only one of the Wharburton girls. Where Lydia was, so was Emilia and then so was Rosa. 

Whether out visiting...

 

 at a ball or local assembly... 

 

or even taking their morning walk. 

 By all accounts they were utterly inseparable.

  

There being such a small age gap between the girls even assured them of coming out into society all at once. Having the three daughters of one of the most principal landowners in Simbury out all at once was quite the shock to the Tonne of Simdon and generated quite a bit of drawing room gossip.

 

All of a sudden here were three very eligible young ladies, each having their own fortune of $25,000 simoleons and with varying degrees of accomplishment – It was a shock to the system for the elite, as Mr. Wharburton and his wife were but infrequent visitors to town. 

 They had not a house on any square, did not claim patronage to any club and, even when pressed upon, would not remove to any of the fashionable seaside resorts of a summer despite Mrs. Wharburton's friend's arguments.

 

 

The Wharburtons were of such a countrified nature that a ball for the daughter's coming out had not even been considered until Mrs. Wharburton's sister, the Lady Darley, had offered to host it.

Mrs. Wharburton may have shied away from the Tonne after her marriage, but like any mama with three unmarried and very eligible daughters, she knew they would only benefit from society and indeed hoped they would come to make matches as fair as her own.

Suffice to say the Wharburton girls' coming out ball was awash with fortune hunters, rogues and quite a few jealous young ladies.

Amidst the chaos of that ballroom (and the card parties, outings and nights at Simmack's that followed) Emilia discovered that both of her sisters had found prospective matches.

 

 

Within only six months Lydia was to be married and to The Right Honourable the Earl of Beacon.

 

That is where Emilia's story truly begins, the day of her sister's wedding.