Elizabeth sat, poised and elegant at the dining table later that evening. When she'd stumbled into the house earlier, soaking wet, Yevonette had come to her aid immediately, hurrying her off to her bedroom before her father could catch a glimpse of her.

"Yevonette," Elizabeth had asked slowly as her most trusted maid had sat there, drying her hair with a clean rag. "Do you think of my father as-erm- piggish?"

Yevonette had faltered a moment. "Coarse not Miss," she'd said hesitantly. "What would make you ponder such a question?"

Elizabeth sighed. "Oh, nothing," she replied. "I only overheard two servants talking badly of him and I wondered if everyone hates him."

Yevonette had smiled as she'd begun braiding Elizabeth's hair into two separate plaits atop her head. "Who were the servants, Miss? I suppose Jacques was one of I wouldn't worry about anything he says, Miss; he's old, tired and grumpy. His words are his only way of getting back at people."

"Yes, but the other servant," Elizabeth said, her tone rising. "He wasn't old! He has nothing to complain about! He was a much younger boy!"

Yevonette laughed.

"What's so funny?" Elizabeth cried, seeing nothing about her tarry to be humorous.

"Oh, I am sorry Miss," Yevonette apologized quickly, trying to keep Elizabeth content. "I just think it's funny to hear you talking this way, I mean, you're most likely talking about Matthew, and he's no younger than twenty-seven Miss."

"Oh," Elizabeth said, lowering her modulation in amends. "Well he looked younger," she muttered.

"It's alright Miss," Yevonette said, finishing with Elizabeth's hair. "The male servants are always having to do jobs of great strength and strain, so they're always complaining. But none of that should concern you, all that matters is your safe."

Elizabeth furrowed her brow. "Yes," she agreed. "But my poem was completely ruined." From her knapsack she pulled out the soaked and stained paper that had once been her long poem, a ruined and irreparable article that would just have to be thrown away now.

"Oh, I am sorry about that Miss," Yevonette said. "That was a lovely poem. But no point in fretting I suppose. What's done is done and now the only thing you can do is write a new poem."

"I suppose you're right," Elizabeth agreed quietly before getting to her feet and turning before the mirror again. She was now wearing a gown of fine velvety chartreuse that was tightly fitted around the waist even without her corset.

"There Miss," Yevonette said, placing a small gold circlet about Elizabeth's head. "You look like a right medieval princess."

"You look fabulous!" Elizabeth's father cried upon entering the dining room. "Simply gorgeous, and a fine prize for any suitable young man out there!"

But Elizabeth wasn't thrilled; she knew what her father's definition of suitable was; a bloke with who had come from a respectable family and had a lot of money-someone like Henry Winston.

Elizabeth smiled despite herself. "Thank you father," she said, standing up before her seat at the head of the long table and waiting for her father to sit down opposite her. When she was sitting back down, a handkerchief in her lap, three servants approached the table, carrying massive silver platters laden with food.

"Thank you," Elizabeth said politely to one of the servants as he set a dish before her.

"My dear, have you not seen a more beautiful feast?" Elizabeth's father asked as he leaned forth to take a turkey leg from one of the platters. "The chef is a brilliant man is he not?"

Elizabeth smiled curtly, letting her father fill his plate before she began to nibble on the little amounts of food she collected for herself.

"But this feast is absolutely NOTHING compared to the grand affair we shall be hosting in but two weeks!" Sir Isaac McCord continued as one of the servants poured him a glass of wine. "And I assure you, my daughter, it will be a grand affair! The invitees have all agreed to come and the Winstons will be arriving next week to stay until you're well and sixteen."

Elizabeth would have spit in her glass of wine upon hearing this but around her father she had to be a polite, well-mannered woman, not the roguish child she really was.

Her father paused from his meal to look across the table and smile at his daughter in a caring manner. "My love," he said, as if the wine were already taking a toll on his well stature. "My beautiful Elizabeth-"

Elizabeth hesitated upon taking a bite of her French pear; she knew what was coming, it was her father's speech of accepting the fact that his little girl was growing up-a speech Elizabeth was never too excited to hear.

"You are such an amazing, beautiful girl," he continued, growing a little red in the face. "And it is obvious to anyone with eyes that you will grow into a fine woman." He paused to gulp down some more of the wine in his glass. "I love you my daughter," he said, raising his glass into the air.

Thinking it was over, Elizabeth took a nervous bite from her pear but her father continued.

"Is there anything, my love," he said, "anything that I can give to you? Anything you desire yet do not have that I can supply you with? Because if there is, if there's absolutely ANYTHING at all in the entire world that you yearn to have please, please feel free to ask me, my love. For I will give you anything."

Swallowing the pear seemed to take a lifetime for Elizabeth now as she sat there under the beseeching gaze of her father. The truth was, there were some things she did desire, but they were things her father wouldn't be able to supply her with. Take for instance Elizabeth's love for writing; she wanted to become a published author more than anything! But her father, finding it against their family honor, would look upon her imploring face with malice: he would never see it fit to have his daughter-his only child become a female author. But there were more things then just the authenticity of being a female writer that Elizabeth longed for. She also longed for the simpler life-to live without riches or jewels in a small house on the country where she could sit and write for hours! Her father would see this as dishonorable as well: the thought of his daughter being poor and plain beyond unbearable to his old, stubborn mind.

So Elizabeth just sat there, her many exigencies swarming about her mind as she chose her words carefully.

"Well." she said slowly, placing her fork down at the side of her plate. "At the moment," she continued. "There is nothing my heart desires that you haven't yet supplied me with." She smiled, "You are a wonderful father, the best father I've ever endured."

Sir Isaac McCord smiled. "Yes, my dear, but are you positive? Are you sure you don't want anything? Anything at all? Not even a good, sturdy husband?"

Elizabeth nearly choked-even though she hadn't anything in her throat. Her father had never asked her this question, and now that she thought of it she had never really mused this idea to herself anyway! Now that she sat there, presented with the idea of marriage, she had to admit to herself that she wasn't quite sure she knew what she wanted in a man. She supposed that someone who was sweet and excepted her love for writing would be quite nice-if she could find anyone out there like that. All the men she knew were rich bastards who liked to be known as rich bastards.

"You're of age," her father continued. "And it's time you start looking for the right man."

Elizabeth stared up at her father with wide eyes. "Erm-yes." she said slowly. "I, um, suppose I'll keep my-erm-eye out."

"Can you believe it?" Elizabeth cried. "Now he's told me I have to be looking for a man to marry! I'm only fifteen!"

Elizabeth was sitting in her windowsill, later that evening, after her awkward meal with her father, as Yevonette prepared her for bed.

"I mean really!" Elizabeth continued. "He's acting as if he's using me to gain respect from everyone!"

"Well, you are a right beauty Miss," Yevonette said. "If I may be so bold as to say."

"So you're saying he is using me to gain respect and allegiance from the public?" Elizabeth cried, turning away from the beautiful evening darkness that had fallen about the Manor to stare her maid in the eye.

"No Miss," Yevonette said. "But I'm not saying it's not a possibility."

Elizabeth was taken aback; never had Yevonette, her most loyal servant and her most trusted friend, said anything so bold about Sir Isaac McCord. "How could you say such a thing?" Elizabeth cried, tears gathering in her eyes. She didn't know why she was making such a fuss; she loved Yevonette like an older sister-or even the mother she'd hardly known. And now, even though Yevonette had only said eight little words, Elizabeth was acting as if she'd betrayed her. Although Elizabeth had recognized her faults in those few seconds there on the windowsill, she still couldn't help but race to her bed and fall dramatically across it before sobbing into her pillow.

"Everyone hates my father," she cried. "And everyone hates me!"

"No! No, Miss," Yevonette cried, hurrying to Elizabeth's aid and draping her arms about the fifteen-year-old. "That's not what I meant at all. I love you Miss, I would never hate you."

"I know," Elizabeth said, sniffling a little as tears still rolled down her cheeks. "But they all hate me. All those terrible, horrid people who are coming this week! They all hate me! Nothing I do is good enough for them!"

"Oh, Miss," Yevonette cooed, lightly pulling Elizabeth's hair away from her face. "It doesn't matter what they think of you. Pardon my saying this but they're all boasting pigs who don't deserve all the money they've got, and you don't have to try and impress anyone like that!"

Elizabeth smiled to herself. "Well then I guess there's no need to be pardoning you," she said, wiping her tears away. The two of them laughed as they sat up and continued preparing Elizabeth for the night.

The guillotine stood empty on its dais as everyone, the villagers and all the guards, filed into the Town Square. Two guards wearing the uniforms of British military men came marching up the steps of the dais, pulling the young blonde man along between them. When they reached the large wooden weapon in the center of the dais, the rusty blade glinting in the sunlight, they paused, through the man down at the base of it, and marched off the dais. A large, muscular man wearing a black hood pulled over his face thrust the man's head down against the platform-like table. Elizabeth stared at the man through teary eyes, seeing that he looked more familiar than ever now-but she still couldn't quite place him.

"Any last words?" a man who was lost from Elizabeth's sight asked the young man at the guillotine.

But the young man didn't answer, and only stared harder at Elizabeth.

"Alright then, dites au revoir a la tête!" the unbeknown man cried in French, meaning, 'Say goodbye to your head!'

Just before the blade was released by the cutting of a rope, the young man at the guillotine, ever watching Elizabeth, mouthed, "Pay attention Elizabeth."

The wooded rule came smacking down upon Elizabeth's bare hands as she was hit for the third time that day.

"Elizabeth, are you listening to me? Pay attention!" Ms. Hornburg held up the rule to strike down upon Elizabeth again, only this time Elizabeth dodged the rule in a fleeting second.

Elizabeth was sitting in one of the many courtyards of the McCord Manor along with Ms. Hornburg, her governess. Ms. Hornburg was a tall frail woman in her mid-fifties with a dark hair pulled back into a tight bun on her head and a hooknose. In Elizabeth's opinion Ms. Hornburg looked like a large vulture and it was her relief that she was only forced to see the old badger and her big nose only once a week.

"Elizabeth, your father does not pay me to watch you sit there a daydream every Wednesday! Now listen, you have some of Europe's finest people coming to live with you for the next two weeks and you can hardly act like a proper woman-let alone a decent girl! So you MUST pay attention!"

Elizabeth glared at Ms. Hornburg but obeyed her command all the same.

"Now, sit up straight," Ms. Hornburg instructed. "And cross your ankles- Don't bow your head like that you twit! It's very unladylike to sit before someone with your head bowed!"

"Well then let's just cut my bloody hair off and call me Edward!" Elizabeth cried. "That would save the both of us a lot of trouble!"

Ms. Hornburg whacked Elizabeth's hand with the rule yet again. "I will not abide any such talk!" she snapped. "You will behave like a young lady in my presence or so help me God! Is that understood?"

Elizabeth sat there feeling her face burn with anger. "Yes," she replied shortly. But then realizing her error as Ms. Hornburg threatened her with the rule she corrected herself, "Yes ma'am."

"Good," Ms. Hornburg said, her nostrils flaring as she straightened herself and set the rule down at her side. "Now listen closely because the Winston family is to arrive in a couple of days and if you don't act like a civilized young woman about that family your father will have to pay the price!"

"Ms. Hornburg-I mean, Madam Hornburg I have a question," Elizabeth said, sitting up straight, crossing her ankles and folding her hands politely in her lap.

Ms. Hornburg raised her left, painted eyebrow snidely. "Yes?" she asked.

"If I am to impress upon the Winstons in a lady-like manner why not just tell me to puff out my breast and lift my dress up when they arrive?"

Before the lesson was done Elizabeth had received about twenty-three more remarkable visits from the rule of Hook Nose.