November 3rd[?] 1891 — Greengrass Home, Bartonburg

Knowing what had been coming tonight, he'd expected his face to hurt from forcing smiles before the girls finally went to bed, but the celebration period had been surprisingly brief. Ford wasn't sure whether to find it suspicious that Verity had already gone to bed or not. On the one hand, it could indicate she wasn't as excited about this as she appeared to be — but on the other it was perfectly reasonable to think she and Grace were up there right now exchanging notes in hopeful whispers. He could believe that Verity had preferred to exclude him from her celebrations, given how tense things had been between the two of them since the kidnapping. Maybe nothing was wrong. Maybe he was just still on edge about the kidnapping and how unresolved that ordeal was. Maybe Verity was really happy and her fiance was in love with her and Ford had not, in agreeing to this match, doomed her to a life of loneliness.

Not that it would have mattered. Refusing hadn't been an option. Refusing a proposal for any of the girls had never really been an option, but particularly Verity, particularly now. Once Ford had gotten over the initial shock of the kidnapping, and once he'd been assured that Verity was safe, he'd considered her fate in the martial mart all but sealed. She was a debutante who had been missing for over a day, and because they'd reported it to the aurors it wasn't exactly a secret. Even if nothing had happened, it didn't look good. Even if nothing had been her fault, she was finished.

Until Mr. Swann swooped in from nowhere. It was miraculous, and maybe that was why Ford couldn't force himself to trust it.

He hadn't been planning on saying anything about it — or, rather, he'd been hoping to wait for Noble to bring it up first so that he'd have some independent validation of what he was feeling — but once they were alone in the parlor he realized he couldn't last long without bringing it up. The silence in the room grew longer and heavier, punctuated by the rustling of Ford's clothes as he shifted restlessly in his seat and the settling of the ice in their drinks. It was weighing too heavily on Ford's mind to not say anything about it.

"This is weird, right?" he asked, fidgeting with his glass.

What he really meant was that this felt wrong, and he was sure when it all fell apart it was going to be all his fault.

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Noble Greengrass Cassius Lestrange

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   Noble Greengrass

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Set by Lady!

Noble didn't trust it.

He felt like he should trust it — certainly Verity had more than earned a successful marriage, certainly Everett Swann was a good option on paper, certainly they ought to be relieved that anyone was marrying her after her kidnapping. He had been trying to talk himself into trusting this entire situation ever since Swann started courting Verity, but he hadn't succeeded, and now they were engaged. And it wasn't like there was anything about Swann — just that, after everything, it felt odd that they should be so lucky.

After everything, it felt odd that Verity was settling — for a Halfblood, for someone who wasn't in the upper echelons of society, for someone who wasn't of a perfect reputation. And it felt like Swann had come out of nowhere.

But after letting her get kidnapped, after everything, did Noble really have any right to doubt? Especially given what he'd done at the Sanditon?

It was almost a relief, then, when Ford brought it up. Noble cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. He took a sip of his drink before he replied. He was hoping, in these actions, that he could force his own doubts to settle and talk Ford into being optimistic — but of course he couldn't manage that.

Noble had never been an optimist; except, of course, where Daffy was concerned.

"We should be relieved," he pointed out. They should be relieved — with Grace debuting from Hogwarts in the spring, they would need to support another debutante, and they never would have been able to support three. (Even two was going to be a stretch.) "But you're right."

It felt weird. And Noble couldn't put a finger on why.

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set by Bee

Ford nodded vaguely when Noble said they ought to be relieved. Of course he knew that, but no amount of thinking it was going to make him feel it. Maybe it was just a delayed feeling and it would hit him at some point. Maybe in a few hours or a few days, he'd feel relieved. Maybe once the wedding was over and they'd all survived it. Maybe three or four years from now, if he still didn't have any indication that this was all a disaster just waiting to happen.

Everett Swann seemed like a perfectly respectable suitor. He ought to be relieved. Verity had spent time with him over the past few weeks and she'd agreed to the proposal, and while that probably wasn't love it was something. She was ultimately making this decision, and she had her eyes open when she made it. At least, Ford hoped she did. There was a reason that asking a father or brother's permission before a proposal was the done thing, and it was that so many young women would be too caught up in notions of romance to act in their own best interest. Verity had always seemed more level-headed than that, but even so, Ford was supposed to be the first line of defense against potentially bad matches. He had no proof that Everett Swann was a bad match, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd failed in his particular brotherly duty. Maybe (probably) in more than just this one.

"I couldn't have said no," Ford said with a shrug. It was a useless statement; Noble knew that as well as Ford did. Verity probably knew it, too — after being missing for over a day, she likely knew what her prospects looked like if Swann wasn't on the horizon. Technically she had made the decision to say yes, just as Ford had made the decision to allow the proposal, but neither of them had really had much of a choice. "Things being what they are."

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"You couldn't have said no," Noble affirmed, even though he knew that Ford already knew that. They weren't in a position to turn down qualified suitors before Verity was kidnapped, never mind now that she had been missing for over a day. Noble was wondering if it was some sort of pity thing, or if there was something secretly wrong with Everett Swann, or if perhaps Swann thought that the Greengrasses had more money — money for dowries — then they actually had. But nothing like that had materialized this, so perhaps he was just being uncharitable.

They were lucky. Especially given what he knew about Verity's kidnapping — the thing he hadn't shared, because it felt like Verity's business, and because it still felt like it was Noble's fault. They were lucky.

"It doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with him," Noble voiced. He had checked, to the extent that he could — Swann was older than both of them, so it wasn't like he knew a lot of people, but still. No one seemed to have anything bad to say about Everett Swann. They should be grateful.

And here they both were, sitting in the parlor where they'd discussed their sisters' lack of prospects countless times, and neither of them were feeling particularly grateful.

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set by Bee

"No," Ford agreed immediately. If there had been something wrong with him, Ford would have... well. He wasn't sure what he would have done. Turned down his offer to marry Verity? Maybe, maybe not. It probably depended on what was wrong with him, and whether it was minor enough to be overlooked when the alternative was almost certainly dooming Verity to a very miserable life, and maybe the rest of the girls too. It wasn't as though they had other offers, and after the kidnapping they weren't likely to get any. And if Verity hadn't managed to find a match quickly, it was unlikely that Grace would be able to do so on her second season while living with an older sister whose reputation was now tainted. Verity was supposed to be the one who was going to excel at this, out of the three of them; if she was stuck at home on the path towards spinsterhood, it would likely be the same for all of them.

So would he have done anything differently if there had been something wrong with Mr. Swann? Ford didn't know. Truth be told, he'd been purposefully not looking into it. He thought if he took too much of an interest in Swann one way or another he'd find something to fault him for, something which would prevent him from giving his blessing to this marriage in good conscious, so he hadn't asked too many questions at any point in the courtship. Ignorance was bliss, as the saying went — except this didn't feel particularly blissful. His stomach was in knots and he couldn't shake the feeling that there probably was something wrong with Swann and Verity was probably going to be miserable and that it was certainly his fault. Interrogating prospective suitors was his job, as their guardian, and he'd mostly failed to do it, and now if anything happened the blame could be laid very squarely on his shoulders.

"Verity said yes," he pointed out. He was trying to convince himself that this was all fine, but finding little purchase for the notion. "So this must be what she wants, right?" Of course, Verity saying yes didn't mean this was what she wanted at all, but hopefully Noble wouldn't point that out.

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He shouldn't say this, but — his traitor tongue was going to say it even though he knew he ought to hold back."I think she knows she can't choose exactly what she wants, anymore," Noble pointed out. Verity had wanted to marry into the upper echelons of pureblood society; she'd wanted a Lestrange, and even if Everett Swann was perfectly fine — even if he loved her — he was a far cry from a Lestrange.

(That Noble had always considered a Lestrange an impossibility for her was not necessarily relevant to the current dilemma; he'd always had lower expectations for his sisters than Verity had, or than their mother had. If this engagement hadn't happened in the aftermath of Verity's kidnapping, he wouldn't have felt any guilt about it at all. Noble was aware of this entire chain of thought, but it was not making him feel any better now.)

"But — this is the right thing for her," Noble pointed out. It was the right thing for her because it was the only real option, but it was the right thing nonetheless. "And I think she knows that, too." If Verity had been staunchly opposed, she would have said no. Even with the taint on her reputation, it wasn't like she was pregnant — he'd made sure of that — so they could have perhaps, maybe, found something else if they really needed to.

He could tell himself that.

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set by Bee

It was the right thing for her. Ford wondered if Noble believed that or if he, like Ford, was just saying things out loud in the hopes that it would make them sound more reasonable, easier to swallow and internalize. He shifted his weight and took a sip of his drink. It was the right thing for her. She would be happy as Mrs. Swann. Two distinctly different statements. Did one imply the other, or not?

"She has no dowry," Ford said with a helpless shrug. "And he still asked. So he must be fond of her." Although he and Noble had not explicitly discussed this he thought it was probably already obvious to his brother. If there had been a need to come up with a dowry, they would have already been talking about it, because it would have meant moving a lot of money around in order to keep the rest of them afloat. As it was, he'd made the lack of dowry clear to Swann and he'd proceeded with the proposal regardless. That had to count for something — Ford just wasn't sure what. Maybe Swann was in love with her. It was the romantic explanation, but Ford couldn't bring himself to believe it. Not because Verity was inherently unloveable, or anything — it had just been too short of a time since Swann had dropped out of the sky and into their parlor, and it was too good to be true.

But if he didn't love her and he wasn't getting a dowry, why marry her? The Greengrass family had some legacy, but none of the ones left alive were particularly well connected, so it couldn't have been a political move. He had no particular interest in either Ford or Noble's career areas, from what Ford could tell. There was no imminently unfolding scandal surrounding Everett Swann that he needed a wife to distract from (at least, none that Ford had uncovered — though admittedly he hadn't been looking). It just didn't make any sense, no matter which way he looked at it — but there had to be something.

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Swann knew that Verity had no dowry, and he was going to marry her anyways, and — and this last part was, perhaps, more important to Noble — he had not told anyone. Noble took a sip of gin and mulled this over. He wished he could believe that this was a unilateral good thing. He nearly wished that there was something obviously wrong with Swann. If Swann was a confirmed bachelor, or something, then at least Noble would know why he wanted to get married so quickly.

"Maybe he met her when Papa — when father was still alive," Noble suggested, although it was obvious from his tone that he did not entirely believe it. "If we had more time I'd try to look into it, but —" he shrugged helplessly. It wasn't that they couldn't delay this wedding, it was that if Clem came out before Verity was married, they were fucked. It was that they had gotten lucky with Verity's kidnapping already. It was that Swann had saved her at the Sanditon, and maybe this was good — maybe they were looking a gift horse in the mouth.

He couldn't talk himself into it.

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It wasn't a matter of time, it was a matter of options. They had none. If Noble looked into it and found out something they didn't like, what were they going to do, call the wedding off? Ford couldn't imagine any scenario in which they would. The kidnapping was enough of a mark on Verity's reputation already; a broken engagement (now that they'd agreed to it) would put a final nail in her coffin and doom her to spinsterhood. They couldn't afford that — and they really couldn't afford to give her another chance at the season if she was already carrying around more baggage than most of her peers.

"If he already knew her, he wouldn't have waited until the end of the season to start paying calls," he pointed out. They had no evidence that Swann had been interested in Verity until he'd come out of nowhere at the Sanditon. Either he hadn't been interested before then, or Verity had been keeping his interest a secret from them — Ford didn't know which scenario he preferred. Both were unsettling. He shifted his weight and took a drink. "Maybe love at first sight really does exist," he remarked. His tone made it clear he did not really believe this.

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Noble audibly snorted; it was all well and good for young women to believe in love at first sight, (although Noble doubted that any of their sisters did,) but luckily Ford and Noble were more realistic. Maybe Swann did believe in love at first sight, though. He didn't have to be smart — he just had to be a decent husband for Verity. (Noble's expectations for potential brothers-in-law had really gone downhill after the nothing of a season and especially after the kidnapping.)

"Maybe he has a bit of a savior complex going on," Noble suggested, "He rescued her at the Sanditon and decided he's in love. That's fine." It was also stupid, but it was fine. It was harmless. And Swann probably was harmless — Noble just needed to convince himself.

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The fact that this was the best case scenario they could think up was really depressing, but it was the best case scenario from Ford's perspective. It was certainly better than thinking Swann had some unknown ulterior motive, or that he and Verity had secretly been carrying on together longer than he and Noble had been paying attention. It wasn't as though Ford enjoyed worrying about Verity day and night since her kidnapping, so to discover that they'd been negligent chaperones even before her kidnapping would be awful. If he had to be more uptight with Grace and Clem to see them through their seasons respectably... he simply didn't have it in him. Particularly with Clem.

"I just worry about what will happen when he gets over that," Ford said uneasily. "That can't last more than a few months, right? Once he actually gets to know her..." Ford shrugged. He didn't mean that Verity was unpleasant, necessarily, only that she was human. If Swann was chasing some fantasy version of her, it couldn't last long.

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It would be too late, if it took Swann a few months to realize that Verity didn't belong on whatever pedestal he'd put her on. By then, the attorney would hopefully set about building an amicable marriage instead of one based on true love. But that wasn't as optimistic as Ford tended to be, so Noble scoured his mind for a different answer.

"Verity can be very charming," Noble said instead, "And — if he's presuming that they're meant to be, then that should be enough." It relied on Verity deciding to be charming for enough time to fall pregnant. It relied on Swann being silly enough to be drawn in by charm. But it was too late to change their minds on the engagement — although Noble had not been consulted for the permission — and so they had to rely on Verity's charm.

She'd been Head Girl once. Noble could find her grating, but that didn't mean everyone else did. Maybe they just had to have faith — in her, and in Swann.

He didn't like being in so tenuous a situation, but he suspected they did not have any other choice. Especially given the information Noble had about Verity's kidnapping — information he was fairly certain Ford lacked.

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set by Bee

Ford shrugged in response. The gesture had a slight edge to it, like a sulky teenager. He knew Verity could be charming, so maybe Noble had a point, but he had trouble carrying that train of thought through to a conclusion that looked something like a happy ending. Maybe Noble had a different end goal in mind than Ford had, though. Back at the beginning of all of this, they'd always been half a step out of sync about their goals for the girls. Noble had always talked about getting them married, while Ford had been concerned with getting them happily married. Maybe Noble thought that this was good enough; if Swann thought he was in love with her, he was unlikely to change his mind between now and the wedding, unless something went terribly wrong.

"It's just —" Ford started. He ran a hand through his hair. He probably ought not to even say anything about it, because it wasn't as though he could do anything about it one way or another. What point was there in even voicing it at all, when there was nothing to be done? Despite this thought, he found himself continuing all the same: "If she ends up miserable — if he's wrong for her, and I gave him my blessing..." He left off with a helpless look, and opted to take a long drink instead of finishing his sentence.

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Noble bit his lip. He was starting to think that he needed to reassure Ford that this was the right idea. The trouble with that was that Noble wasn't convinced, either, and he already knew that it would be hard to fake when he wasn't sure, either. But they really needed Swann to marry Verity, in that they needed someone to marry Verity, and there was nothing palpably wrong with Swann. (Even if Noble thought there might be.)

He couldn't explain all of it to Ford, though, not without telling him about the conversation he'd had with Verity in his workshop. So he was going to have to try to manufacture enthusiasm without that.

"I think," Noble said, after a beat, "That the most miserable thing for Verity might be if she was — stuck, unmarried, forever." He swallowed. "And there are plenty of people who start a marriage with a little bit of affection, and fall in love later. Verity could be one of those." She could. Maybe marriage would soften her ambition, and she'd settle into being a married middle class socialite well, and she'd fall in real love with Swann. Or maybe they wouldn't fall in love, but she would still be happy, and invest her energies in helping them get Grace and Clementine married.

But no matter what happened, Noble knew it wouldn't be Ford's fault.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Ford could appreciate the wisdom of that statement, even if it left a bad taste in his mouth. The most miserable thing. They'd reframed the conversation, at some point — they were no longer talking about what might make Verity happy, but rather about what was likely to make her least miserable. Maybe it was the same thing, at the core, but he hated that they were approaching it from this angle. Noble wasn't wrong, but Ford wished he was.

"I know," he said with a frown. "It's just. I hate that we're even talking about that. Stuck, unmarried, forever. She's twenty."

He wasn't arguing, because he knew Noble had it right. They needed her married sooner rather than later, and with the kidnapping fresh in everyone's mind it was probably now or never. It just wasn't fair to her. Verity hadn't decided to have two younger sisters coming up hot on her heels on the marriage mart, and she had nothing to do with their finances. It wasn't fair that she had the burden of this whole situation, but she did. There was nothing Ford or Noble could do to ease it, no matter how much they wanted to.

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Ford was right, she was twenty, and there were eligible men who would not so much as look at a twenty year old — so even if there was something wrong with Mr. Swann, this was the best way out. He felt like he'd thought of it from a hundred different directions ever since Verity was kidnapped, and this was the best way — even if they didn't like it.

"We're all going to get through it," Noble said. They were going to get their sisters married and then everything would be — not fine, their father had ensured that things would never be fine again, but at least then the only people who could be ruined were Ford and Noble. They could survive it. Their sisters couldn't.

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