History

Ciel was born a mere few moments after Marcel de Beauchamp, the family’s longed for heir. Ciel, a girl and nothing of importance, was clamped to her mother’s breast and thrown into the nursery whilst her twin brother would be forced to remain beneath the guiding hand of their father so as to ready him for the role of looking after what was so treasured to the Baron Tredegar.

Her childhood, her education spent in constant boredom, readied her for a life of want. As her younger brothers came, Ciel’s importance dwindled to little else than the birthdays spent longing for her twin and the presented boxes of new dresses she would someday wear at her debut into society. Alas, it was their mother’s various illnesses that purged Ciel of a selfish nature, leaving her to love with a ferocity akin to a mama bear. She loved her brothers, and sought to protect them - often, and against tradition or what was expected, Ciel would stand up to the distinct severity of their father who’d often berate his children for not doing as they were told. In retaliation, Ciel would make sure to cut his clothes or swap his sugar with salt, meaning for her to be locked in her bedroom for various amounts of time till her temper had evened out. Mostly, her rebellion was cut short however with the threat of the delay of her debut.

Then it came! Her debut to society and before Queen Victoria’s court, came with heralded trumpets and expectant funfair. Ciel de Beauchamp was, though one of lesser nobility and status, a beauty of her time and with year after year she triumphed with celebration and dances led with the most handsome of men. Young and influential, Ciel would become part of many adored debutantes, alongside the other beauties of her days. And where her looks were noted by men and women alike, her heart seemed doomed to flail between opportunities that had previously been beyond her reach. With her twin brother away from home, part of her forever missing from her physical form, Ciel tried to make things work. She engaged herself into several doomed courtships and even braved unannounced engagements that always ended with dramatic sorrows and wails off Ciel being bored, trapped and far from what she was meant to be.

And though the seasons passed in praise, a marriage was to be cemented between the de Beauchamp clan and the Baron Hastings, a member of parliament who boasted a large, roaming mansion beyond London’s heavy centre. It was his wealth that appealed to Gillet de Beauchamp, who promised a loveless but productive marriage between the Baron and his young daughter. At only twenty-four, with her heart yearning for adventure, Ciel was put into the Baron’s home and by marriage became the Baroness Hasings. Draped in satin and silk, Ciel was put to work as soon as she stepped foot in her new home. As a step-mother to two sons from her husband’s first marriage, Ciel was not only a wife for the first time but a step-mother too. Forced to play pretend, Ciel was forced to act the caged bird, and despite her previous role of being the soul of the party, it soon came to play that Ciel could barely, if ever, leave the countryside estate and was, in fact, meant to be the breeding ground for further heirs… A fate Ciel had never thought hers to take.

It was a shame however that her womb did not swell with child in the coming years, for Ciel was punished greatly by the hand of her husband, with the followed act of her oldest step-son sent to the Navy (as was but a family tradition to mould the minds of expectant heirs) his cruel nature only doubled. In a bid to reclaim her happiness, Ciel would often ask her twin brother to visit through countless letters, but it was not till 1849 where Marcel finally returned for good. Though the distance kept between the twins dared to sever the sibling bond, it was by the twins initiative that they continued to write to one another throughout the years.

It was by luck or curse that Ciel finally became plump with a child in the year 1883. Her pregnancy had been laborious, leaving Ciel to often be physically sick whilst crying for fear of what it would do to her. Though supported by well trained midwives, Ciel missed her mother and cried for her support despite their then-rocky relationship when she had been but a child. As her date came closer, Ciel submitted to destiny and spent many fearsome and lonely hours in bed where doctors drew blood and nurses moped her brow. It was in this child birthing bed, once used by Baron Hasting’s long dead first wife, that Ciel received worrisome and unnatural news. Her husband, still sprightly and keenly aware in mind and body, had died one morning due to an unwelcome heart attack that ripped his soul from his body. The death, so out of the blue and surprising, brought on Ciel’s early labour pains. For what was she meant to do as a single mother with a babe to nurture?! Would her stepsons allow her to say? With her future hanging in the balance, it was Ciel who forced her body to hold on, who coaxed the pains away from her bed as she arranged a funeral and the proceedings of asking her stepchildren back home.

As Ciel went into mourning for a husband she had not loved, Ciel too grew heavy and ready for the birth of her child. Clutching her belly, Ciel withdrew from the public eye and welcomed the child with hard hours and spilled blood. Dreaming of opportunities wasted and the looming threat of her late husband’s oldest sons, Ciel seemingly prevailed despite the odds, and gave birth to her son, naming him Augustine in love of her French roots and for the month of his birth. And though the birth of another Hastings child was to be celebrated, it was the oldest Hastings who made sure that Ciel knew that once Augustine was healthy and ready to move that the mother and babe would have to leave the roaming mansion. With the decision a knock to Ciel’s worth and confidence, her healing slowed, still draped in black she remained in the bedroom with only her child for company for months upon months, till they were finally forced from the house and back into her own childhood home.

Still dressed in mourning attire, Ciel returned to her father’s house with her child in her arms, nestling herself into a bedroom that once housed her greatest dreams and ambitions. Unsettled with old surroundings, suddenly thrown into what would’ve been her worst nightmare, Ciel began to plan her return to society. As the elders instructed that her mourning would last two whole years, it was her brother Marcel who aided her return. With the final death of their controlling father, the offspring of the Beauchamp household finally drew a collective breath as Marcel inherited the estates with ease. Ciel, temporarily stuck in the turn of mourning, remained as an aid to her brother and used her time wisely by planning her eventual return to society as a woman and prospective wife.

Mourning had been a dark affair, she remained in her childhood home which soured any nice memory she had left over. With both parents then dead, Ciel maneuvered whilst playing the role of interior decorator and new mother (planning the route that her son would some day take) she invested her time and skill into the management of household and dipping into the rules of law which her by law stepsons were keeping from Augustine. With her son due some size of inheritance (if only a little money to help his keep) Ciel swore to re-establish herself as a woman worthy to be chased, to be desired and to be loved universally. Eventually, once the mourning came to a close, Ciel took her first trip back into society. Alongside her younger brother, Ciel ventured to Bath to see old friends and long-gone connections, both to dip her toes into the water and to taste the new fashions of societal balls.

By the time she became well rooted in society as a grand hostess with glittering parties, Ciel was known for her absolute giddiness to life — though it was true that she still felt uncertainty around her son’s future and very existence, Ciel did what she could. She reconnected with old friends lost to time and the strict rule of her late husband, she even fell in love numerous times if only to feel wanted. It was Rhett Fitzroy, the Duke of Grafton, who had always been a saving grace whenever he visited the old Hastings estate as a businessman and fellow vassal to the Queen. Though neither would come to admit it, they had long since been embarked in a passionate if quiet affair, which resulted in a swollen embrace now that Ciel was free to love who she may. After a precarious situation with an ex-lover’s son, Ciel’s life was threatened to the quick, a decisive act that pushed her into taking a rather grave and serious decision, for though she knew she had her freedom as a widow, she knew that she could never be safe without a husband at her back.

Rhett and Ciel married in 1887, in a quick private ceremony without the approval of the Queen. As a Duke, it was strange and almost questionable, though the two returned to court to confess and beg for her approval — which was given, if they threw a formal celebration in the new year. Ciel, who had always been but a daughter, sister or wife to a Baron was suddenly flung into a Duchy, though it’s to be said that she has very little skill to deploy, and mostly relies on her womanly wiles to gain approval and attention.

TIMELINE

1852 Born moments after her twin brother, Marcel, at Tredegar House to the 1st Baron Tredegar, Charles de Beauchamp and Rosamond Mundy
1856 Henri is born
1857 Kept to her mother’s nursery at Tredegar House, but starts her at-home education
1858 Marcel leaves home for boarding school, their father keeps them from writing to one another
1859 Jean is born, their father leaves to keep an eye on Marcel’s education whilst working in London leaving Ciel to look after her little brothers and mother
1866 Her mother dies from a long term illness
1869 Is formally presented to Queen Victoria in her debut into society (it is a humble affair, tied in with other baronet’s girls celebrations)
1870 By the turn of the year it is unveiled that she is to marry the elderly 18th Baron Wilhelm Hastings, before she can arrange some sort of an escape; they are wed at St Peter’s Church near the ancestral home of Melton Constable Hall… She becomes the step-mother of two sons who are only a few years her junior
1873 Meets Rhett Fitzroy, future Duke of Grafton and husband, they start a long affair
1874 Marcel returns home at last before he leaves to join the Royal Navy
1883 In the midst of Summer, the Baron Hastings suffers a sudden heart attack which leaves him fighting for his life, it is said that he publishes a new will to include his unborn child, though he dies before he can formalise it legally. Ciel goes into convalescence and isolation at Melton Constable Hall where she gives birth to Augustine Hastings. She goes into official mourning but continues to see the Duke of Grafton who is seen visiting her as the transition of power moves ahead.
1884 A year into her mourning, and shortly before Augustine’s first birthday, Ciel’s stepson and present Baron Hastings, orders Ciel to leave the property to make room for him and his new wife, the new Baroness. Though he has very little legal footing to do so, Ciel complies in order to get to new safety. She returns to her childhood home of Tredegar House which is quickly followed by her father’s natural passing, which again flings her into mourning.
1887 Ciel and Rhett Fitzroy make some passionate plan to ignore all social expectations of courtship, mourning and patience. They get married in a small private, quick affair on the grounds of his residence shortly after her father’s death, making her a Duchess and far above her family’s station in the world. They petition the Queen’s forgiveness for not seeking her approval, which they are given after some anticipation before being ordered to make it right with an official celebration the following year.