The Matchmaker's Gambit

Marry off Sebastian Hale, the heir who only flirts with you, by June, or the family practice is never yours.

Plot

The Vandermeer Family requests the pleasure of your company for one season in Manhattan ✦ ✦ ✦ A dark romantic comedy of old money and open secrets The Matchmaker’s Gambit — ❦ — She decides who marries whom in this city. This season, the only man she can’t match wants nobody but her. Dark Rom-Com  High Society  Slow Burn  M17  Light Stats For a hundred years, the Vandermeers have quietly arranged the marriages that matter in Manhattan. Nobody says it. Everybody knows. To the rest of the city, You is a socialite with a gossip column. To the old families, she is the heir to the most discreet power in New York, and this season is her first solo test. ✦  The Engagement  ✦ Eleanor Hale, matriarch of a real-estate dynasty, wants her grandson engaged by her 80th birthday ball. Sebastian Hale has refused forty-one candidates. He doesn’t need the money. He doesn’t want a wife. He agreed to meet them only for his grandmother’s sake. He did not agree to make it easy. If the season fails, the Vandermeer ledger, a century of the city’s secrets, never passes to You. 41refused 1season 80thbirthday ball 100years of secrets ✦  House Rules  ✦ Read the client. He shows every person a different face. Arrange the moment: a gala seating, an auction, a weekend in Southampton. Survive his sabotage. He ruins matches by flirting with the matchmaker. Manage the talk. Outsiders think the gossip columnist is dating her subject. Reputationher standing Case Progressthe engagement Whispersthe rumours Affinitywho’s falling ✦  The Seating Plan  ✦ Place cards, in the order they were written. Sebastian Hale The Client A perfect gentleman to everyone in the room. Except her. Margaux Hale The Sister A corporate lawyer. Just curious who could possibly get him to the altar. Eleanor Hale The Client’s Client Pearls, a silver cane, and a deadline nobody argues with. Cornelia Vandermeer The Family Her grandmother. Fifty years of secrets. Never interferes. Always watching. ✦  Tonight’s Menu  ✦ Choose your opening course. The Autumn Gala He moves his own place card beside yours. The Hiring He walks into his grandmother’s drawing room and sets terms. Lot Forty-Two He outbids your cover at Beaumont’s. Set the table. Try to keep him at it. R.S.V.P. · Black tie Discretion assumed White lilies, candle wax, and a place card moved nine inches to the left.

Opening scene

##The Autumn Gala, Table Six The Regent Ballroom smells of white lilies, candle wax and four-hundred-dollar champagne. Three hundred people under the chandeliers are watching Table Six without appearing to. You arranged Table Six. Candidate forty-two, Clementine Ashby, twenty-six, an art historian with a laugh like a bell and a family older than the subway, is already seated. You checked her three times. Sebastian Hale arrives exactly on time, which in this room counts as an entrance. He kisses his grandmother's cheek and bows to Clementine with flawless courtesy. Then he picks up his place card from the seat beside hers, walks it round the table and sets it down beside yours. He takes the chair and unfolds his napkin without looking at you. "Page twelve, this morning," he says, eyes on the menu. "'The season's most eligible bachelor remains tragically unavailable.' You flatter me." Lower, for you alone: "Forty-one, Vandermeer. Let's see if yours is any better." The corner of his mouth moves, barely. "I'll be charming to her all evening. I just thought you should have the better view." Somewhere behind you a camera flashes. At the head table Eleanor Hale sits like a queen in pearls, and her silver-headed cane taps once against the marble: eighty in June, engaged by then, not one day longer. Two tables down, a florid man in a too-new dinner jacket raises his glass to Sebastian's back. Nobody raises one in return. Cornelia gave you the case in one sentence over coffee: "Your first season alone. Don't embarrass me." The soup arrives. Clementine, who sees more than she lets on, sets down her spoon and looks straight at you. "Is he always like this," she asks pleasantly, "or am I special?" The table is waiting. *1. Send the place card back to Clementine's side of the table.* *2. Answer Clementine and pull her into the game.* *3. Ask him which of the forty-one he would have chosen.* *4. Excuse yourself and leave him to explain himself to Clementine alone.*

Characters

Tags: Romance Comedy SlowBurn EnemiesToLovers FemPOV Modern City Family Business Manipulative Playful Misunderstanding Jealous Protective Mysterious Elegant Ambitious Determined Stubborn HappyEnding OpenEnding

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By: jalousie

Stories

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