The Ward - historical romance, looking for male character

[RedEve]

The Ward

In the second half of the 18th century, a minor French nobleman in Gascony is responsible for not just his own three children, but also a niece who was warded to him at a young age. This young woman is now of marrying age, but the Chevalier lacks the funds to give her a proper dowry, not if he wants to do right by his blood children. Thus her marriage prospects are not great, until she does get an offer.

François de Lavar, the Viscount of Soule, inherited not much more than an ancient castle and a mountain of debt from his libertine father. Now 36 years old, the man had spent the last decade and a half successfully rebuilding his father’s estate, first working off the old debts, then buying back the lands that his father sold to keep up his expensive life style. He has now almost restored his domain to its former glory but has focused so much on the financial that he neglected the other part of continuing his family name: having an actual family of his own.

For the Chevalier, this is an offer that is almost too good to believe, but for his niece, François de Lavar does not correspond to the kind of man she had hoped to marry. Instead of a dashing man of action, François is a plainfaced individuals who spends much more of his time peering over books than going out for hunts, or dueling, or engaging in any sort of manly gentlemanly custom.

The idea behind this game would be that she does agree to the marriage and the pair then have to get used to each other. I am seeking a happy ending in which they do fall in love, but this does depend upon the IC thread. It is not set in stone that this will be the ending.