Dear Diary, my friends refuse to believe that Carmine and I aren't interested in each other. It's like they don't even see Lucia next to him. Clearly he wouldn't actually favor me over the female lead, and I don't want him to.
Although now that I'm thinking of it, I haven't seen Lucia next to him as often. That's probably just due to main plot drama. If I recall correctly, they weren't always together in the book. He needs a reason to go save her and show off how great he is, probably.
Anyway, I've still been bumping into Carmine on a lot of my outings with my friends. Only I don't ignore him anymore. He was kind to me at Lady Ladonne's ball, and our conversation was somewhat enjoyable. I've decided we can be friends for now, until he moves on to more main character drama.
Since I have been interacting with him more, my friends have decided that we're in love. Martina reminds me every so often that he can't inherit the duchy, but Arianna and Emma point out that hasn't been fully settled yet and seem happy for me. And really Martina's just trying to look out for me in her own way, even though she's wrong. It would be sweet, except that Carmine and I aren’t in love and they won't believe me.
They leave distance when he approaches and I can hear them tittering as if they think he's whispering sweet nothing's in my ear. As if they can't hear our normal volume, very not whispered, conversation. Clearly it's just casual conversation and we're not flirting with each other.
The other day we briefly crossed paths and said hello to each other, and my friends acted like we'd professed our undying love! Honestly, Diary, since when did saying hello to someone become a love confession? It's like they've never talked to a man before.
I told Martina as much recently. We were working on our embroidery and Martina was exclaiming over Carmine and me again, as if we were on track to be married soon. As if I'd even want that. So I told her that she only thought like that because she was jealous; she wished that she had a man flirting with her (not that Carmine is even flirting with me, because he’s not).
The expression on Martina's face became very serious, and she told me that I don't know how lucky I am. She still didn't think Carmine would inherit the dukedom, but if I was right and he did, then she was jealous. I told her she could have him. If she really thought that he was chasing me, that wasn't something I'd asked for and she could have him.
There was a long pause before Martina spoke again. It was clear from her expression that she had something to say but was deciding if she would say it. When she did speak, she told me about her family. I knew she had a lot of siblings, but I wasn’t familiar with what that would mean for her in this world.
Martina had a sister that was the eldest, but she wasn’t allowed to inherit their father’s title. Martina told me that she’d watched her sister excel in her studies, more than her oldest brother had. It wasn’t that her brother was dumb, he would do a good job when it was his turn to become the next viscount. It was just that her sister would have done a better job, but she couldn’t. She studied because she enjoyed it, not because her parents wanted her to (they didn’t want her to study, not all of the subjects that she did).
In the end, however, Martina had watched as her sister was married off to an earl. While they did get along alright, they didn’t love each other, and Martina knew that her sister wasn’t doing what she’d really wanted to do. But she couldn’t do what she wanted, because she was a woman.
Her family had too many daughters to be able to support them all on their property’s income. They had to marry, and it was best to marry as well as possible. Best for them, and for their family, if they could marry someone with a higher title.
Their family didn’t have much to offer, and didn’t have many connections, so Martina could only dream of being introduced to a duke one day and catching his eye. She did the best she could to be prepared, dressing as stylishly as she could afford and keeping up with her skin care routine. There wasn’t much, according to what she told me, that she could offer other than her beauty.
I tried to object, to tell her that she was much more than her beauty, but she informed me that I still didn’t understand. She said that I had my brother, that we had a good relationship and he would be willing to support me and let me be picky. If she didn’t find someone, then her family would find someone for her soon.
She was right. I hadn’t been in this world long, but I was starting to get some understanding of life here. The children were taught at home by tutors, but after they turned eighteen the men were normally sent to the academy for four years, either to learn what they’d need for inheriting their title or to learn a trade if they weren’t the son inheriting, and the women continued to learn at home for those four years but their focus became how to do their part in being a good wife by managing the household.
Shortly after the men finished at the academy, they typically looked to get married. Sometimes they’d have an engagement set up already and get married directly and sometimes they’d attend more balls to find someone, but they were normally married within a year of graduating at least. There were maybe two years left for Martina to find a husband on her own, before her family arranged a marriage for her. Potentially closer to one, since that’s when she’d finish her household management lessons.
I wanted to object again. To tell Martina that she really did have much more to offer than her beauty and that she should be picky when choosing a husband. This, however, was another moment where I was confronted with the differences between my old and new realities. In my old life all of that would have been true, but in this one I wasn’t so sure.
Not that Martina didn’t have more to offer than her beauty. She was smart, and patient (as evidenced by the fact that she was still teaching me embroidery, which, Diary, required more than a little patience), and so much more… but that wasn’t necessarily what would attract a good husband here. Being picky when choosing a husband might not be the same here either. Maybe the best to hope for was someone well off and dependable.
Even here some people did marry for love, and a few parents encouraged their children to seek that. Still, it wasn’t common and marrying for love didn’t always ensure a great marriage. It was frowned upon for wives to work outside the home, so if the husband wasn’t wealthy then the family would be poor. There was also the possibility that the couple would fall out of love, or that one of them had never truly been in love in the first place and had acted like they were for money or status.
It was impossible for me to refute what Martina had told me. There was too much that I didn’t understand. And maybe she was right. Maybe my position is one that affords me more ignorance on the matter.
We kept embroidering, through the silence at first, and then when we spoke again the conversation turned to other topics. Soon we were back to our normal topics: the latest fashion, our next outing, how our embroidery was getting along, and such. We were at ease with each other again, almost as if our marriage talk had never occurred, except that it’s tugged at the back of my mind for long after I’d left.
It’s an uncomfortable part of my new
reality. One of the reasons that I still sometimes hope to wake up one morning as Sarah Smith again and find that this
has all been a dream. I do want to get
married, but I shouldn’t have to want that.
I certainly shouldn’t have to wish that Carmine was interested in me, or
invent stories in my head that he might be interested in me just because I
need to marry a duke.
Not that there’s any need for me to desire a duke anyway. That seems unnecessary to reach that high. I could see that marrying someone less than an earl could make my life more difficult though. It doesn’t seem right to me that how you’re born is how you must live. If you work hard, you should be rewarded. I’d made it through my degree to become an accountant and live well, but here, while there are rare exceptions of war heroes or people who’ve helped the emperor in some great way, working hard can’t improve your life by much.
I know that I’m past all the catch up lessons that I’d had after waking up here and Millana’s supposed amnesia, but I’m still learning so much. My family has been concerned about me catching back up to what I had known before, and remembering, or learning anew if I can’t remember, the people that I had once known. Still, will there come a point for me too that I’ll need to start looking toward my future? Will my parents be looking to arrange a marriage for me?
Now that I’m thinking about it, Millana should have either finished or been about to finish her household management lessons when I woke up here, but none of my catch up lessons pertained to that. Maybe I should ask my parents about it. If I do want to get married then I’ll need to know how to do my part in managing the household. Anyway, Diary, it’s late, and hopefully me telling you about this has helped get the swirling thoughts out of my head so they won’t keep my awake. There’s just a lot to think about in my new reality.
Comments (1)
See all