#like if arranged marriages were still prevalent then I wouldn’t have to think about it

[chiefguideandcentre]

Listen, arranged marriage was all the rage back in the day and I’m aware about all the problems associated with it but also please consider Im a hot mess with no social skills and need someone to just arrange a marriage for me bc I can’t do it myself please and thank you

[richmond-rex]

It’s Henry VII’s deathday so I’m getting emotional about his marriage – which was, after all, one of the most important parts of his life.

Personally, I think Henry VII and Elizabeth of York probably had one of the most successful royal marriages in medieval England? They were heirs to two warring families and were meant to successfully unite them and they did; and in doing so, they literally began a new dynasty together. They had seven children and seemed to love them immensely. Across their 17-year marriage, there is no recorded estrangement or disagreement between them (apart from that very playful and funny ‘quarrel’ about Catherine of Aragon’s letter). He was faithful to her; they were faithful to each other(*more on that at the end of the ask). Literally every account we have (apart from those ambassadors who are applying generalized belief about the relations between a mother-in-law and a wife to Elizabeth and Margaret Beaufort’s evidently cordial relationship) indicate a harmonious marriage, and we know they comforted each other very gently after their heir’s death. He was utterly grief-stricken after her death and mourned her every year; his reaction was very visceral and shocking to his contemporaries and that speaks volumes.

Idk where the idea of their marriage being dissatisfying or him being “oppressive” (like you quoted in your post from a few days ago) comes from. I don’t think the view is very prevalent currently, thankfully, but it’s still very irritating. Personally, apart from Ricardian nonsense, I think part of it may come from the general idea that he married her to cement and unite their claims, which automatically gives one the general impression of a calculated alliance – which it was! It was arranged by their mothers and beneficial to both their families. Most medieval marriages were like that; Elizabeth’s parents & maternal grandparents and Henry’s paternal grandparents were rare exceptions. I think it’s very lovely that despite this, they managed to build such a solid partnership and loving family. I think people also tend to take the idea that he overthrew her dynasty in a negative context which is ridiculous because, as you’ve mentioned, her vaunted uncle was the one who usurped her brothers’ throne, bastardized her siblings, humiliated her mother, and tried his best to ruin her father’s memory. Henry VII, in overthrowing him, was allied with her father’s supporters to restore Elizabeth to the throne as his consort, and he got immense support because of that. Wouldn’t Elizabeth have been exceedingly well-disposed towards him; wouldn’t she have wanted him to win?

We can’t objectively say that any centuries-old marriage was happy or passionately romantic, of course, but it is clear that theirs was mutually fond, pleasant, respectful and dynastically beneficial. What more can one ask for? I read a quote about Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville (I can’t remember where, rip), and I think it applies for Henry VII and Elizabeth of York just as well: “A happy marriage? Who can say for certain. But it was undoubtedly a successful one”.

In my opinion, I think Elizabeth’s queenship may have been very bittersweet for her at times: by all accounts she loved her husband and children, and her queenship and marriage was a victory for her father and brothers’ supporters, but I think it’s reasonable to speculate if she sometimes mourned about what was taken from her family (by her uncle) and wondered/wished for what could have been (her little brother on the throne and the continuation of their dynasty). This has little to nothing to do with her relationship with Henry (he would sympathize! His uncle was also overthrown, although that’s obviously not the same as two 12-year & 9-year-old boys imprisoned and murdered by their own uncle and shouldn’t be treated as such) and I think that would be interesting and believable to explore in historical fiction rather than inventing random problems for Henry and Elizabeth’s marriage that, more often than not, are directly contradicted by evidence.

(*Personally, I really don’t think fidelity should be a major factor in judging success or love in medieval marriages, tbh, especially considering the fact that couples were meant to abstain from sexual relations during pregnancies, and at least in England, chastity & control were considered hallmarks of masculinity/kingship. I think individual personalities (and libidos, I guess) probably mattered a lot more. I’ve read about lots of medieval marriages which were loving and successful despite infidelities, and many which were faithful but not necessarily passionate or romantic. It depends. In Henry and Elizabeth’s case, though, taken together with everything we know, it’s one of the many reasons why their marriage was a success).

Hi! Belated for his deathday but yeah, his marriage to Elizabeth of York was a major aspect of his kingship and I don't say it only in regard to the fact that her family supporters became his supporters or that her claim legitimised his claim in turn, all of which are true. In my opinion, his relationship with Elizabeth gave a very specific symbolic meaning to his kingship which we can see embodied in the family portrait he commissioned after her death: she was the princess to his St George, a saint he evoked as inspiration from the very first time he stepped back in Britain. Interestingly, Elizabeth seems to have thought of him in those terms too, going by the presents she created for him with her own hands, all related to knighthood and the Order of the Garter. It's so very interesting, especially if you include that poem she may have written!

Their marriage was very significant because it was not just the marriage of someone with Yorkist ancestry marrying someone with Lancastrian ancestry — I'm always saying 'Yorkist' and 'Lancastrian' were political positions of allegiance to Edward IV or Henry VI, respectively, not blood relations — but because their marriage involved people whose close relatives had actively tried to kill each other. Elizabeth's father executed Henry's grandfather and half-uncle. Henry's other uncle publicly swore to get revenge on Elizabeth's father. Their father figures (Jasper and Edward) literally fought against each other on the battlefield. Edward IV marrying Eleanor of Castile or Richard marrying Joanna of Portugal would not be unifying York and Lancaster because no matter their degree of ancestry from John of Gaunt, their families had never fought for Lancaster (Henry VI) in the first place.

Elizabeth's father was the cause of Henry growing up as a hostage in a Yorkist family and then spending his youth imprisoned in exile, surely their union was something else in personal terms? The very fact that he came to her and her family's 'rescue' so to speak was a thing in itself. That was a major movement of reconciliation and healing that dictated their relationship — and collective healing at that as the Crowland Chronicle thought of and that surely other contemporaries thought of too. They got along very well in public and I would say they got along very well privately too, judging by that account of the news of Arthur's death, and the presents they gifted each other. Their dynastic marriage was probably facilitated by this sort of mutual attraction and affection.

It's weird that people use Francis Bacon so much to talk about Henry VII. Bacon, the same person who said Henry didn't even have personal pastimes to amuse himself with (he did.... tennis, gambling, hunting, reading, court revels and music—it's all recorded in his account books), also claimed Henry truly was 'nothing uxurious' and was never able to love his wife because 'even though she was beautiful, gentle and fruitful', she was also a Yorkist and according to Bacon, Henry's aversion to Yorkists was so strong it was also present 'in his chamber and bed'. Bacon was the first one to put forward the theory that Henry didn't want Elizabeth to be crowned until she gave him a son because he disliked sharing the spotlight and didn't want people to think she was a sovereign ruler.... even though at no point did people actually raise her standard in that direction. There is literal evidence that Henry was planning her coronation from the beginning and we know plenty of reasons why she couldn't be crowned before 1487, but most historians still repeat Bacon's jealousy and distrust theory.

Nowadays the consensus seems to be that although affectionate, Henry was dynastically/politically oppressive with Elizabeth of York as though he didn't allow her to meddle in politics—which she did, especially in diplomatic matters and court affairs—denoting a lack of knowledge on what the office of a queen consort actually involved. Although we have voices such as Anna Duch and Michelle Beer who have emphasised Elizabeth's participation in politics, it still seems to be the norm to call Elizabeth of York a 'trophy wife' whose only role was to produce children, even though the very historians who call her a trophy wife also argue she was active in politics so like..... which is it.gif? Bacon said Henry could not 'endure any mention of the Lady Elizabeth' yet her symbols and her image were included extensively along his own so? That theory doesn't seem to ring true.

I think the most laughable arguments I've seen as to Henry's oppressiveness was Laynesmith's claim that he chose to crown Elizabeth on St Katherine of Alexandria's day to make people remember female rule was bad—not, mind you, because St Katherine was the most popular female saint in medieval England, a particular role model for women, or because of St Katherine's special role as the bride of Christ, symbols that were much likelier to jump to people's mind. Another laughable claim I've seen is that Elizabeth was never a patroness of Queen's College because Henry didn't allow her due to Richard's participation as a patron there—nevermind that the college's very founders were Henry's aunt Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth's mother, Elizabeth Woodville. If there was someone who was associated with that college, it certainly was those two, not Richard! The fact that Elizabeth didn't become a patroness most likely had nothing to do with Henry's approval and was probably a personal choice, for example, to support monasteries and nunneries—which she did—instead of colleges.

Do you see what I'm talking about when I mention Henry's historical reputation as a miserly and oppressive husband? Facts, big or small, are read under that light to corroborate the idea.

Elizabeth's queenship might have been bittersweet at times, such as the times she rewarded one of her late brother's former servants, but it was also a very personal victory that put her into an enviable position compared to other queens consort. She never had to leave the places she grew up in, she was surrounded by her own family, old servants and people who spoke her native tongue. Unlike so many queens who had to say goodbye to their personal retinue after their marriage, which happened, in varying degrees, to Anne of Bohemia, Joan of Navarre, and even her own daughter Mary Tudor in France, Elizabeth increased the number of positions her personal servants could occupy, including the Prince of Wales' own household. She was able to support her sisters to a degree that would be impossible if she had not become queen of her own birth country. I think Elizabeth would very much be aware of that, that her life in France for example would have been much more isolating, as Charlotte of Savoy's was.

Those are all political aspects that were also personal ones, and when we compare them with other personal aspects such as her own intimate relationship with the king, I think it's safe to say she got a good deal in the end, even though her husband's reign was not an easy-breezy time either. She, of course, was not shy to show her support for him, from vouching for him with the pope and other sovereigns to personally consoling him in difficult times. As one historian said, Henry seems to have drawn great strength from her support. In my opinion, their marriage is quite an extraordinary story of love (from duty-bound to familial to romantic) in difficult times.

P.S.: yes, Henry was nothing special in not taking mistresses—that was the default option for medieval English kings who were moulded on St Edward the Confessor's example, and Henry would have been very much aware of the expectations involved in the office he sought. He seems to have blended his performance of kingship with his personal piety, bringing back public acts associated with sacred kingship such as the touching for the king's evil. Henry would have been aware that kings of England were expected to be chaste, and again, politically speaking would know it was not in his best interests to disrespect his wife. All of that not counting his personality, which might indeed have been genuinely monogamic.

[strawbebehmod]

Some potentially controversial headcanons about sexuality and gender in atla

Ok so I have some headcanons about gender and sexuality in the atlaverse that may controdict some aspects of canon as well as many other's headcanons but I feel go pretty inline with the nations, either based on their inspo country's history or the feel I get from the nations in canon culture. If you disagree that's totally chill I just wanna get my thoughts out there to see who else agrees.

So with that let's begin:

Air nomads

This I think everyone agrees on that the air nomads didn't give a shit about gender or sexuality. Love is love and gender is an illusion.

They also were very pro poly relationships

However, cause of the whole communally raising children thing that's a part of canon I don't think all the temples really had a concept of marriage and some groups may have actually given you odd looks if you wanted to be exclusive with someone

But the general 'let it be' culture meant you really wouldn't get any widespread social grief on the issue just maybe have a few arguments with friends or maybe a partner that wasn't used to being exclusive or was used to being exclusive and you weren't, and you veritably weren't going to be ostracized for your sexuality or preferences in a relationship. It's a domestic issue rather than a social justice one.

Air nomads were by far the most accepting of asexuality and aromaticism.

Water tribe

I actually think things very between the north and the south a lot due to their seperation, but a commonality between them is their strong sense of gender roles and other ridged segregations in gender like the whole waterbending thing.

That being said, transness is very much accepted but there are specific ceremonies for transitioning and coming out to the tribe, and it can mean losing some privileges you had from the gender you were assigned at birth.

There's also a third non-binary gender that has its own specific ceremony. This circumvented a lot of rules about who could learn what type of waterbending, particularly up north but also carried a few unique social responsibilities like officiating weddings but could also strip you of some priviledges from your initially assigned gender, such as paticipation in specific gendered rituals such as women's cerimonies or men's cerimonies.

Those members had their own unique cerimonies and celibrations however.

In the northern watertribe specifically homosexuality is very much accepted but under the current cheiftan unions of politics like Yue's will almost always come before unions of love, so gay individuals can sadly be forced into hetero relationships via arranged mairrage, with the only concessions being that they can take on a single same sex lover outside of the union.

The absoluteness of the arranged mairrage rules can change based on who is in charge however.

Biphobia has had a history of being a problem in the water tribes as they have a huge emphasis on separation and opposites in their culture as their two biggest spirits represent yin and yang. Lesbians were long considered favored by tui and gay men favored by la, as if they were living symbols of the spirits.

There was discourse as to how bi and pan people fit into this model, some even horribly suggesting they were abandoned by the spirits, but the current concesus among spiritual experts and elders is they are actually a symbol of tui and la's love for eachother and thus favored by both.

The southern water tribe has always been laxer about the gender specific stuff and never had the arranged mairrage rules.

It was always much smaller however so LGBT individuals were less common. This often made it harder for homosexual individuals to find romantic love as there were just fewer fellow LGBT people that were avalible.

So if you came out as gay/bi/pan/lesbian to the tribe it was often the tradition to complete your ice dodging cerimony soon after and then become a sailor for at least three years to try and find romance while trading goods with the other nations if you didn't have a partner already.

A majority of southern tribe fishermen/women as a result were LGBT. Being a full-time fisherman is now a euphamism for being a lonely gay person.

Southern watertribe mermaid tales were almost always very gay as a result.

Unfortunately due to the southern watertribe's culture and traditions being decimated by the firenation's raids, a lot of LGBT culture in the southern tribe was also lost.

They're still pretty accepting but because of the dwindled population of the southern tribe and the fact that LGBT people tend to only make up 1-10% of an average population in the real world, it's rare for a gay individual to be born into the southern tribe, usually only once every generation now, if they realize they are gay to begin with.

As a result of that and the fact that bringing it up generally brings up the fact that the firenation destroyed what nice things they had, it's often not talked about outside of between elders mourning better times, which has made it even harder for some individuals to even realize they are LGBT to begin with.

The swamp benders are mostly men who wear leaf loin cloths they gay af and we're probs established by southern watertribe gays and bis that got lost in their travels and decided to settle down in the swamp, eventually attracting the attention of other lgbt earth kingdom people who decided to live with them.

Earth Kingdom

There's a huge divide among how it's treated among peasents and aristocracy

Peasents grew up on stories of past earth kings with many lovers, including several gay ones

So depending on where you live homosexuality is either considered something romantic of fairy-tales or celibrated as something unique and uncommon

In some places where people have more spirituality, some joke that gay people were royals in their past lives.

The earth kingdom is big tho, so some small towns can be homophobic but it's much rarer and usually because they were established by homophobes who were chased from areas that were very anti homophobia.

Fetishization of homosexuality can happen but it's again depending on where you are.

The earth kingdom is also very accepting of asexuality but there are stereotypes such as asexuals usually becoming gurus.

In aristocracy things are a bit different

Homosexuality is still pretty accepted but due to how prevalent arrange mairrages are it's heavily assosiated with affairs and running away from family obligations and thus it's a bit taboo to speak publicly about it in high society.

Lesbianism specifically cause China, what the earth kingdom is based on, has a long history of writing off women's feelings.

The upper crust of Ba Sing Se, despite lots of historically gay earth kings, has a big homophobia issue thanks to the Dai Lee slowly becoming corrupted after Kyoshi died.

Long Feng particularly had a hand in making talking about gay stuff practically off the table or seen as only something for filthy commoners.

Transgenderism, again cause of China historically treating women like shit, is a subject of a lot of discourse in the Earth kingdom, although there are no legal issues with being transgender and one can have their passports changed in certian cities and towns to reflect their gender identity if they move there, but only in those specific towns.

Omashu is one of them and is extremely pro trans and in general pro LGBT even among the aristocracy, infact king Bumi in his first year of rule established specific holidays for celibrating trans people, gay men, lesbians, asexuals, bisexuals, agender people, and any other gender or sexual identity Bumi knew about.

He has added to the list since. Whenever he finds out about a new gender identity or sexuality he sets the day he found out as a day for a feats next year celibrating it.

This is why there are so many feasts in omashu.

He also often officiates gay weddings himself because according to him "gay weddings are the most interesting and creative. They all have mad geniuses for their wedding planners I tell ya"

Tbh he will randomly show up to any wedding in his city cause he loves parties but he will specifically officiate gay ones.

The Fire Nation

Ok this is where some people may get pissed cause I disagree that the firenation is horribly homophobic

I know it was stated by one of the creators that the firenation has anti gay laws thanks to Sozin but Japan had a loooooong history of celibrating gay stuff prior to westernization and the firenation is based off of Japan. Also kinda headcanon Sozin as having a thing for Roku that fell apart with the whole war bs.

So Sozin never imo put into place any homophobic laws aside from banning gay writings and plays within the palace out of bitterness of having Roku betray him and just didn't want to have anything around him that would remind him of him. Dude got so mopey over it he neglected his wife and children a lot, despite the whole thing being 100% his fault.

Azulon on the other hand was a homophobic son of a bitch and put a lot of anti gay and trans laws into effect. While none outlawed same sex relations, they included ones that allowed people to get away with firing people or harming people for being LGBT.

Ozai was also extremely homophobic.

But before all this the fire nation was practically a gay paradise. Fire is the element of passion, and so gay sex and relationships were considered for a long time just as normal as heterosexual relationships.

There were festivals and holidays celibrating gay lovers, lots of LGBT writing and art, and many many plays on the subject

There were several folk stories of Agni the sun spirit coming down to earth to meet his male human lovers, including one that explained why we have night and day. (Tui introduced Agni to one of the volcano spirit's sons so that she may rule the night in peace without his constant incercession and annoying boastfulness)

Soldiers were pretty much expected to have a gay relationship with one of their brothers in arms if they were single to increase the loyalty among troops.

The firenation was the only nation where arranged mairrages could be nullified instantly on the grounds that one of the individuals involved was gay, unless you were the firelord and that was only because it was the firelord's duty to produce at least one heir to continue the linage, so it was seen as the firelord's sacrifice to his or her people to take up at least one opposite sexed partner. Romantic affairs were expected and understood in such situations however so long as there was already an heir to the throne born.

Families could even be punished with jail time for knowingly forcing their gay children into heterosexual relationships.

Gay couples could adopt children too and denying one on the grounds of being gay would be grounds for removal of your position in child care and being blacklisted.

There were still homophobes but homophobia was squashed a lot

Azulon managed to "justify" the cultural shift and changes to laws by having newspapers publishing fake news about pedophilia cases being linked to homosexuality as well as other stories linking homosexuality to degenerate acts.

He also used the culture of honor and family loyalty to shame gay children for ending their parent's bloodlines and claiming gay individuals were less likely to take care of their parents in their old age. And that trans children dishonored their parents by rejecting their "birth gender"

He even had certian folk stories changed to be heterosexual

This allowed homophobia and transphobia to spred in the firenation

However many individual towns held onto their pro LGBT roots and still published and performed gay literary works and plays.

And azulon and ozai were unable to remove many nonheteronormative traditions, such as guy friends being extremely physically affectionate, more so than with their girl counterparts.

In some areas it's still customary to greet close male friends with platonic kisses on the cheek

Zuko repealed many of the old laws established by his father and grandfather almost immediately, and reestablished many old holidays and protections for LGBT individuals.

Fixing the damage is still taking time, but with a corrected history of the firenation being now taught in classes thanks to zuko and aang, things are getting back to the way they once were slowly.

[summerfitzy]

courting miss sætre (2/6)

Fandom: SKAM Ship: Noora x William Summary: Miss Noora Sætre has ambitions of spinsterhood; Mr. William Magnusson has other ideas.

(The wildly anachronistic regency era au that literally no one asked for)

ao3

When the Mohns’ butler informed Noora that she had a caller the next afternoon, she had ink stains muddling her fingertips, no time to clean them, and no clue who could possibly wish to see her.

Noora sorted the corners of her papers into line with one other, then into one of her dresser drawers, before hurrying onto her feet to open the door and ask, “Did they gave a name?”

Still standing in the hall, holding his square chin high, Campbell nodded. “Mr. William Magnusson.”

The butler’s eyes narrowed at whatever expression swept over Noora’s face. She didn’t have a looking glass in her hand, but she could imagine the horror contorting her eyebrows and lips and gaze. “Can you,” she started, stopped, started again, “can you tell him that I’m not in?” Eva had left an hour earlier to spend the afternoon with Jonas and his sister, after all—Noora very well might have gone with her if not for her writing.

Campbell nodded again, warier this time. “Of course, Miss Sætre.”

He turned. Noora hesitated. “Wait.”

After the way she had spoken to Mr. Magnusson the previous day… The demands she had made…

She might not wish to see him, but she could hardly turn him away, not if he’d come to say something more about Eva and Mr. Schistad. Something more than she’d given him time to reply yesterday, before attacking his morals and parents and class. (It had not, looking back, been very much time at all.)

The back of her neck ached. Perhaps he’d come to inform her that he planned to blacken her name among the ton in revenge for her impertinence.

“I’ll go.”

William Magnusson had not yet seated himself when Noora finally entered the parlor. Anyone else might have looked listless standing there, waiting. He did not. Face impenetrable, fashion pristine, and eyes assessing every inch of the room, he hardly looked like he was waiting at all.

Then he heard her slippers, turned, and began assessing her instead.

“Mr. Magnusson,” she said, her voice as short as her greeting. Noora remained standing. Sitting implied lingering, and she had no intention of giving any such invitation.

The corners of his lips stretched. “Miss Noora Amalie Sætre.” He made her name sound like a medal he’d earned. As though the fact that he’d found it should impress her. “No chaperone?”

“Do I need one?” she said. It was perhaps the dumbest question she’d ever asked. All unmarried girls required chaperones—never more so than in the company of a known rake.

But she couldn’t let any of the Mohns’ maids hear this conversation.

He shrugged his lips and shoulders at her; an inarticulate code for yes, probably. “It’s your choice.” The words untied a few of the knots in her stomach, though the idea that she had any agency at all compared to Mr. Magnusson should have sounded like a bag of moonshine.

She crossed her arms.

If he noted her hostility, he did not acknowledge it; only kept gazing at her like that, smirking at her like that, and said, “Shall we take a stroll in the park?”

Now Noora stared back at him. “No.” It wasn’t a question, but disbelief made it sound like one.

“In my carriage then?”

“No.” More certainty this time. A decisive jerk of her head.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Don’t you want to hear what I have to say about your friend?”

She didn’t particularly want to hear anything from him, but—“You can’t say it here?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Fun?” she repeated, voice tight as her stays. “Eva’s reputation is not a game.”

He held up both hands in surrender as he sat. “I never called Miss Mohn a game.” Then he closed his mouth, gestured to the chair closest to his with a flicker of his dark eyes, and waited.

As much as Noora would have liked to disappoint him, she forced herself to sit down. For Eva’s sake. (For the sake of her own pride and sanity, she chose the farthest chair.) Given the way his hair had fallen into his eyes, Noora could not tell for sure, but she was fairly certain he rolled his eyes.

“Mr. Schistad thinks she is,” she said.

Already leaning back against the upholstery, perfectly comfortable, as at home there as he likely would have been in his own townhouse—“Chris thinks she’s a pretty girl. Chris likes pretty girls.”

“You mean that Mr. Schistad likes ruining pretty girls.”

“Who has he ruined?”

Noora opened her mouth to answer—and then paused. She groped through the recesses of her mind for a single name. “He has a reputation for it,” she said instead, finally.

William held her gaze, his mouth straighter now. “Chris knows better than to get caught. And any girl he did compromise, I could arrange a match for.”

Because that sounded like a happy start to a marriage. “Eva already has a match,” Noora said, refusing to surrender the armor on her voice.

“Good. So we can stop worrying about our friends.”

“No,” she said. “That isn’t good. Betrothals get called off all the time by suspicious fiancées.”

“Should he be suspicious?”

Noora curled one hand, then remembered the ink—when she looked down, her palm was spotted with it. “Eva has no interest in Mr. Schistad.”

“Then I’m sure she and her fiancée will be fine.”

Now that her palm lines were so thoroughly darkened, Noora let her hand clench into as much of a fist as it liked at her side. “So you don’t mean to say anything to Mr. Schistad?”

William exhaled a dry, muted laugh. “I didn’t say that.”

A tighter fist. “If this is a joke to you, there’s no reason for you to stay.”

“Isn’t there?” he said. His stare felt like a tangible, physical weight on her shoulders. “Even if I did think it a joke? Which,” he added, “I don’t.”

“We have nothing to talk about, other than our friends.”

“What about everything you said to me last night? Was that all about our friends?”

“Yes.” Noora flushed, even though she’d known her diatribe couldn’t pass unmentioned. “I was angry on Eva’s behalf.”

William rubbed the side of one finger across his lips, obscuring whatever curve might have claimed it. “At me?”

“No.” Yes. “At men like you.”

“The cliché kind,” he clarified.

Noora felt her own lips spreading in spite of themselves. “At least you can admit it.”

William laughed again, that same low, under-the-breath sound. (Noora began to wonder what a genuine laugh would sound like from him, then stopped herself.) “Miss Mohn has a fiancée,” he said finally, after a few more beats of amused silence. “Do you?”

“No.” And then because his eyes glinted with satisfaction at that, no doubt assuming that she was a shrew and therefore incapable of catching a husband, she blurted, “And I never plan to.” In the space of a second, Noora had to swallow her own wince. Why? Less than twenty-four hours ago, Noora had assured Eva that she wouldn’t advertise her ambitions of spinsterhood, and here she was stating them outright to London’s premier bachelor.

“You never plan to have a fiancée,” he said, his entire expression flat. She couldn’t blame him for his doubt; life didn’t often treat unmarried women kindly. Old maid, ape leader—the nicknames for spinsters left a bad taste on the tongue.

A lock of hair had slipped free from her bun a moment before; Noora pushed the blonde behind her ears now. “That’s right.”

He pushed at his hair too, although his bangs weren’t anywhere near his eyes. “Do your parents expect you to remain single to care for them?”

“It has nothing to with my parents.” (Noora said that last word like a curse in spite of herself.) “Have you ever heard a bride’s vows? Her promises of obedience? She gives away her rights and money and property, and the groom gives nothing.”

She didn’t know when he’d leaned forward, abandoning his slacken recline. “He offers protection and security. He gives her his name.”

“She loses her name.” Noora took a deep breath—she needed to stop talking. Debating gender equality with the likes of William Magnusson would not lead anywhere fruitful. “This does not have anything to do with our friends.”

“Can we only speak about them?”

Another breath, deeper and slower. “We have nothing else to speak about.”

William canted his head at her. “Come for that stroll with me,” he reworded his earlier offer. “We’ll find something.”

But Noora stood, crossed her arms, and steeled her shoulders. “The Mohns will be returning soon. You should leave.”

When William rose, he offered his arm and a raised eyebrow to her.

“Alone.”

Another almost smile, another almost laugh. His dropped arm should have signaled a surrender, but he had a gentleman’s way of making it look perfectly natural. Gentleman. Noora rolled her eyes.

“Next time, Miss Noora Amalie Sætre.”

(How had he discovered her middle name?)

Noora kept her feet planted on the patterned carpet as he escorted himself out. “I wouldn’t wait for it, Mr. Magnusson,” she called after him.

(She did not notice the way her ink-stained fingertips snared his gaze.)

Mid-afternoon sunlight shone into Noora’s chamber but didn’t make anything look any brighter. The light barely registered at all. The stark awareness of how little she had accomplished with her two (entirely too forward) conversations with William Magnusson far overshadowed it.

No true promises to talk to Mr. Schistad and no true acknowledgment of Eva’s danger; only his assurances that the matter shouldn’t worry her. Which meant very little. Less than little. Less than nothing.

All that she had won between last night and this afternoon was Mr. Magnusson’s attention, and that felt more like a punishment than a prize.

Pressing her lips together, Noora closed her eyes for a beat, and then pulled her papers out from her dresser. The stack of them poked through the drawer’s crack, propping it open, no matter how hard she tried to push it closed.

Though Noora had no interest in crediting the ‘snooping, spying maid’ stereotype so prevalent in gossip and other tawdry fiction—Penelope seemed lovely—she would still have to find a better hiding place for her novel soon, now that it had grown thick enough to announce itself. No one, let alone an unattached girl, had any innocent reason to have so many papers hidden away.

Her second novel. Just as secret as the first, if unfinished and unpublished as of yet.

Pushing William Magnusson out of her mind’s eye like so many strands of greasy hair, Noora folded herself into her chair and began writing again.

When Eva returned later that afternoon, she came straight to Noora’s room, saw her friend bent over her papers with a quill in hand, and flopped down upon her bed.

“It’s so stuffy in here,” she said through a yawn. Eva tugged her hair from its bonnet and bun, ever eager to let it free fall down her back once again. “Noora. Have you stepped outside this room at all today?”

Still writing, still narrow-eyed, still only half-present, Noora nodded.

“Really?”

Noora’s hand paused on the paper. “No,” she admitted, lied. “Not yet.”

Eva turned her head until one of her sun-pink cheeks lay flat on the mattress. “Too busy penning your next bestseller?”

When life offered one the chance to avoid delving into her attempts to meddle into her best friend’s love life by enlisting the help of London’s richest bachelor, one took it. So Noora leapt on the chance to reply: “Yes. Let me write.”

“Careful,” Eva teased. “You’re keeping London’s biggest secret, and I know it. Me. I could ruin you.”

“But then who would keep you company after I fled to the Continent?”

“Good point. Better not.”

Noora had just set her papers down and started to roll the tension from her shoulders, when Eva propped herself onto her elbows to continue, “Speaking of scandals…” an envelope peeked out between her fingers. “My fiancée keeps sending you mail. Through me. The nerve of you two.”

Noora sat down next to Eva on the bed’s edge and stole the envelope from her grasp. “We’re shameless,” she agreed. Neither needed to open the parcel to know that it contained the latest pay from her publisher. Her latest fix of money, independence, possibilities.

(Marriage would strip it all from her.)