Page 116 of May I Have the Pleasure
“You may.”
“Why does the king find her beneath him?”
“You would not believe it.”
“Try me.”
“Because she is the second of three daughters of a minor squire in a little market town a half-day from Stockholm!”
“NO!!”
“YES!”
“I… well… I am confused. How is she unacceptable when you are not?”
“Remember the games I mentioned? Position in society is like that. It is like climbing to the top of a cathedral. You can only climb one flight of stairs at a time, but once you have climbed that flight, the people on that floor do not care about anything except the last elevation. People on the fourth floor can see nothing but the fifth and third, while remaining almost entirely ignorant of the ground, aside from knowing it exists, and mostly looking at it with disdain.”
“I do not understand!”
“I started out a lowly, penniless, and impertinent gentlewoman, with nothing to recommend me but my charms, such as they were. Then I was a widow of asupposedly-respectable clergyman, an heiress, and friend of Catherine and Anne de Bourgh. That was a step up in status, and not a jump that anyone would consider remarkable, since all it required was marriage, and weddings that slightly raise status are commonplace.”
“Go on.”
“After Wickham, I was, believe it or not, a respectable widow and landowner with a notable fortune. It was another step up. Going from gentlewoman, to respectable wife, to widow and heiress, to landowner, is all logical and consistent—but going from penniless daughter to landowner would have stretched credulity. I could take one flight of steps, but not two at a time. It can be done, but it is far more notable—something like scaling two floors with a rope.”
“I suppose that makes sense.”
“Next, I was the widow of an Earl. Had Lord Mawbry married penniless Elizabeth Bennet, it would have set tongues a-wagging, and my reputation would have been decimated. I would have been considered a fortune hunter of the worst order.However,since I was already a widowed landowner with an estate and respectable fortune, it was not as big of a stretch, regardless of how I acquired that status. I was not a brilliant match, but not remarkable, since there are not all that many titled ladies for earls to wed, and an astonishingly high percentage of the peerage has pockets to let.”
“It makes a perverted sort of sense. So, widow of earl to princess… same thing?”
“Yes, you understand. Surprising, but not shocking.”
“Is there any way to raise Miss Sofia’s status short of a series of short-lived husbands?”
“I have not found one. I tried to settle an enormous amount of consequence on her—several hundred thousand pounds, and a few of my English estates— but that did not satisfy anybody.”
“Why not?”
“Two reasons. She is still the insignificant daughter of a minor squire, and everybody knows that, whereas almost nobody in the palace knows about my past as Elizabeth Bennet. That, however, is not the main reason. The king wantsallmy lands and fortune back with the crown. Ideally, he would also like my English lands, but fortunately I have an obvious ally in the Prince Regent, so he is unlikely to be satisfied. It is remotely possible I could send the Mawbry lands back to the heir I like, since the dissolute one has died, and the younger is of age now, but it would require a marriage and protracted negotiations.”
“It sounds—”
“Complicated… Awful… Terrible… Pick your poison. They all apply.”
“So, you are considering marrying him—ideally in a manner where he survives the wedding afternoon?”
“Impertinent Miss!”
“Agreed!”
“Yes, I am seriously considering it. If I marry him, it will solve a lot of problems for a lot of people, and it may be theonlyway forsomeof us to have true happiness, but itcouldeasily crush the three most important people in the world to me, and yet—”
“And yet?”
“It might also—”
“Go on—”
