1 Nesta Weaver

Nesta closed her eyes to the reality of her dream, but she saw nothing. Finding it difficult to sleep, she opened her eyes and turned from one side to the next, trying to find a comfortable position that would help her with sleep, but sleep was far from her. And so was her mind.

Her mind was speaking to her from a distance, and she wished she had control over it.

She wished she could speak to it and have it do as she wills. But the mind had a voice of its own, and all this time, she couldn't get it to stop talking.

Nesta got out of bed cladded in her nightgown and moved to the window. She opened it, letting a soft cold breeze in.

For a moment, the sight of the night sky was a bit distracting, and so were the stars.

For an ornament of the heavens, not much was expected of them, save to shine.

But for Nesta Weaver, daughter of the Earl of Devonshire, so much was expected of her. And it constantly plagued her mind.

Nesta was the only daughter of her father and late mother who had died due to an illness.

Just when she was four and twenty years old, a ripe age for marriage, and a time to be in the marriage market, what she had deemed a catastrophe had befallen her and her father.

Father had been romantically involved with a Dowager Viscountess, and at first, it had all been a secret affair until the dowager had pushed for Father to make it public.

Just when he sought to ask her to marry him, the Dowager Viscountess had turned on him like a snake and told the press that he had tried to rape her and steal all the possessions and properties her late husband had left to her.

Of course, it had been whose word to believe at first, but this had been a smear on her father's reputation.

Father was once sought-after by other lords and ladies in business dealings and matters of politics.

Sometimes, they got loads of invitations every week for a ball, garden party, or a picnic, and even to watch sports.

For a father that never gambled his wealth like other men, a man who had once stood tall, one that even Princes, Dukes, and Marquess did respect, he had fallen hard with his face flat in the mud.

After the scandal spread like the wildfire, they received no more invitations for any social event, but at least, they still did business with her father.

Rumor had it Father was so close to getting a reward from the king on a new and higher title when the scandal had been born.

But they were all rumors and it could prove nothing to bring her father back to a place of honor, and she, to a fortunate state to be noticed by the young lords of the court.

Nesta was a dazzling beauty with features enough to make a man miss his steps. It was little wonder why no lord had called on Devonshire for her hand in marriage.

Not aware of any betrothal to any lord, she wondered what was keeping men away from her. Her mind pondered upon this during the day, and at night, it tried to look for a solution to her problem.

She suffered probably due to her father's scandal, and this wasn't helping her reputation either.

But unless someone, a lord called on her at Devonshire, she would most probably lose her mind to loneliness and these creeping hormones climbing up and making her desires wild.

She had preserved herself up to this point for the one, her true love, and she was certain that when true love does find her, the stain on her father's reputation wouldn't keep them away. Instead, love would polish it again. But did true love really exist?

Nesta had waited and waited, and it was beginning to seem like she was going to be waiting forever.

Marriage was what she was raised for, and her worth was beginning to seem like it had no value to her, talkless others, since no one came seeking her.

She remembered the times she had talked with other younger ladies like herself on the kind of man they would like to marry, and how they had laughed about it.

"He should be strong and taller than I am," Lady Diana Helton had said.

"I wish he was a knight," Lady Elayne Hayward had said.

"Then he would die in battle and you'd become a dowager," lady Scarlet Bridger had said.

"Or he may survive, and you'd be with a limp, or a limbless husband," Nesta had said. "I wonder how he would carry out his duties."

The ladies had laughed, and Diana had said, "He can always lie on his back, and I can be on top. So far I love him, nothing would be getting between my pleasure to have him."

"If you love him," Nesta had countered. "She pretty seems unsure of herself." Again, they had laughed.

"I for one, I wouldn't like to end up with a drunk. If he ends up in the gutter, or cheat, I am not sure of what I would do. I don't want to marry a man and discover he already has children as old as I am.

I don't want to be a stepmom like Lady Lisa. Look how hard things are for her and how she complains every time that the children sometimes threaten her that she can never replace their mother."

Lady Lisa. Nesta remembered her. Lisa used to write to her when she had first heard the scandal because unlike other ladies, she did sympathize with Nesta.

But from her last letter, Lisa explained that she had reached middle ground with her husband's stepchildren, and now that he was beginning to make intense lovemaking to her, she didn't want to offend him further by writing to her for he had initially warned her.