A Brother's Price

grandmothers were line soldiers before they were knighted. We are just landed gentry. We’re aware of the benefits from bringing Jerin out with your sponsorship—but we’re not sure what this all entails.”
    “Wisely said.” The Queen Elder smiled. “In the next three months there will be nightly social events to attend. Actually there will be several on any given night; one picks and chooses—and one is picked and chosen, as they are all by invitation only. Normally, landed gentry such as yourself would field only invitations from the lower strata of the Peerage. With the sponsorship of the Queens, all who wish to curry our favor will invite you. There are dances, musicales, dinners, and picnics— window dressing for the true event—bringing Eldests together with brothers in tow. Offers are made, negotiations follow, and hopefully, by the end of the season all will be happily married.”
    “It sounds like extended fairs.”
    “I’m sure the Season grew out of fairs. Unfortunately, in my view, things have gotten out of hand. I’m afraid that members of the Peerage put too much importance on dress. It is a sign of how rich they are that they can sink so much money into an outfit, then never wear it again. We have not invited you here to bankrupt your family by keeping up appearances, nor to be humiliated unfairly because you’re wise not to waste your resources. As our guests, we intend to provide a modest wardrobe to your family.”
    “The costs are truly prohibitive?” Eldest asked.
    “Fifty crowns.” She gave a number that made Eldest startle, and then added, “For each outfit.”
    “Each?” Eldest asked.
    “Each.”
    Jerin blanched. One hundred for Eldest and himself to be made a single set of outfits. Two hundred if Summer and Corelle were included. Multiply that by three or four. The numbers staggered him. His entire brother’s price could be swallowed by the cost of the clothes.
    His sisters exchanged a look.
    “We will have to depend on your generosity,” Eldest murmured.
    “Good,” the Queen Mother Elder said. “The best tailors in Mayfair were put on notice. A runner has been sent to their shop with news of your arrival. You will see them this afternoon.”
    “Yes, Your Majesty,” Eldest said, bowing her head.
    The answer pleased the Queen for some reason. She offered cakes and they accepted, using their best manners to negotiate getting the rich flaky pastry from the delicate china plates to their mouths using only the silver dessert forks. Jerin remembered without prompting that he was the senior ranked male at the table, and thus responsible for refills. He filled everyone’s cup without spilling a drop or trailing his sleeves in the liquid, all the while grateful that their grandfather had drilled table manners into the family. They even managed polite small talk, answering questions on the trip down and the health of the sisters and mothers they’d left behind.
    “Your family seems blessed with strong, healthy, beautiful children. Any birth defects?”
    “None,” Eldest said proudly. “Our family has always kept itself clean of inbreeding. If a family can’t pin down a male from the time the first daughter is born until the last daughter hits menopause, some forty or fifty years, then the family shouldn’t reproduce in the first place.”
    The Queen Elder laughed for a moment, then sobered. “There is much to do, and time is growing shorter. Barnes will show you to your apartment.”
     
    Barnes led them up a curving flight of stairs and down a long carpeted hall to a set of double doors. These she opened to reveal a spacious parlor, done in pale yellow damask-velvet wallpaper and cheery yellow silk drapes and matching settees. On the left-hand wall, two doors led to bedrooms. Jerin’s wedding chest sat untouched in the small corner bedroom with a large four-poster bed. Barnes called this bedroom the men’s quarters. His sisters’ luggage had been unpacked into the richly carved mahogany wardrobes of the much larger bedroom, which contained six elegant sleigh beds.
    “Will you be wanting baths?” Barnes asked Eldest.
    “If it can be arranged,” Eldest said.
    Barnes signaled a younger woman with a family resemblance to her standing at the parlor door. “Two hip baths, hot water, and towels will be brought up. It will be removed while you are at dinner.”
    She showed them how the double parlor doors could be barred at night. She went on to quietly point out