Genre Fiction
![Madeleine Roux - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_madeleine_roux.jpg)
The Proposition: A Novel
A woman trapped in a loveless engagement joins forces with a mysterious man bent on vengeance against her fiancé in this lively tale of intrigue, revenge, and romance.
What would you propose?
Clemency Fry has always been certain that marriage is a ludicrous arrangement-a notion she has believed ever since reading a scandalous feminist treatise as a girl. But her outlook on romance suddenly changes after meeting the handsome Lord Boyle. With promises of a different sort of union, one with mutual respect and financial security for her family, Clemency is won over, but when the wedding is set and the plans are in motion, Lord Boyle turns cold and dismissive. Clemency fears the worst has come to fruition; she had been right all along about affairs of the heart. She has fallen into the one trap she swore she never would.
Then Audric Ferrand comes to town seeking revenge against Lord Boyle on behalf of his sister, who also fell for his charm and wealth. Audric sees Clemency's predicament as the opportunity he needs. He suggests they join forces, a proposition that is risky and outrageous, and could possibly lead to the destruction of both their reputations. Falling in love was never in the bargain, but the season has just begun-and romance is surely in the air.
What would you propose?
Clemency Fry has always been certain that marriage is a ludicrous arrangement-a notion she has believed ever since reading a scandalous feminist treatise as a girl. But her outlook on romance suddenly changes after meeting the handsome Lord Boyle. With promises of a different sort of union, one with mutual respect and financial security for her family, Clemency is won over, but when the wedding is set and the plans are in motion, Lord Boyle turns cold and dismissive. Clemency fears the worst has come to fruition; she had been right all along about affairs of the heart. She has fallen into the one trap she swore she never would.
Then Audric Ferrand comes to town seeking revenge against Lord Boyle on behalf of his sister, who also fell for his charm and wealth. Audric sees Clemency's predicament as the opportunity he needs. He suggests they join forces, a proposition that is risky and outrageous, and could possibly lead to the destruction of both their reputations. Falling in love was never in the bargain, but the season has just begun-and romance is surely in the air.
Short Excerpt Teaser
1
Sussex, 1819
The small and saintly quiet town of Round Orchard was never known for anything. Absolutely, it held the expected Sussex charm and the expected hedges and gardens, the expected paved town square decorated with the expected bunting and wreaths, but it was otherwise unremarkable in every way. That is, but for its one hidden claim to fame, which was known only to a few residents, and most of those would categorize this "claim" to be something less than attractive. In fact, it was now a closely guarded secret, like a bit of shameful tat kept in the lowest drawer under the heaviest blankets, a pet nobody loved buried in the backyard in an unmarked and shallow grave.
Like a brief and embarrassing infidelity.
All but one inhabitant of Round Orchard wished to hastily sweep this secret under the rug. Only young Clemency Fry remained the keeper of this tiny, hidden flame-the flame in question was a Miss Bethany Taylor, a woman of middling family and middlinger prospects. Some described her as "severe" and "a scold" while other more charitable Round Orchardians allowed that she had an intense sort of beauty that only specific and brave men coveted. This Miss Bethany Taylor produced and published a treatise against marriage, aimed at convincing other members of her sex that the institution was both humiliating and cruel. To participate in matrimony, wrote the severe scold of intense beauty Miss Taylor, is to abdicate one's duty to the dignified state of solitude. Upon completion of the contract, a woman becomes property owned by man, surrendering all autonomy and power, diminishing herself in every conceivable way. Solitude is subsequently diminished also, as the state of contented aloneness cannot be improved upon-even a love match requires some degree of compromise. Thus, with society thrusting women into a state of compromise, only a single lady happy in her charms, her accomplishments, and the quality of her morals achieves a truly enviable state of being.
Marriage was, in Miss Taylor's controversial and embarrassing opinion, a swindle: To marry was to give one's self up; this could not be argued with. Nobody agreed with her except of course the keeper of her flame and one devoted reader, Clemency Fry. Clemency did not style herself a historian, but she did obsess over Miss Taylor's work and felt nothing but conviction when it came to preserving the heart of the late Miss Taylor's writings.
In the year 1801, the men of Round Orchard and surrounding towns were outraged and began an effort to quash all access to Miss Taylor's work. Many fires were lit and many pages burned. The vicar at the time offered his restrained critique of the treatise, calling it, "A disgrace, an abomination before God, and an affront to the understood and natural order of things." Some overheard him saying it made a case for "bringing back the stake," though these remained unconfirmed rumors. A local man, urgently asked for comment, reportedly told a room full of good society that, "Miss Taylor, like all unmarriagable women, turns her pen against men rather than confront her own deficiencies." The tirade continued for some time. "A real shrew," the man concluded.
Scant copies of On Marriage, by Miss Bethany Taylor, remained after the predictable outcry and response. Word of its existence scarcely reached beyond the county. But as mentioned, one young lady, brought up in the small and saintly quiet town of Round Orchard, found a moldering copy of On Marriage in the woodshed one day. She was then eleven, and the papers had been stuffed into a suspected vermin nest. Despite their poor condition, Clemency Fry took the papers, dried them, smoothed them, and like a diligent restorer of ancient artifacts (but only just like one, for after all she was only eleven), painstakingly scraped away the mouse droppings and dirt until a somewhat legible and faintly stinking copy of On Marriage existed.
It was, as one might imagine, a formative experience for small Clemency Fry. Those redolent, faded pages were perhaps the last copy of On Marriage in the whole world, and they belonged to her, and she protected them, the solemn guardian of this most hated work.
So too did the reading of this treatise prove momentous for young Clemency.
Was it not so that marriage was unfair to women? We...
Sussex, 1819
The small and saintly quiet town of Round Orchard was never known for anything. Absolutely, it held the expected Sussex charm and the expected hedges and gardens, the expected paved town square decorated with the expected bunting and wreaths, but it was otherwise unremarkable in every way. That is, but for its one hidden claim to fame, which was known only to a few residents, and most of those would categorize this "claim" to be something less than attractive. In fact, it was now a closely guarded secret, like a bit of shameful tat kept in the lowest drawer under the heaviest blankets, a pet nobody loved buried in the backyard in an unmarked and shallow grave.
Like a brief and embarrassing infidelity.
All but one inhabitant of Round Orchard wished to hastily sweep this secret under the rug. Only young Clemency Fry remained the keeper of this tiny, hidden flame-the flame in question was a Miss Bethany Taylor, a woman of middling family and middlinger prospects. Some described her as "severe" and "a scold" while other more charitable Round Orchardians allowed that she had an intense sort of beauty that only specific and brave men coveted. This Miss Bethany Taylor produced and published a treatise against marriage, aimed at convincing other members of her sex that the institution was both humiliating and cruel. To participate in matrimony, wrote the severe scold of intense beauty Miss Taylor, is to abdicate one's duty to the dignified state of solitude. Upon completion of the contract, a woman becomes property owned by man, surrendering all autonomy and power, diminishing herself in every conceivable way. Solitude is subsequently diminished also, as the state of contented aloneness cannot be improved upon-even a love match requires some degree of compromise. Thus, with society thrusting women into a state of compromise, only a single lady happy in her charms, her accomplishments, and the quality of her morals achieves a truly enviable state of being.
Marriage was, in Miss Taylor's controversial and embarrassing opinion, a swindle: To marry was to give one's self up; this could not be argued with. Nobody agreed with her except of course the keeper of her flame and one devoted reader, Clemency Fry. Clemency did not style herself a historian, but she did obsess over Miss Taylor's work and felt nothing but conviction when it came to preserving the heart of the late Miss Taylor's writings.
In the year 1801, the men of Round Orchard and surrounding towns were outraged and began an effort to quash all access to Miss Taylor's work. Many fires were lit and many pages burned. The vicar at the time offered his restrained critique of the treatise, calling it, "A disgrace, an abomination before God, and an affront to the understood and natural order of things." Some overheard him saying it made a case for "bringing back the stake," though these remained unconfirmed rumors. A local man, urgently asked for comment, reportedly told a room full of good society that, "Miss Taylor, like all unmarriagable women, turns her pen against men rather than confront her own deficiencies." The tirade continued for some time. "A real shrew," the man concluded.
Scant copies of On Marriage, by Miss Bethany Taylor, remained after the predictable outcry and response. Word of its existence scarcely reached beyond the county. But as mentioned, one young lady, brought up in the small and saintly quiet town of Round Orchard, found a moldering copy of On Marriage in the woodshed one day. She was then eleven, and the papers had been stuffed into a suspected vermin nest. Despite their poor condition, Clemency Fry took the papers, dried them, smoothed them, and like a diligent restorer of ancient artifacts (but only just like one, for after all she was only eleven), painstakingly scraped away the mouse droppings and dirt until a somewhat legible and faintly stinking copy of On Marriage existed.
It was, as one might imagine, a formative experience for small Clemency Fry. Those redolent, faded pages were perhaps the last copy of On Marriage in the whole world, and they belonged to her, and she protected them, the solemn guardian of this most hated work.
So too did the reading of this treatise prove momentous for young Clemency.
Was it not so that marriage was unfair to women? We...
