The Countess de Alvarado, looking rather like she’d been dug up for the occasion, stood with a stiff upper lip and a shawl that screamed, “I’ve seen better days.”

Her hands, clasped as if holding an invisible cup of tea, trembled slightly—perhaps from the sheer weight of maintaining such a dreadfully serious expression.

Behind her stern facade, you could almost hear a voice saying, "Oh, just get on with it already!"

Lady Eleanor, at seventeen, bore the weight of her lineage with a quiet resolve.

Her pale face, framed by the somber black velvet of her gown, revealed nothing of the inner turmoil—a life already mapped out by others, sealed by the brooch on her chest, a relic of her mother’s ambitions.

Every stitch of gold on her dress whispered of duty, while her eyes, just barely, hinted at the dreams she could never claim.