Accept the next proposition you hear.

31st July, 1894, before the ball — Black and White Ball, Malfoy London Residence

On her elegantly appointed bed Angel was lounging, somewhat less than elegantly, on her back with her head dangling over the edge of the bed, looking at her sister upside down and trying to decide whether Estelle looked like an angel or a corpse in her pearlescent dress. This was the curse of their complexion - though not, of course, of Torie's - that they were to forever looked washed out and ghostly, and by dressing them in white she suspected her mother was making them look less like prospective brides than porcelain dolls that were never to be touched by human hand.

"I hate this," she muttered pointlessly. She hated just about everything to do with society these days. She had tried her best to be a perfect Pendergast Rose, then a charming, assured lady ready to be wed, and now she was rapidly becoming lichen that would soon be scraped away and thrown back to the sea while everyone went on without her.

"And that dress doesn't suit you."

None of this was fair.

Estelle Malfoy | Elias Grimstone

  

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time of death: when MJ dropped this heart-stopping set

“Well, what I am supposed to do, wear black?” Estelle retorted, though she eyed her reflection in Angeline’s mirror and wished she looked a little less like the imprint of a departed soul. Another year, she might have preferred a black dress, debutante or not – but this season had been a season of change, all pastels and placidness, and so far it was serving her – well, she would not say terribly.

Besides, her own future looked bright next to Angeline’s, rapidly-aging-Angeline who had been something of a ghost in society’s vision, she fancied. Drifting listlessly through life. It was no wonder she had gotten nowhere; Estelle did not even believe she had been trying.

“Perhaps you should, though,” she said dryly. “Embrace your spinsterhood.”

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Narrowing her eyes Angel rolled over and fixed her sister with a contemptuous scowl that was nothing compared to her sister’s default expression. Trying to outdo her for dissatisfaction was a losing battle but Angeline had never been a wise soldier.

“If I become a lost cause then it’s only a hop, skip and a jump to you being there with me,” she replied cattily. There was, after all, not that great a difference in their ages and with Estelle’s personality it was a wonder they were not been shipped off together.

“We must help each other this year, I refuse to live at the mercy of whatever slut Raph brings home eventually and it will be worse for you.”

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   Estelle Malfoy

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time of death: when MJ dropped this heart-stopping set

“Why should it be worse for me?” Estelle retorted with a pout; but she did see the point there, that threat of a life of mouldering spinsterhood – so she cocked her head at Angeline.

She had already been trying to do things differently this season – be more pleasant, more coquettish, more demure, to attract notice – and she didn’t particularly want Angeline to steal her thunder, but she could not afford to turn down a little nudge of help, if her sister had it.

So – “How ought we help each other?” Estelle prodded. “Do you have some grand idea?” A grand scheme, more like; but Angeline’s head was well-known to be full of air.

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Rolling her eyes Angel did not deign to answer the first of the three questions – it was evident to her, at least, that even if they were both condemned to miserable spinsterhood, that of course it would be worse for Estelle. Angeline would almost certainly be designated as a poor, pathetic mite whose luck never came in but at least people would not say she had sabotaged herself by being an utter bitch to everyone.

Although on second thought that might be preferable.

“We have to be each other’s biggest supporter,” she said, already hating how the words sounded in her mouth. It was so chummy and she could practically feel Tig disowning her. “Pick gentlemen who are after the right sort of wife, rather than wasting time, and talk each other up. If you think you can manage it?”

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time of death: when MJ dropped this heart-stopping set

Angeline would have them be – allies. They always had been, at least against Victoire, but never so blatantly as her sister seemed to be suggesting. Say nice things about her? Push a suitable bachelor towards her to help her along, and trust that Angeline would manage anything for her in turn? What an egregious plan.

“I should think it would be simpler for me to dose a man with a love potion for you,” Estelle said, mocking – much less effort for her, and probably more effective than any complimentary words she could struggle to come up with – but she was... well, perhaps worried enough to actually agree. She sighed in surrender. “But fine – no one will hear a bad word about you from me. Is there anyone you’re after, particularly?” If they were to be allies, they could hardly find themselves in competition for the same gentleman, now could they?

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At this point, and quite sadly, anyone with a pulse would do really. And plenty of money, the right kind of background, and no known skeletons in the cupboard, of course, but she was willing to be flexible on the skeletons if necessary. (And the background if she was being honest, but the monetary aspect was absolutely non-negotiable.)

“Sometimes it seems as though there are no decent ones left,” she admitted with a small sigh. Almost every man she had ever spoken to had made there was to the altar over the last few years which left her with what? Widowers with brats in tow mostly.

“There’s always Charles Macmillan, I suppose,” she said, before laughing cattily. “Though he seems far more suited to-” She stopped herself just in time. She had just promised to be nice, it wouldn’t do to fail straight away. “Someone else.”

  

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time of death: when MJ dropped this heart-stopping set

No, there weren’t any decent men – all the decent men married dull but decent girls, and the bachelors that were left were... different.

Estelle grimaced at Angel’s suggestion of a man. “Not for me,” she said, with a sniff. “I spoke to him at a ball this summer and he didn’t even recognise me.” She had been smiling, but still – the gall of him! Like any of the Malfoy daughters were newcomers to society now!

So he had been obliterated from her list for that. Besides, she expected he would never be able to swallow his own humiliation at his mistake. It had not made for particularly comfortable conversation then. “You can have him.” Was that her being kind? It felt like she was being kind.

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Had it really come to this? Passing Charles Macmillan back and forth like an upright booby prize?

“You know, you can take kindness too far very easily,” she said pointedly, hovering behind her sister as she tried to remember if she’d been present for that. She had cut down on the laudanum of late, but there were still hazy periods and balls did have a tendency to blur together.

“I’m sure none of them forget Torie,” she said cattily, reaching up to move a lock of her sister’s hair from one perfectly good place to another. “It would be hard to with that hair of hers. I wonder what colour it will be tonight.”

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   Elias Grimstone

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time of death: when MJ dropped this heart-stopping set